Updated on April 4, 2026 at 07:32 Published on April 3, 2026 at 22:00 by Editorial Staff
The arctic chill of Harry Hole freezes the Duffer brothers.
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The seemingly lost duel. On one side, Netflix’s advertising armada launched “A Very Bad Feeling”, the new horrific gem stamped with the Duffer label (Stranger Things). On the other, a tormented detective from Oslo, carried by a more subdued promotion. Yet, a week after this head-on clash, the numbers are in and the global hierarchy has just wobbled under the Scandinavian frost.
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The effectiveness of absolute darkness versus the Hollywood label
The verdict of the audiences is clear: with 4.9 million views in just seven days, the Norwegian series “Harry Hole” achieves a resounding feat. Adapted from Jo Nesbø’s novel “The Devil’s Star”, the fiction led by Tobias Santelmann not only dominates the ranking of non-English series (2nd worldwide behind “Radioactive Emergency”). It also distances itself from its American rival, which was poised for the top, as the Duffer creation stalls at 4.5 million views.
This success is based on a radical proposal: nine episodes of rare intensity, not recommended for under 16, where the murky atmosphere of Oslo serves as a backdrop to a brutal psychological struggle. The face-off between Santelmann and Joel Kinnaman, as a corrupt cop, seems to have captivated an audience in search of more mature and less glossy narratives than the usual Californian standards.
A critical plebiscite that buries the statistics
Beyond the battle of numbers, it is on the perceived quality level that the gap widens. On reference platforms like AlloCiné, the trend is confirmed with surgical precision. The Nordic thriller garners a press score of 4.0/5 and an audience score of 3.7/5, while the Duffer stable must settle for a more modest 3.3/5 among specialized critics.
This victory with unequal weapons proves that the language barrier fades in the face of a strong storyline. By betting on Jo Nesbø’s work – whose novels have sold over 60 million copies – Netflix has found a vein much more powerful than just marketing: the authenticity of a genre that never deceives its audience. Harry Hole may struggle with his own demons, but he has just proven that to reign over streaming, it is not always necessary to speak English.
