Netflix's New Hit Series No. 1 in Streaming Ratings

Netflix's new hit series The Night Agent is officially the number one show in streaming. According to Deadline, the new Nielson ratings reveal that the thriller series led beat out all other streaming shows, raking in 2.6 billion minutes of viewing, following its March 23rd debut. The show is reportedly the "38th most-watched streaming title in a measurement week since 2020." For comparison, the current record holder is Stranger Things —also a Netflix series — which earned 7.2B minutes of viewing following the release of Season 4 Part 1.

The Night Agent was adapted by Shawn Ryan and is based on a novel of the same name by Matthew Quirk. Netflix describes it as "a sophisticated, character-based, action-thriller centering on a low level FBI Agent [played by actor Gabriel Basso] who works in the basement of the White House, manning a phone that never rings -- until the night that it does, propelling him into a fast moving and dangerous conspiracy that ultimately leads all the way to the Oval Office." In addition to Basso, the show also stars Luciane Buchanan, Fola Evans-Akingbola, Sarah Desjardins, Eve Harlow, Phoenix Raei, Enrique Murciano, D. B. Woodside, and Hong Chau.

In a previous interview with Collider, Basso opened up about the show and revealed what drew him to the project. "It was Shawn's vision for the show, which was as grounded as he could get it, for Peter and what he's going through," the actor explained. "He wanted to never have him be untouchable. He gets hurt in fights. He's at the end of his rope, by the end of the season. So, Shawn's vision for the show is what made me wanna do it."

Offering some insight into how he prepared for the role, Basso explained, "I fight a lot in real life and I train a lot, almost on a daily basis, so nothing physical required that much preparation for me. It was more the differences in style of martial arts. Stunt fighting is almost its own thing. In real martial arts and real fighting, you wanna do the least amount of telegraphing. You wanna get from point A to point B as quick as possible, and that doesn't read on camera. I almost had to re-learn how to fight, which is crazy to think about, since I've been doing it my whole life. The toughest thing for me was breaking my muscle memory of how to fight in real life." All episodes of The Night Agent Season 1 are now streaming on Netflix.