In February 2022, Young Wallander returned for a second season titled Killer’s Shadow, which introduced a new storyline for the adapted Netflix series. Will it be renewed for a second season? What was the reaction to Season 2 on Netflix? Below, we look at the numbers and what we can expect.
Yellow Bird’s series is based on the detective from the Henning Makell novels and will premiere on Netflix in September 2020. Ben Harris created the series, which received a six-episode second season on February 17th, 2022.
Given the naming convention of the show’s second season, it almost certainly opens up the possibility of the series almost becoming an anthology, with the story picking up years later with a new case. That almost has to be the case, given how nicely Season 2 concludes.
As with previous Netflix renewals, it will all come down to performance, and so far, things aren’t looking good.
Netflix evaluates the performance of its shows using a variety of metrics, including how many people begin a show and how many finish it.
As we’ll see in a moment, it appears that the second season failed to make much of an impact, at least globally.
However, given the source material, it performed well in some key Nordic regions.
The second season premiered on Netflix on a Thursday, which is when they usually release some of their lesser-known shows, saving Fridays for the big new releases. There was also very little promotion for the show, with a press release for season 2 and a trailer, but little else.
Another negative sign for the show, in our opinion, is that it received no coverage on Netflix’s two editorial sites, Tudum and Netflix Queue. We frequently see that the amount of coverage a show receives on those reflects Netflix’s own belief in shows and movies.
According to Netflix’s top 10 global data, the show did not make the cut. It would have needed 11.04M hours viewed in the first week to beat out The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window, and 11.46M the following week to beat out jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy.
Raw daily top ten data can provide insight into where the show is succeeding. Season 2 failed to make much of an impact in English-speaking countries, according to FlixPatrol data, only appearing in the US TV top 10s for three days before dropping out and in the UK for ten days before dropping out.
Young Wallander performed admirably in the Nordic countries of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, as expected. It also performed well in central European countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria.