Fan-Favorite Netflix Series Just Launched to No. 1 After New Season Releases

Cobra Kai is quickly becoming one of Netflix’s signature series – especially with the release of Season 4. The martial arts drama dropped 10 new episodes on New Year’s Eve, and it has since rushed up to the No. 1 spot on Netflix’s Global Top 10 TV Shows list. The series is streaming now.

Cobra Kai Season 4 premiered on Dec. 31, 2021, literally kicking the new year off in style. It features returning stars like Ralph Macchio, William Zabka and Martin Kove all from the original movies, as well as a new generation of martial artists like Xolo Maridueña, Mary Mouser and Tanner Buchanan. The show picks up exactly where the last season ended in January of 2021 – with Johnny (Zabka) and Daniel (Macchio) teaming up against Kreese (Kove) and the drama amongst the students still hanging in the air.

We know from Netflix’s self-reported lists that Cobra Kai is the No. 1 TV show on the platform worldwide, with over 120 million total hours viewed. The show is also No. 1 within the U.S. and many other countries around the world, surpassing some of Netflix’s biggest recent releases like The Witcher Season 2.

Critically speaking, the show is doing just as well. Season 4 currently has an average rating of 8.2 out of 10 on Rotten Tomatoes, with 27 reviews accounted for. That’s a 100 percent positive reception, while audiences are giving it a 92 percent positive response. The critical consensus reads: “Cobra Kai still delights in a fourth season that mines great fun from shifting alliances, chiefly the uneasy truce between Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso.”

Cobra Kai is a spinoff of the Karate Kid franchise that has become one of the most surprising successes of the streaming age. It stems originally from a few off-handed jokes and references in other media that stuck in fans’ imaginations. First, Zabka directed and starred in the 2007 music video for “Sweep the Leg” by the band No More Kings, at which time he joked with The A.V. Club that he saw his character as the real hero of the franchise. Then in 2013, Zabka and Macchio appeared together in an episode of How I Met Your Mother where they joked that Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) had the same interpretation.

Still, Cobra Kai itself had a slow start as it began on YouTube Premium. The first two seasons aired there, but the show did not really reach its current level of visibility until Season 3 premiered in January of 2021. Since then, the dojo has been overrun with new fans. Cobra Kai Seasons 1 through 4 are streaming now on Netflix.