Entertainment

Netflix’s 8-Part Overlooked Drama Becomes a Late-Night Sleeper Hit Months After Its Release

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While Netflix’s Top 10 streaming charts are usually filled with some major household names, some unexpected surprises often manage to find their way to the top. Currently, while the third season of XO, Kitty is reigning supreme on the platform, most of the other top TV shows on the list are smaller, less buzzed-about projects that are drawing in viewers more than anticipated. Among them is Ripple, an eight-episode drama series that’s equal parts soapy and endearing.

The series, which was initially ordered by Hallmark+ and later bought by Netflix, was first released on December 3, 2025. At the time, the series also picked up traction and rose to Netflix’s Top 10. Now, per FlixPatrol, it’s surging in streaming all over again at #8.

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What Is ‘Ripple’ About?

Taking place in New York City, Ripple follows four strangers as their lives suddenly intertwine, and they become a close-knit chosen family to one another throughout the series. Among them is Nate (Ian Harding), a kind bartender who’s separated from his wife and can’t seem to kick a persistent cough. In the first episode, he connects with Kris (Julia Chan), a record executive who’s just lost her job and is looking to start a new chapter. That’s when Aria (Sydney Agudong) comes in. After giving up her music career and struggling with depression at home with her finance husband John (Robert Bazzocchi), Aria gets a second chance at her dream when Kris hears her sing, and believes in her talent more than anyone else.

The last piece of the puzzle is Walter (Frankie Faison), who, in the first episode, is giddy celebrating his 30th wedding anniversary with his wife, Brenda (Tina Lifford). When he wakes up, however, Walter suffers an unfathomable loss, and it turns his world upside down. As the series introduces these characters, it connects them through an invisible string (or, better yet, rock). After letting go of a blue pebble while looking off her balcony, Aria accidentally hits Nate on the head, who’s just passing by. The cut leads him to the ER, and uncovers a health battle he would’ve never found otherwise. The next day, after Walter picks up the pebble and releases it in Central Park, Kris trips on it, and it leads to Aria singing with her guitar. Albeit a tad cliché, Ripple suggests that these four strangers are meant to find one another, and help each other through their personal crises.



















































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Collider Exclusive · TV Medicine Quiz
Which Fictional Hospital Would You Work Best In?
The Pitt · ER · Grey’s Anatomy · House · Scrubs

Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television — brutal, chaotic, romantic, brilliant, and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out exactly where you belong.

🚨The Pitt

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🏥ER

💉Grey’s

🔬House

🩺Scrubs

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01

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A critical patient comes through the door. What’s your first instinct?
Medicine under pressure reveals who you actually are.





02

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Why did you go into medicine in the first place?
The honest answer says more about you than the one you’d give in an interview.





03

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What do you actually want from the people you work with?
Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are.





04

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You lose a patient you fought hard to save. How do you carry it?
Every doctor who’s worked a long shift has had to answer this question.





05

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How would your colleagues describe the way you work?
Your reputation on the floor is usually more accurate than your self-image.





06

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How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure?
Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice.





07

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08

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At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back?
The answer to this question is the most honest thing about you.





Your Assignment Has Been Made
You Belong In…
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Your answers have pointed to one fictional hospital above all others. This is the ward your instincts, your temperament, and your particular brand of dysfunction were built for.


Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center

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The Pitt

You are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has ever shown — one that puts you inside a single fifteen-hour shift and doesn’t let you look away.

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County General Hospital, Chicago

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ER

You are the person who keeps the whole floor running — not the most brilliant in the room, but possibly the most essential.

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Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, Seattle

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Grey’s Anatomy

You came to medicine with your whole self — your ambition, your emotions, your relationships, your history — and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door.

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Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, NJ

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House

You are drawn to the problem above everything else — the symptom that doesn’t fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one.

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Sacred Heart Hospital, California

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Scrubs

You understand that medicine is tragic and absurd in almost equal measure — and that the only sane response is to hold both of those things at the same time.

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‘Ripple’ Is a Soapy Yet Bingeworthy Drama

Sydney Agudong and Julia Chan in Ripple.
Image via Netflix

While fans of soapy Hallmark shows and telenovelas might already be sold on the story, the series might be a change for Netflix subscribers. After all, TV shows that lean into the too-sweet, sappy side aren’t exactly Netflix’s bread and butter. With that said, however, the series, created by Michele Giannusa, has an undeniable strength in drawing viewers in through its writing and performances. By establishing their own touching stories, and showing that they’re a part of something larger, almost pre-destined, viewers of the first episode are immediately compelled to watch more and see how their personal stories unfold. So while most Netflix audiences might find the series cheesy, chances are they’ll continue watching it until the very end.

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The 35 Best TV Shows About Dysfunctional Families, Ranked

For messy family drama.

Among the highlights of the show are the performances by the main characters, including Pretty Little Liars alum Harding. In one of his most heart-wrenching roles to date, he nails being a detached business owner who suddenly has his world rocked by a health battle. It shifts him off-center, puts everything into perspective, and strips his walls more than ever. Plus, Nate’s connection with Kris is electric onscreen, with viewers tuning in just to see their chemistry. On Rotten Tomatoes, the series has scored an impressive 80% with the audience, with many drawing comparisons to the show and the six-season NBC drama This Is Us. “The characters, the stories, the backdrop, the heartache, the laughs….all make to make for a perfect series,” wrote one review. “Much like This is Us, this series intertwines the lives of strangers in NYC who become family. Like a good book, I hated for it to end.”

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With all that said, while Ripple has yet to be officially renewed for a Season 2, the drama series has become a true underdog hit for Netflix. Ever since its release in December, the series has continued to draw in and captivate fans, often surging up the charts and into Netflix’s Top 10. And while the premise might lean a tad cliché and soapy, it seems to be filling a void Netflix viewers have been looking for.


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Release Date
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December 3, 2025

Network

Netflix

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Directors

amanda tapping, Scott Smith, Lisa Soper

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