Netflix's Old Dads was arguably the biggest buzz-generating -- and polarizing -- film or TV show in America this past week, with viewers clearly connecting to its stand-up comedian creator's Gen-X skewering of Millennial child-rearing style and office culture, while critics largely reviled first-time director and star Bill Burr's still raw feature film acumen.
But despite all the love-it-or-hate-it talk, the comedy film about three new middle-aged fathers who “find themselves battling preschool principals, millennial CEOs and anything created after 1987,” generated middling actual audience engagement.
Last week's rankings: No Rise For 'The Fall of the House of Usher' Despite Hot Reviews -- Netflix Weekly Rankings for October 9-15
Old Dads garnered a midlife-soft 23.1 million total viewing hours and 13.3 million total views for the week of October 16-22 according to Netflix's weekly global viewership rankings. That was good enough to lead Netflix's English-language films category for the week, but it ranked far below many other notable Netflix film debuts recently.
Notably, Old Dads ranked No. 1 in the U.S. and Canada among Netflix English-language film titles last week. But it ranked in the top 10 in only 55 of the nearly 100 countries Netflix measures for its weekly ranker, and few of those countries count as major Netflix markets.
For their part, Netflix movies often have polarizing Rotten Tomatoes dynamics -- mega-popular action-comedy Red Notice, for example, had a 92% audience score, but only a 37% rating among critics when it debuted two years ago.
Old Dads, however, ranks 23% with critics and 88% among watchers.
In happier news for Netflix, Edgar Allen-adapted limited series The Fall of the House of Usher built on its debut audience in week 2, landing the No. 1 spot for the week among all Netflix movies and TV shows with 65.3 million viewing hours and 7.9 million views.
Meanwhile, last week's Netflix viewership champ, four-part limited docu-series Beckham, dropped around 19% of its week 2 audience to finish with 32.8 million streaming hours and 6.9 million total views in week 3.
Producer Paul Tomalin's London-based, time traveling, limited series crime drama, Bodies, had a soft premiere, with 42 million viewing hours and 5.5 million views.
And tween-targeted comedy series I Woke Up a Vampire endured a, er, sucky 12.1 million streaming hours and 3.4 million views upon its arrival.
Internationally, the French crime-thriller Lupin: Part 3 also struggled to keep up the momentum it generated over the prior two weeks, though it kept the top spot on the non-English TV rankings with 42.7 million viewing hours.
