As the new year creeps up on us all, it’s time, once more, to look at Fandom’s most popular TV and streaming series Wikis of the year. In all of 2023, these were the most sought out wikis in the realm of TV, ranging from kids’ programming to long-running medical procedurals to some absolute legacy properties, with multiple series and iterations, like Star Trek, Power Rangers, and The Walking Dead.
2023 also brings in a mighty popular YouTube series known for awesome D&D adventuring, as well as one of our returning streaming champs, Stranger Things, that uses D&D as part of its interdimensional monster story. Check out the most-read TV wikis this year, and marvel at how some of them didn’t even have new programming – just a deep and devoted fanbase eager to brush up on lore.
One of the clear favorites at Fandom, and a top performer on this list most years — last year it came in sixth — is SpongeBob SquarePants in all its franchise glory. Meaning, 14 seasons so far (the latest of which started just last month) with a 15th ordered, multiple spinoffs (like The Patrick Star Show and Kamp Koral), a ton of video games, and three theatrical films to date, with a fourth movie coming in 2025.
The SpongeBob franchise has been a huge hit for over 20 years now, even becoming a large part of meme culture. It’s fandom spans two generations now (maybe even three) and its even getting its own zone in Universal’s new kid-centric theme park in Frisco, Texas.
Just like last year, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir clocks in at number nine (after being in the top spot in 2021). This French animated series still has a massive reach and an almost unbeatable global fanbase, telling the tale of two Parisian teenagers, Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Adrien Agreste, who transform into the superheroes Ladybug and Cat Noir, respectively, to protect the innocent from evildoers.
With over 200 episodes in less than a decade, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir aired its fifth season over the course of 2022 and 2023, just wrapping things up back at the beginning of November. In the midst of this, there was an animated film too in 2023, Ladybug & Cat Noir: The Movie, which was released theatrically in France and other countries and on Netflix in the US, among other markets. This show isn’t slowing down either as it’s already been renewed through Season 8, with Seasons 6 and 7 scheduled to air in 2024 and 2025.
What happens when a group of nerdy, notable voice actors – like Laura Bailey, Matthew Mercer, Ashley Johnson, Liam O’Brien, and more – get together to play Dungeons & Dragons? Well, you get a hit streaming series-slash-podcast (on Twitch and YouTube) with a huge fanbase, loads of merch, and even an animated series on Prime Video, The Legend of Vox Machina, based on the gang’s first campaign.
Critical Role is a smash hit. Big enough to invade this yearly list which, let’s face it, has mostly all the same shows just shuffled into a different order. Critical Role has done wonders in resurrecting D&D’s popularity during a year that also included Baldur’s Gate III and the movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.
Breaking Bad’s been off the air a while and its exceptional spinoff Better Call Saul wrapped up its epic run in 2022. Despite there being no new Breaking Bad content this year – aside from stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul reuniting as their characters for a Super Bowl ad – the show’s wiki is still packing ‘em in, likely fueled by the sixth and final season of Saul finally arriving on Netflix in April, leading to more catching up.
As fans rewatch the series, or new fans discover it, the Breaking Bad-verse, over the course of two acclaimed series (and one Netflix movie), is one of Fandom’s most dependable wikis. It’s a rare things when two connected TV shows maintain their excellence the entire time and then also end perfectly.
Juggernaut hospital drama Grey’s Anatomy, which is coming up on 20 years on the air by the way (its 20th season will kick off in March), currently stands at 420 episodes. The most recent season, Season 19, saw star Ellen Pompeo, who portrays Meredith Grey, reduce her involvement in the series. Pompeo may return here and there but the twentieth season will be the first to not feature here as a series regular.
Even though Grey’s isn’t a sci-fi or fantasy series steeped in complex lore, its length of time on the air and multiple spinoffs past and present (Private Practice, Station 19) makes for a hearty, hefty wiki for fans to search through. As they do every year, rocketing Grey’s Anatomy to this year-end list like clockwork. Or… docwork.
