Sweet Magnolias

Netflix

While Sweet Magnolias has put up another solid performance on Netflix, it has now been knocked off the #1 spot on the top 10 list rather quickly. And by a series that is kind of surprising.

Netflix is always in search of cheap new reality show hits, and most of theirs so far have been romantic or outright sexualized in nature. Now, however, they seem to have found a recent winner in the form of Outlast: The Jungle, which is the third season of the reality series, which seems to be gaining steam.

Outlast originally premiered in 2023, and it was promptly renewed and season 2 was out in 2024. Now, this 2026 spinoff, Outlast: The Jungle, dropped six of its episodes on June 10 and the final two will air this Wednesday, June 17. Ahead of that, it’s taken the top spot.

This is, of course, an attempt to capitalize on the million seasons of Survivor that remains the most popular reality series of all time in terms of total viewership. It’s less about games and more purely about the survival aspect, though there’s plenty of plotting and betrayal as well, given the teaming up. I thought it was interesting to read the “rules” of the game:

• Rule #1) Must be on a team of at least two people
• Rule #2) Teams can vote someone off and that someone must accept the vote
• Rule #3) Cannot physically harm each other
• Rule #4) Cannot lay traps to protect your camp which may harm each other
• Rule #5) There cannot be more than four total teams
• Rule #6) If you are without a team, you have 24 hours to be accepted into another team or you are eliminated
• Rule #7) You may ask for a medical evaluation, but if you are determined unable to remain or accept help, you are eliminated
• Rule #8) When down to two teams the producers initiate a race to determine the final team

Besides that, anything goes, and the eight rules mainly come down to “here’s how teams work, don’t hurt other players.” Anything else goes, it seems. I am not surprised to see that this show has literally a single review on Rotten Tomatoes as reality shows often get skipped by critics, even if this is the #1 series on the biggest streaming service in the world at the moment. Audience scores for the original two seasons of the show are poor, but people are watching. We’ll see what happens this Wednesday, and we are still waiting for that Sweet Magnolias season 6 renewal.

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