STRANGER THINGS show bosses Matt and Ross Duffer tease a major change about the episode format of season five of the Netflix show.
The streaming giant invested $270 million into Stranger Things’ fourth season, which certainly paid off as its one of Netflix’s biggest shows ever.
However, the nine episode season, which saw the Hawkins gang battle against Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), clocked in at a runtime of 12 hours and 52 minutes, which was a lot longer than previous seasons and might have been a bit too much for some viewers.
Because of this, Stranger Things bosses Matt and Ross Duffer have confirmed that there’s going to be major changes to the episode format in the show’s fifth and final season, which is expected to begin filming in 2023 and air in 2024.
Stranger Things’ fourth season finale was capped off with a feature-length finale of two-and-a-half-hours, which is much longer than Netflix’s usual model of 50 minute episodes.
Ahead of season five, series creators Matt and Ross Duffer confirmed to THR that the upcoming episodes won’t be quite so long.
“I don’t think the runtimes will be as extreme in season 5,” Matt confirmed.
“We’re trying to return to the simplicity of the structure in season one, with bigger scale and scope.”
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This means there will still be plenty of gripping action from Hawkins and beyond, but Eleven (Millie Bobby-Brown) and the gang won’t be returning for hours at a time.
This is a conscious choice for the writer-slash-director duo who were surprised by the length of the episodes last season.
Matt said: “The runtimes being as long as they were was something of a surprise to us.
“Ross and I have been trying to analyse how they ended up that long because the scripts aren’t even that long.”
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But, with several overarching plotlines and an ever-increasing main cast who also have their own small storylines, it’s no surprise that the screen time started to add up.
“It’s a pretty dense season,” Matt admitted. “We weren’t sure they were that long, really, until we got into edit.”
Ross added: “Our concern is pacing. If we can hold your interest for an hour and 15 minutes, then that’s a win.”
It sounds like viewers can expect to see much more manageable length episodes going into season five then.
“Except for the finale, which I’m expecting will be pretty massive,” Matt teased.
Since the fifth season finale is also going to be the series finale, viewers could expect to see this ringing in at anywhere over two-and-a-half-hours, possibly even closer to three hours.
This will likely come in the form of one long episode too, since that’s the style the Duffer brothers set up with season four.
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Explaining their reasoning for this, Ross said: “We did discuss breaking up [the finale]. We ultimately decided if it’s too long for someone, they can pause it and they can come back.
“It’s like reading a book. You can watch it at your own pace.”
Stranger Things seasons 1-4 are available to stream on Netflix now.
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