Stranger Things season 5 will have shorter episode length than season 4

The fourth season of Netflix’s hit supernatural mystery Stranger Things — which has just aired its two concluding episodes — was famous for its length before it had even been released. Nine episodes were aired in the season, with only one exceeding 75 minutes. Two and a Half hours was the longest episode of the season, surpassing most feature films.

It won’t be quite the same for the series’ fifth and final season, showrunners Matt and Ross Duffer have now revealed. There is less preparation work and the story moves straight to the conclusion. Stranger Things 4The new seasons will be moving at a slower pace, according to the producers.

“The only reason we don’t expect to be as long is, this season, if you look at it, it’s almost a two-hour ramp up before our kids really get drawn into a supernatural mystery,” Matt Duffer told the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “You get to know them, you get to see them in their lives, they’re struggling with adapting to high school and so forth, Steve’s trying to find a date, all of that. This is clearly not what will happen. [in season 5].

“For the first time ever, we don’t wrap things up at the end of 4, so it’s going to be moving,” he continued. “I don’t know that it’s going to be going 100 miles an hour at the start of 5, but it’s going to be moving pretty fast. Already, characters will be active. They’re already going to have a goal and a drive, and I think that’s going to carve out at least a couple hours and make this season feel really different.”

That said, don’t expect the Duffers’ newfound love of brevity to stretch to the very last episode of the show, which is likely to run a similar length to the fourth season’s finale. “We’re more likely to do what we did here, which is to just have a 2.5 hour episode,” Matt Duffer said, before joking (we hope) that it would match the infamous sprawl of Peter Jackon’s third Lord of the Rings film. “I’m sure the wrap-up will be a lot longer, it’s going to be The Return of the King-ish with, like, eight endings.”

This is subject to change. The Duffers told Collider that they plan to start the writers’ room for the fifth season in August, with actor David Harbour estimating an air date of “mid-2024” to GQ. There’s room for things to get out of hand yet.

“We thought Season 4 was going to be eight [episodes], and they were going to be regular length,” Matt Duffer told Collider. “So if you had interviewed us before 4, that’s what I would’ve said.”