There’s a new hit TV show. On YouTube. It’s a reboot of the Mortal Kombat property (originally a video game, later some movies, probably a breakfast cereal at some point) and it’s a direct to YouTube production. Last week’s premiere episode scored 5 million views so far and this week’s debuted last night.

The series was started by director Kevin Tancharoen who initially created a rather elaborate Mortal Kombat mini movie and posted it online as proof of concept for what he could do with the franchise. It was a hit and soon he had landed a deal to run with it as a web series. He was able to line up stars much beloved by the geek community: Jeri Ryan (Star Trek) and Michael Jai White (Spawn). The series is ad supported.

It’s kind of a new way of making TV.