Stranger Things fans threaten to ‘quit’ Netflix series over ‘movie-length’ episodes
The next highly anticipated season of Stranger Things is already causing a stir after Maya Hawke confirmed there'll be more mammoth-sized episodes to look forward to.
Stranger Things Season 5 teaser
Stranger Things star Maya Hawke has teased the fifth season of the hit Netflix show is “basically eight movies”, but some fans are getting tired of the show’s punishing run times.
Most episodes of the throwback sci-fi thriller so far have run less than an hour, but season four, released in 2022, tested viewers’ patience with epic feature-length outings.
The season finale alone was a whopping two and a half hours long, and every other episode was packed full of twists, turns and action set pieces running well over an hour.
Main cast member Maya, who portrays Robin Buckley, has now confirmed the trend will continue when season five is finally released next year.
However, the prospect of another eight episodes all running an hour and a half or even longer might prove to be too much for even the most dedicated streamers to handle.
Speaking recently on the Podcrushed podcast, Maya addressed why there’s been such a long wait in between seasons, joking the show has been "a little bit cursed” by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Hollywood actors and writers’ strikes.
“We’re making, basically, eight movies,” she added. “The episodes are very long.”
After 2022’s marathon fourth season - which was split into two parts - many fans took to social media to issue complaints about what could be an exhausting binge session.
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“As much as i love stranger things i hate how it’s caused the trend of ‘let’s make our live action show have every episode be an hour long’,” one viewer said on X (formerly Twitter).
“And then half of the shows also do the ‘let’s release everything all at once’ method. it makes watching even shows i like such a chore.” (sic)
Another said: “Watching HOTD (House of the Dragon), love it but the episodes are like an hour long which I can do.
“But if the new Stranger Things eps are gonna be like 1-2 hour long, Ima quit the series.”
“Okay stranger things is decent now,” said a third Netflix viewer. “It was an awesome first season but hasn’t been that good since. Having 1 or 2 episodes longer is fine.
“8 super long episodes? No thanks.”
Over on Reddit, another fan said: “I will watch it anyway, but it sounds exhausting. Why can't they make properly paced, standalone, 45 mins episodes?”
Although, some fans were thrilled at the prospect of more lengthy Stranger Things episodes, with one X user exclaiming: “Hearing that the last season of stranger things is out in 2025 because it’s taking a long time to film because it’s 8 episodes that are as long as movies is going to be such an insane last season. I can’t f***ing wait!!!!”
Stranger Things is available to stream on Netflix.