Where to even start with the gargantuan Power Rangers franchise? Maybe just with the fact that it’s never really stopped. In 2023 there was both a new season, Power Rangers Cosmic Fury, as well as a big 30th anniversary special, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always, which included several actors returning from the original three-season Mighty Morphin days, including David Yost, Walter Jones, Steve Cardenas, Catherine Sutherland, Johnny Yong Bosch and Karan Ashley, some of whom were reprising their roles for the first time since the 1990s. For three decades the Power Rangers, in all their iterations, has become one of the most formidable franchises around, as tough as the quintet (give or take a Ranger, depending on the team) of heroes the shows portray.
This year marking a big anniversary, of course, and also reports of the series undergoing a full reboot post-Cosmic Fury, after 30 years of Morphin madness, helped this gang hop onto the list here at the midway point, as fans flooded to the Power Rangersw wiki to brush up on, or learn about, the entire history of this brand and the even longer-running Japanese series the Power Rangers are based on, Super Sentai.
Stranger Things has only one season left, but even though nothing new on the Stranger front aired on Netflix this year that didn’t stop fans from searching the show’s wiki so hard it still wound up in the Top 5.
The fifth and final season of Stranger Things, like so many upcoming projects, got delayed this year due to both the WGA and SAG going on strike, but now that the writers and actors are all back to work, expect production on the final season to begin right at the tip top of 2024. Meanwhile, there was still new content provided and expanded lore to explore thanks to the London debut of the official prequel play, Stranger Things: The First Shadow, set in 1959.
Stranger Things remains one of Netflix true pop culture centerpieces so expect an even bigger hullabaloo over the wiki for this show next year as more news comes in on the final season, even if the final eight episodes don’t end up airing until 2025.
The new era/Enterprise-aissance of Star Trek TV in recent years may be getting a bit quieter with Picard having ended, Prodigy having been canceled (though Netflix will air the completed second season Paramount+ changed their mind on), and Discovery about to air its fifth and final season in April.
Still, Strange New Worlds, arguably the best of all the recent Trek offerings, is coming back for Season 3 after a great second season in 2023 and this year, the Star Trek: Section 31 movie for Paramount+ (starring Michelle Yeoh as Philippa Georgiou) was officially ordered. Meanwhile, Picard‘s final season was a hugely crowd pleasing one, featuring all of the Next Generation core characters (along with a few others) returning, providing plenty of reasons to read up on their history.
Star Trek lore runs so deep, and the fans are so fervent, that the Memory Alpha wiki will always make a strong showing. Trek is number three on the list, just like last year, and even though the streaming era may be slowing down a bit, the franchise will continue to endure in one form or another.
Despite The Walkings Dead’s original mothership show ending in 2022, the franchise still had one heck of a year, what with the final season of Fear the Walking Dead airing alongside two new spinoffs – Daryl Dixon and Dead City – that have both now been renewed for second seasons.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon followed Norman Reedus’ Daryl to Paris for new adventures while The Walking Dead: Dead City paired Lauren Cohan’s Maggie with Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan for a harrowing scrape in undead Manhattan. And that’s not all fans can look forward to. In 2024, we’ll get another spinoff featuring popular characters from the original series, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, starring Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira as Rick and Michonne. Ratings may not be anywhere near what they were seven years ago but no one’s ratings are and there’s a core fanbase still clearly invested in this universe.
It’s a repeat of last year, with Game of Thrones firmly lodged in at number one again! There weren’t any new episodes of hit GoT spinoff House of the Dragon in 2023 – though a teaser for the show’s second season did land right in the final month of the year – but that didn’t shake Fandom’s rabid Thrones community, who still flocked to the Wiki of Westeros like Wildlings fleeing White Walkers.
House of the Dragon didn’t take a time out like most other shows in production when the WGA strike hit, instead choosing to move forward with the completed shooting scripts they had, and no writers on set for rewrites, and then was also able to continue filming during the ensuing SAG-AFTRA strike, since the largely British cast didn’t work under the rules of those US unions. What this means is that ultimately House of the Dragon Season 2 will air in the summer of 2024 as previously planned. With fire and blood.
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