Idris Elba’s 15-Half Thriller Is the Streaming Hit Critics Didn’t Predict

Critics have by no means been completely united on Hijack. Some love the ticking-clock pressureothers assume it is pulpy nonsense; the second season has impressed the identical cut up. None of that appears to matter a lot to viewers, as a result of they’re nonetheless watching. On March 11, Hijack was #2 worldwide on Apple TV in line with FlixPatrol, solely trailing Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. Within the UK streaming chart aggregation, it additionally confirmed up because the top-ranked Apple TV sequence throughout the broader market snapshot.

Season 2 debuted in January 2026 and shifts the motion from a hijacked aircraft to a disaster on Berlin’s underground rail system. Idris Elba returns as Sam Nelson, with supporting gamers together with Christine Adams, Max Beesleyand Archie Panjabi tied to the persevering with story. And now, whereas the critics could also be cut up, the present’s world efficiency suggests Apple has one other straight-up audience-pleaser on its fingers.

Why Did Idris Elba Make ‘Hijack’ Season 2?

Talking previous to the discharge of the second season, Elba admitted it was really a problem to maintain the stress up after altering the setting from a aircraft to a subway automobile. In any case, you may leap out of a subway automobile any time you need. Attempt leaping out of a aircraft, and see what occurs:

“We needed to discover a method to hold the core pressure, the claustrophobia. How can we try this? How can we hold the movement and the setup from the primary season and make it make sense for the second? We landed on a prepare. It affords a variety of the identical attributes. Then the query turned find out how to construct a narrative that connects logically from season one. It was a strategy of elimination. A prepare felt proper.”

“It’s a TV present that has these old-school leisure strands to it,” he added. “Taking a personality who goes via one thing like that after which determining find out how to comply with up, analyzing his ache, his trauma, and the why of all of it — it felt compelling. The second season is about understanding slightly deeper how we obtained there within the first place. It is a compelling drama. We’re not altering the world. It’s escapism. However it lets us peel the onion again slightly and get deeper into it.”

Hijack is streaming now on Apple TV.