Move over, Fallout! Amazon Prime Video has a new global number one show

After a month on the top spot, Fallout has finally been dethroned at Prime Video, by a show you may not have encountered before.

Maxton Hall is Prime Video’s new number one show, a German 6-part series based on a novel by Mona Casey, called Save Me.

It’s a YA tale. Ruby is a scholarship student at elite school Maxton Hall. James is rich, privileged and athletic. He seems to be embody everything Ruby rallies against, but the series’s plot has other ideas and the two are pushed together by circumstance.

The original novel was a big hit in Germany, less so elsewhere to date. And the stars Damian Harding and Harriet Herbig-Matten will similarly be more familiar to German audiences. However, it’s clear Maxton Hall has broken out just about everywhere.

It’s the number on Prime Video show in 68 countries, according to Flixpatrol, and is number 2 in the US and number 3 in the UK below Fallout and Clarkson’s Farm.

The big question is whether Maxton Hall is actually as good or important as this achievement suggests, or if it’s just a case of rival Fallout dropping off naturally after being given a clear run at audiences throughout April.

Maxton Hall reviews

Reviewers are not of one voice on this one. They range from 1-star hit pieces to solidly positive reviews. Let’s take a closer look.

Radiotimes’s 1-star review says “the acting is wooden across the board, to the point where it's hard to differentiate between each performance and the actual wood used to build Maxton Hall.” Ouch.

It says Maxton Hall ends up “falling far short of the standard set by Gossip Girl, Élite, and yes, even the Gossip Girl reboot.”

Entertainment Weekly is far more positive, and gave Maxton Hall a “B+” rating. It says the show “follows the YA enemies-to-lovers blueprint to the letter, and that soothing familiarity is its greatest strength.”

Falling somewhere between the two, Decider is tepidly positive and calls it a “a show for people who enjoy high school romance and boarding school intrigue, but it’s also nothing we haven’t seen before.”

Maxton Hall is unlikely to bring over many new fans to YA romance, then, but could be worth checking out if you’re looking for more YA content and don’t mind putting up with subs or a dub.

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