Now that the year’s wrapping up, we’re looking back at which TV shows saw the biggest surge in traffic to their wikis following their 2022 premieres. Yes, whether it was a new series or a new season, these winners sparked immediate interest among fans, who then headed over to Fandom’s wikis for a more in-depth experience.
Quite notably, all these series are Netflix shows, even though only one of them is also on our list of the biggest TV show wikis of the year. A big reason for this is likely due to Netflix still almost entirely operating under a binge model, dropping entire seasons (or half seasons) at once, giving viewers a lot to look up and investigate in the wake of watching so many episodes back-to-back. Other TV shows see wiki spikes throughout the season (House of the Dragon and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, for example) but they’re not as big as these Netflix surges, instead spreading fan interest out weekly over the course of a few months as new episodes drop.
Also of note is that a few of the shows on this list have already been canceled, despite clearly having a passionate fanbase. These relatively young shows are a perfect example of just how tricky it is to understand what metrics Netflix uses to determine success.
So here you’ll see gripping crime dramas, teen high school thrillers, small town wars against alternate dimensions, and a creepy school filled with outcasts and monsters. Longtime smash hit Stranger Things, the recently completed Ozark, and newcomer Wednesday are clearly big deals for Netflix, most definitely, but some of the other finalists might surprise you.
10. The Last Kingdom Season 5
The fifth and final season of Netflix’s The Last Kingdom arrived in March, causing a big 780% spike on The Last Kingdom wiki. This particular action-filled historical drama making it all the way to five seasons – with a feature-length sequel, titled Seven Kings Must Die, headed our way in 2023 – is almost an anomaly for Netflix these days, which now has fewer and fewer series that make it past three or four seasons. But then again, Netflix didn’t originate this show (a big reason why Cobra Kai and Lucifer have also gotten more seasons than the Netflix norm).
Based on Bernard Cornwell’s The Saxon Stories, about the birth of England in the ninth and tenth centuries, The Last Kingdom is a Netflix acquisition that’s stood the test of time and been a stealth, stalwart soldier for the streamer outside of the U.K. Telling the story of England’s invasion by The Great Heathen Army (of vikings), The Last Kingdom centers on Uhtred of Bebbanburg, a man born a Saxon and raised a Dane, and his split loyalties between his oaths.
9. Ozark Season 4 (Two Parts)
Honestly, it feels like Ozark’s been around a lot longer than four seasons but there was a two-year wait in between Seasons 2 and 3 and then a similar gap between Seasons 3 and 4, with Season 4 then split into two parts, released at separate times in 2022.
Nonetheless, this Emmy-winning series for Netflix wrapped things up recently, closing the books on a gripping story that was, for many, the show that best filled the Breaking Bad-size hole in their hearts. And when the final episodes dropped the Ozark wiki took off, leaping an astounding 823%. Jason Bateman, Laura Linney, and The Americans’ Julia Garner took fans on a dangerous ride, featuring a money launderer who moves his family to central Missouri and gets caught up with members of the Kansas City mob.
8. Manifest Season 4 (Part One)
Manifest – a fun mystery box series about the passengers and crew of a commercial airliner who suddenly reappear after being presumed dead for five and a half years – was rescued from cancellation by Netflix after airing for three seasons on NBC and picked up for one fourth and final 20-episode season, split into two parts.
And honestly, the way cord-cutting goes these days, there were probably many fans who were just watching Manifest on Netflix, totally unaware it was an NBC series at all. Manifest’s pick-up is reminiscent of the early days of Netflix since regularly rescuing shows from other outlets isn’t exactly the company’s M.O. anymore.
Regardless, viewership was good enough for Manifest on Netflix that the steamer itself decided to float the bill to have the story all wrapped up and when the first batch of 10 new episodes dropped just one month back, in November, fans were elated. So much so that the Manifest wiki took off with a 969% jump in traffic. Given this, it’s a safe bet that we’ll see Manifest on this list again next year due to the final 10 episodes coming in 2023.
7. Stranger Things Season 4 (Two Parts)
The fourth season of Stranger Things wasn’t the first time a season of TV had been split up into episode clumps, but for Netflix it was odd to have them spaced just one month apart. Odd, but also successful, since it kept the Stranger Things conversation going amongst the populus like never before, extending the show’s buzz out by weeks.
