The first seven episodes of Wonka’s The Golden Ticket premiered on September 23, and within a day the series had climbed to No. 2 on Netflix’s U.S. Top 10, passing The Gentlemen, Not a Stranger, and Death of the Pastor’s Wife, according to FlixPatrol.
The reality competition drops twelve golden ticket winners, each bringing a partner of their choosing, into a full-scale recreation of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, where they face a run of physical, mental, and temptation-based challenges for what Netflix calls a life-changing prize. The voice of Wonka himself comes from an AI recreation of Gene Wilder, built with the approval of the Wilder estate.
The audience numbers tell a friendlier story than the reviews. Critics have been rough on the series, which holds a 20 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes across five reviews and a 29 on Metacritic, with most of the criticism aimed at the AI voice and the cutthroat competition format. Several reviewers did single out the factory sets for praise, and viewers, at least, have not been scared off.
There is also a lovely note for longtime fans of the 1971 film. Rusty Goffe, who played an Oompa-Loompa in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, is back on the factory floor for the series, this time performing alongside his son Ben with the new group of Oompa-Loompas. More than five decades after he first walked those sets, Goffe is still bringing the magic.
The season’s final two episodes arrive on September 30, completing the nine-episode run.
As TDN reported, Netflix announced the series back in March, and the AI Wilder voice reveal in June immediately became the show’s biggest talking point.