Netflix’s trashy new erotic thriller overcomes a critical pounding to thrust onto the Top 10 in 84 countries

Let’s not even try and kid ourselves by pretending the majority of viewers watch erotic thrillers for the complex plotting, intricately-woven narrative, and richly-drawn characters. Based on the evidence, even the trashiest of titillating tales can draw in huge numbers on streaming, with Netflix’s Obsession providing merely the latest in a long line of examples.

Despite bearing a current Rotten Tomatoes score of 43 percent – which is incredibly over twice as high as the average audience approval rating of 21 percent at the time of writing – the platform’s latest scantily-clad and saucy story has instantly taken hold of second place on the worldwide episodic most-watched list.

Per FlixPatrol, Obsession has given the Top 10 a right good seeing to in a mammoth 84 countries around the globe, where it’s thrust directly to the summit in over 20 of them. A modern-day update of Josephine Hart’s novel Damage, Richard Armitage stars as a surgeon who embarks on a passionate and decidedly risky affair with his son’s fiancée, which soon devolves into borderline obsession as you could probably infer from the title.

The source material was already adapted into a movie back in 1992 that saw Miranda Richardson land an Academy Award and Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress in amongst widespread acclaim, but Netflix’s reinterpretation doesn’t hold a candle to its salacious predecessor.

Then again, there’s the promise of sex and skin, which has long since proven itself as one of the easiest sells on-demand, so there was no chance Obsession was going to turn out as anything other than an instant sensation.