Along with the show simply being beloved by many, this new scheduling method also likely contributes to the fact that of all the shows on this particular list, Stranger Things is the only one to also make it on our list of the overall Top TV Show Wikis of 2022. Because there was a huge spike, naturally, but it didn’t just fizzle out over one weekend while everyone binged a single season. After everyone was done with Part One of Season 4 there was immediate interest for what was coming in Part Two, which was just a mere month away. All in all, the Stranger Things wiki quickly grew 1,028% when the first half of Season 4 premiered, as it was revealed that all the demons and horrors of The Upside Down had a leader, and the show now had a proper villain for the denizens of Hawkins to go after.
6. Elite Season 5 and 6
Spanish high school drama Elite has done very well for itself on Netflix, following the relationships between three working-class students enrolled at an exclusive, fancy secondary school through a scholarship program and their wealthy classmates. As the second Netflix original series in Spain, the fifth and sixth seasons of this show both aired in 2022, causing readership to move, en masse, to the Elite wiki, for a 1,133% uptick.
Season 7 is already in the works, original star Omar Ayuso returning, Elite is sure to cause a big stir again in 2023.
5. The Umbrella Academy Season 3
Though The Umbrella Academy’s long-awaited return, after a much-buzzed about first two seasons, felt somewhat short-sheeted due to it landing right between the two parts of Stranger Things: Season 4, the new episodes still ushered in a huge 1,912% spike over on the Umbrella Academy wiki.
In Season 3, everyone’s favorite Umbrella siblings found themselves in an altered timeline, one where billionaire Sir Reginald Hargreeves adopted Ben and six other children, creating a superhero team called The Sparrow Academy. Season 3 also reflected star Elliot Page’s offscreen journey as a transgender man, with Page’s character going through his own self-acceptance, embracing the name Viktor.
4. Fate: The Winx Saga Season 2
This live-action adventure based on the beloved Nickelodeon animated series Winx Club aired its second season in 2022, bringing about a gargantuan 2,699% increase to the Winx Club wiki.
This is bittersweet news, we suppose since, despite its first season being watched by 57 million subscribers in the first 28 days of its release, the series was canceled just two months following its second season’s release. Once all the data was in, Netflix decided it wasn’t worth a third round, despite things leaving off with a big cliffhanger.
3. The Sandman
A massive 3,475% jump on the Sandman wiki is completely understandable when you consider the large and deep fanbase for this property, the decades this project toiled in development hell, and the actual exuberant response from fans and critics alike for the finished product. Adapting The Sandman for the screen was always going to be a challenge but comic series creator Neil Gaiman, along with David S. Goyer and Allan Heinberg, cracked the code and delivered something truly special.
There was also a surprise drop of an eleventh episode, split into two parts (one story animated, the other live-action) and that only helped sell the true specialness of this series.
The Sandman wiki had tons to offer every type of fan, whether you were new to the story or just digging into the past to see which tales and characters were being adapted for the show. After weeks of nervously waiting for an official word, fans were delighted to hear the show was picked up for a Season 2.
2. Warrior Nun Season 2
Sadly suffering the same fate as Fate: The Winx Saga, Warrior Nun, which just recently aired its second season after a two-year gap, was canceled by Netflix just a month after its return. You can tell the Warrior Nun fans were a passionate bunch though, giving the series a whopping 3,639% spike over on the Warrior Nun wiki following Season 2’s release. This was also followed by an online Save Our Show campaign during the month of November when things seemed dire for the show’s future.
Based on the comic book character Warrior Nun Areala by Ben Dunn, Warrior Nun tells the take of a young woman who’s resurrected in a morgue and discovers she is now part of the ancient Order of the Cruciform Sword and tasked with fighting demons on Earth.
1. Wednesday
Wednesday at number one makes all the sense in the world now that Netflix is touting it as their third most-watched series of all time, as it pushed past another recent hit debut, Dahmer, and is now behind only Squid Game and the aforementioned Stranger Things Season 4.
Setting Wednesday apart from Dahmer is the fact that it stems from a big established legacy IP – no, the real life atrocities committed by Jeffrey Dahmer do not count as “pop culture” – while also bringing Tim Burton to the streaming world, giving us a new scream queen as Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega, on the heels of a huge breakout year that included roles in multiple horror projects, including Scream and X). It also incorporated a fan favorite previous Wednesday actress, Christina Ricci, into the mix, after Ricci helped cement the character’s popularity in the 1990s Addams Family films, most notably her MVP work in Addams Family Values.
As the first Addams Family project to focus directly on Wednesday, while expanding the entire world’s lore quite a bit, the show’s instant popularity boosted traffic for the series page on The Addams Family wiki to an astonishing extent, as it skyrocketed up 4,022% post-release.
