Hank Hill has returned for his crown on Rainey Street and on TV screens.
Just a week after its premiere, King of the Hill’s 14th season has earned an impressive 100 percent Rotten Tomatoes score and now has the streams to match, garnering 4.4 million views during its first week, smashing records at both Disney and Hulu, and becoming Hulu’s most successful adult animated series in roughly five years, per Variety.
The series, which peaked at number one on the list of Hulu’s 15 most popular shows, outperformed flagship series like The Bear and MasterChef, and in a move that would bring a tear to Peggy’s reality-TV-loving eyes, even usurped the likes of Project Runway and Love Island.
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Hank and company would likely be surprised about reaching TV success once reserved for Los Dias Y Las Noches de Monsignor Martinez and its new, in-universe reboot, but fans were always confident in their favorite show.
“They took a big gamble in bringing the series back, and I was a little apprehensive about how the quality would be,” one Redditor admitted on r/KingOfTheHill. “It was like a breath of fresh air, full of optimism just like the early seasons. I can’t wait for the second batch of episodes to be released!”
Another Redditor credited the show’s classic writing for its streaming success. “One of the things that makes this so successful is that it feels less like a reboot and more like an actual continuation of the series,” they explained. “There’s a new status quo, sure, but it’s an organic expansion from the original.”
Along those lines, ahead of the premiere, Lauren Tom shared the core component of rebooting the beloved series, saying, “We haven’t lost that sense of authenticity from the old one to the new one. That’s still what gives us our special sauce.”
Viewers definitely seem to agree — and the numbers prove it.
