Major Netflix outage interrupts your weekend viewing plans

We hope you weren't dead-set on watching all of Luke Cage this weekend. As we write this, Netflix is recovering from a serious worldwide outage that knocked out its service from around 3PM Eastern to shortly after 5PM (Netflix reported the problem solved over half an hour later). While the streaming video company is no stranger to technical problems lasting for a few hours, the sheer scale and severity is noteworthy -- you couldn't even visit Netflix's website.

We've asked Netflix for more details and will let you know if it can explain how and why its service went down. It's tempting to pin the failure on crushing demand for Luke Cage (which premiered just the day before), but there's no guarantee that this is the case. Netflix has previously coped with launch day demand for shows like House of Cards and Daredevil, so it's not as if Reed Hastings and crew are unfamiliar with traffic spikes. Whatever happened, it's a sore spot in what was supposed to be a banner weekend for Netflix.