Television Thriller Shows

A Time Travel Murder Mystery On Netflix Has Fans Completely Mind-Boggled

Amaka Okafor Bodies Netflix
By Joe Roberts/

As we've come to learn in recent years, Netflix viewers will watch pretty much anything. Does that mean that everything trending on the streamer is bad, though? Of course not. Often, something truly deserving of the kind of global attention Netflix can garner ascends to the heights of the most-watched charts, such as when "Arrival" hit the platform and we all took the opportunity to revisit Denis Villeneuve's sleek 2016 sci-fi effort.

While Netflix's top 10 charts were basically invented to distract from the streamer's dodgy viewing metrics, they can at least help us sift through the swamp of "content" in which we find ourselves submerged in 2023. Whatever's on the charts is usually a quick way to avoid doom scrolling the homepage in search of something to watch, and this week, one British time travel murder mystery is offering us a path out of the darkness and into binge-watch-induced euphoria.

"Bodies" is an eight-episode series created by Paul Tomalin and based on Si Spencer's 2015 graphic novel of the same name. Melding sci-fi, drama, police procedural, and murder mystery, the show focuses on four detectives in four separate timelines who all discover the same body in the same spot. These investigations ultimately uncover a sinister threat to the city of London. Sounds alright, doesn't it? Well, Netflix viewers seem to think so, as the show has been doing quite well on the service thus far, even if it has left audiences with questions.

Tomalin told Tudum that "Being on the other side of the show now feels like coming out of a three-year trance," and it seems audiences feel similar having sat through all eight episodes, with confusion abounding in the wake of the show's impressive run on Netflix.

Bodies has bodied the Netflix charts

Shira Haas Bodies Matt Towers/Netflix

Thanks to FlixPatrol, a site that aggregates streaming data and provides a helpful picture of how individual shows and movies are doing with global audiences, we have a pretty good idea of just how much of a hit this latest Netflix original show is. Since hitting the streamer on October 19, 2023, "Bodies" has been making its way up the most-watched charts in countries around the world. While the show didn't debut at number one in its native U.K. it did manage to clinch the number two spot in its homeland as well as over in the states. Since then, it's managed to take number one in both countries, hitting the top spot in the U.K. on October 21, and in the U.S. on October 23.

But that's not the end of the story for this time-travel detective drama. While the Brits and the Yanks streamed away, so too did the rest of the world. The show is now number one for TV series in 26 countries, including such unlikely locales as Trinidad and Tobago and Kuwait. That gives it an average global ranking of 2.9. What's more, at the time of writing, "Bodies" is sitting at number two in multiple countries around the world, and is making an impressive run up the charts in several others, signaling a truly global hit.

With that said, Netflix viewing data isn't the most informative, so it's not clear precisely what all this means. Neither, it seems, is the plot, which has evidently befuddled audiences the world over.

'When will I stop being confused?'

Bodies Matt Towers/Netflix

Take a quick look at X (formerly Twitter) and you'll get a sense of how confused everyone is by "Bodies." Marcus, who evidently binge-watched the entire show in one day, took the opportunity to complain of a headache after his streaming odyssey, while Trixie posed the simple question, "When will I stop being confused" — surely a query with far-reaching implications for the streaming age in general. Elsewhere, Mason appears to have stumbled upon a plot hole, and asked the X-verse for some answers:

But this tweet from @james_pearse1 pretty much sums up the general consensus on "Bodies":

Still, confusing though it may be, "Bodies" has done almost as well with critics as it has on Netflix. The Guardian praised its "smörgåsbord of genres" as "a thrilling package deal" while Decider gave it a resounding "stream it" endorsement. Even The Hollywood Reporter didn't let the convoluted plot get them down, proclaiming "Bodies" to be a show that "does general justice to the wildness of its premise and generates investment for the humans caught in the middle of it."

With an 81% Rotten Tomatoes score, it seems bewildering plotlines aren't enough to undermine the show as a whole. So, this seems to be one of those times where you might as well follow the Top 10 chart's lead and binge away.

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