Dominating Netflix‘s trending chart of the hottest TV shows this week is a bloody, twist-filled spy drama starring Keira Knightley that’s actually turned out to be one of my favorite Netflix binges of 2024 — and which, thankfully, has been renewed for a second season.
Black Doves stars Knightley as Helen Webb, the wife of a top British cabinet official who has a secret life as a member of a shadowy, non-state-affiiliated organization that collects and sells secrets. Layered on top of that story is also a whodunnit, with Helen’s secret lover having been mysteriously assassinated. Watching Knightley slinking through the London streets at night, killing bad guys, and pretending to be a normal wife and mother is quite a treat indeed, considering most of what I’ve seen her in up to this point have been historical and romantic dramas.
Black Doves, which has a near-perfect 95% critics’ score, easily deserves the #1 spot this week.
Netflix Top 10 shows
Here’s a look at this week’s complete list of the Top 10 English-language shows on Netflix.
- Black Doves (Season 1) — 14.6 million views
- Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was… — 8.2 million views
- No Good Deed (Season 1) — 6 million views
- The Madness — 5.4 million views
- The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On (Season 3) — 3.4 million views
- La Brea (Season 1) — 2.6 million views
- A Nonsense Christmas with Sabrina Carpenter — 2 million views
- A Man on the Inside (Season 1) — 1.9 million views
- The Kings of Tupelo: A Southern Crime Saga — 1.8 million views
- Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey — 1.8 million views
To learn more about some of this week’s other most-watched series, you can go deeper by checking out our previous coverage of several of the Netflix originals on this list — including the new true-crime docuseries The Kings of Tupelo as well as Ted Danson’s heartwarming new comedy A Man on the Inside. For now, though, let’s focus on the biggest Netflix TV release in the world at the moment.
Black Doves — #1 on Netflix
From Netflix’s synopsis of Black Doves, which is currently a Top 10 Netflix show in 92 countries: “Set against the backdrop of London at Christmas, Black Doves is a sharp, action-filled and heartfelt story of friendship and sacrifice.
“It follows Helen Webb (Keira Knightley), a quick-witted, down to earth, dedicated wife and mother — and professional spy. For 10 years, she’s been passing on her politician husband’s secrets to the shadowy organisation she works for: the Black Doves. When her secret lover Jason (Andrew Koji) is assassinated, her spymaster, the enigmatic Reed (Sarah Lancashire), calls in Helen’s old friend Sam (Ben Whishaw) to keep her safe.”
The scenes between Helen and Sam are actually some of the best and most engaging of the whole series, I should add. Whishaw’s acting blew me away in this series; he can go from tenderly caring for Helen one minute and coldly diving into a gunfight the next. For some reason, I also particularly enjoyed the lovely phrase he would always tell Helen whenever she asked him for something: “Darling, I will certainly endeavor to try.”
Together, Helen and Sam set out to investigate who killed Jason and why, an exploration that leads them to a vast, interconnected conspiracy linking the London underworld with a looming geopolitical crisis.