Stranger Things' Season 5 Split Release Has One Major Difference From Season 4

"Stranger Things" showrunners Matt and Ross Duffer surprised (and annoyed) the series' fans earlier this year by announcing that the long-awaited season 5, which will also be the show's final season ever, will be split into three parts. The first section of the season will be released November 26, 2025, the second a month later on December 25, and the third a week after that on December 31. On the one hand, this is a good way to get viewers talking about the series all throughout this year's holiday season. But at the same time, it's annoying, especially since the first three seasons of "Stranger Things" were designed to be watched all in one go (per the standard Netflix binge model).

As for the quality of the season itself, there's an upside to this approach: This time, the show's writers have written the story with these gaps in mind. The first batch of season 5 will end with episode 4, the second batch with episode 7, and episode 8 will serve as the series' finale. "Episode 4 and episode 8 are like movies," Matt Duffer explained at Variety's Entertainment and Technology Summit. "Every runtime I've seen posted online is inaccurate," he added.

The intention behind this approach will hopefully make for a smoother viewing experience than what happened with season 4. There, the month-long gap between the first seven episodes and the final two was something forced on the show by production delays due to the Covid pandemic. As a result, the seventh episode of the season felt more like just another episode than a quasi-finale. The break didn't exactly hurt the series (those final two episodes still drew massive ratings), but it was definitely a little awkward.

Although season 5's release schedule would seem to imply that "Stranger Things" is embracing its TV roots, the Duffer Brothers still don't particularly enjoy the traditional TV release format.

"I get fatigued watching 20-episode seasons," Matt Duffer explained. "We didn't grow up interested in any of that. We only watched movie[s]." He also argued in favor of shows having multi-year gaps between seasons and dropping multiple episodes at once, adding, "If TV shows come out every year, it's diminishing return. I like the buildup."

That last comment has already been heavily criticized by those who prefer the old model of TV. "Movies. The thing you actually want to make is movies," YouTube film critic Schaffrillas wrote in a response post that's received over 280,000 likes. Other people have accused the Duffer Brothers of being partially responsible for ending the golden age of TV, arguing that they've helped create a landscape where "seasons are significantly shorter, and breaks in-between seasons are so long that folks forget the TV shows even existed." 

Those critical of this anti-TV attitude are at least partially getting their wish, as the Duffer Brothers are now switching over to the medium they've always preferred. "When Matt and I were talking about what we want to do next, it really came down to we wanted to do a movie, specifically an original movie — a big original film," Ross Duffer explained. 

Indeed, after a decade of making a TV show structured like a series of movies, the Duffer Brothers are returning to their roots, having previously directed the thriller "Hidden" in 2015. They shouldn't have lost a step, either, seeing as they've basically made five more movies since then.

Keep it tuned to /Film for more "Stranger Things" updates.