[imagesource: Netflix]

No. Not a spoiler in sight. Relax.

I mean, it’s not a spoiler to say that I thought Stranger Things’ two-part season four finale was a little disappointing, is it?

The first seven episodes (or chapters, as they’ve been labelled) were enjoyable, especially when compared to season three, but I slogged through the final two yesterday and was less impressed.

With run times of 85 minutes and 139 minutes for those two chapters, should we still be calling Stranger Things a series?

This just in – nobody cares what I think so let’s focus on the outrageous binge-watching stats it’s racking up.

Data previously released by Netflix showed Stranger Things became the most viewed series in a single week since Squid Game burst onto the scene.

Another landmark has now been ticked off, with this below via The Verge:

[It] just became the second Netflix show ever to surpass a billion hours viewed. Since the first installment of the season dropped on May 27th, viewers have spent a cumulative 1.15 billion hours watching the season’s nine episodes, including 301 million hours just this past weekend.

That makes Stranger Things 4 the second most-watched Netflix season ever, after Squid Game in 2021.

This past weekend, the series featured in Netflix’s Top 10 in 93 different countries.

Talk about a global phenomenon. In fact, using Netflix’s own ranking site for global series over the week dated June 27 to July 3, all four seasons feature in the top six:

There’s still a decent shot that Stranger Things can overtake Squid Game, which at the time of writing had 1,65 billion hours viewed.

Especially when, and I repeat, the final two episodes chapters are 85 minutes and 139 minutes long.

Again, no spoilers, but we can expect something similar in season five. The Wrap reports:

…creators Matt and Ross Duffer have revealed that they envision a similar structure for their fifth and final season.

In a recent Happy Sad Confused podcast interview with host Josh Horowitz, Ross Duffer bemoaned the pattern he sees on series’ closers “where the penultimate episode is the strong episode and then they wind down on the last one.” So they concluded that the trick to avoid such traps is to just make one long episode. “We’re more likely to do what we did here which is to just have a 2.5 hour episode,” Ross revealed of the intended “Stranger Things” Season 5 finale.

“The wind-down is just part of a 2.5 hour episode,” Matt added. “I would expect the finale to be at least two hours.”

I will stop there.

Guesstimates on the timing of the season’s release range from early to mid-2024.

But, if you do want to know more about what season five has in store, you’ll find a good summary (with spoilers) here.

[sources:verge&wrap]