'WandaVision' is most-pirated TV show of 2021, knocking off 'The Mandalorian' from 2020

Wanda Maximoff's forbidden magical charms were just too alluring for a good chunk of individuals unwilling to pay for an annual Disney+ subscription this year. According to TorrentFreak, WandaVision was the most-pirated show of 2021 — at least from a BitTorrent standpoint. Another Disney+ offering, The Mandalorian, took home the title last year, effectively dethroning the multi-year champ that was HBO's Game of Thrones.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe's small screen debut was a big hit among illegal streamers over the last 365 days, with Loki and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier landing in second and fourth, respectively (Netflix's The Witcher took the third spot). Hawkeye and What If...? were the sixth and seventh most-pirated shows and Foundation (Apple TV+), Rick and Morty (Adult Swim), Arcane (Netflix), and The Wheel of Time (Amazon) rounded out the rest of the Top 10 list.

Set in the immediate aftermath of Avengers: Endgame, WandaVision officially kicked off Phase 4 of the MCU and Marvel Studios' first foray into the world of television. Rather fitting, given that Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) uses her love of classic TV programs as a way to cope with the devastating loss of Vision (Paul Bettany) to Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War.

The character's overwhelming grief unintentionally causes her to take an entire town hostage and force its citizens to play out a fantasy in which Vision is still alive. With a little nudge from the immortal and power-hungry witch known as Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), Wanda realizes her full potential as a Nexus Being, the Scarlet Witch, and plans to use the forbidden spells found within the Darkhold to make her fantasies a reality. As we now know, messing with the very fabric of reality — and by extension, the multiverse — doesn't usually end well for anyone. Marvel is already developing a spinoff project centered around Agatha (subtitled House of Harkness) which boasts head writer and executive producer Jac Schaeffer back at the creative helm.

Thanks to a number of out-of-the-box concepts and a compellingly emotional through-line, WandaVision dominated the pop culture conversation when it first premiered earlier this year, spawning dozens upon dozens of fan theories (many of which turned out to be wrong, but still a lot of fun). "The theorizing is fantastic," Schaeffer told SYFY WIRE at the time. "I love it, I love reading it, I love that it is indicative of a level of enthusiasm that I wish for every writer to experience in their audience. I feel incredibly lucky to have people pouring over something that I labored over and that my team labored over."

The series was nominated for nearly two dozen Primetime Emmy Awards, but ended up snubbed.

All nine episodes of WandaVision are now streaming on Disney+. You can get a taste of where Wanda is headed in the MCU next in the first teaser trailer for May's Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.