The latest Nielsen streaming ratings are in, and Netflix’s Sirens sits right at the top: it’s served up a whopping 1.51 billion viewing minutes during the week ending June 1, making it the number one overall title in the United States.

It’s since slipped back a little bit – Netflix’s own charts show that it’s moved to number six in the US this week, behind The Waterfront, Ginny & Georgia, America’s Sweethearts, Raw and Ms Rachel, but that’s the fast-moving world of the best streaming services for you: most shows rack up most of their views during their initial release and start to taper fairly quickly.

If you haven’t contributed to those billion and a half viewing minutes of one of the best Netflix shows, though, you’re in for a treat: Sirens is a darkly comic drama that even its critics say is “a beautiful mess”, and features Julianne Moore among a star-studded cast.

What are people saying about Sirens?

Sirens takes place over a single weekend at a luxury beach estate where controlling billionaire Michaela Kell likes to play. The sharp-witted Devon believes her sister Simone’s relationship with Michaela isn’t right, and when Simone invites her to spend the weekend in Kell’s Hamptons estate it all kicks off.

The show is like “a candy-colored take on The White Lotus,” Slate says. “The cast of this farce, which is stacked with familiar movie and TV actors, is having the time of their lives.”

Decider liked it too. “Sirens works because it leans into the absurdity of the story and the awfulness of most of the characters, making the show a dark comedy that’s truly comedic.”

Rolling Stone wasn’t so sure, but conceded that “I’ll give Sirens this: It may be a failure, but it’s an interesting one.” And The Boston Globe felt that it was a little shaky in parts but well worth the watch: “Does it ever tip into melodrama? Oh, sure. But just as she did with Maid, creator Molly Smith Metzler has sharp enough insights on class and power to cut through to the beating heart beneath… Though the tonal shifts between Simone’s sincere commitment to serenity and Devon’s messy hijinks can be disorienting, the show is most effective when it’s not taking itself 100 percent seriously.”

Sirens is streaming now on Netflix.

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Contributor

Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than twenty books. Her latest, a love letter to music titled Small Town Joy, is on sale now. She is the singer in spectacularly obscure Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind.