It is a truth universally acknowledged that the creators of Stranger Things love horror author Stephen King; there’s a whole haunted house plot in the new season that’s basically a huge homage to IT. So when King himself weighs in on your new season, you’d best listen.
Unfortunately, what King had to say wasn’t entirely complementary. Oh, he liked the recently released fourth season, which saw our heroes again tangle with the dark Upside Down dimension in the 1980s; what he had a problem with was the way Netflix was doling out the episodes. You see, the first seven released a week ago today, but the final two won’t be out until July 1. In King’s humble opinion, this is “lame,” although Netflix quickly pointed out the technical issues involved:
it's 2 parts, but the second one is coming July 1st - not too far. promise it's worth the wait ;)
— Netflix Geeked (@NetflixGeeked) June 1, 2022
There may only be two episodes left, but the final one is two-and-a-half hours long, so I can imagine how it might not be finished yet. I mean, that’s the length of a movie…a long one. I don’t even know if we can call it TV anymore.
Should Netflix continue dropping episodes all at once or release them week by week?
I’ve seen other people express King’s opinion, that it would be better had Netflix released all nine episodes of the new season at once. However, others — including me — take the opposite tack: I don’t know why Netflix doesn’t release new episodes of a big show like Stranger Things once per week.
I mean, I guess I can put myself in their shoes: Netflix began this binge model back in the early 2010s and people expect it now; if they released episodes in a more traditional way, subscribers might get mad. But at least for a huge series like Stranger Things, it would definitely help their bottom line if they spaced things out a little. The way it’s done now, everyone is finished talking about Stranger Things a couple seasons after the new episodes drop. If they did it one at a time, they could own the whole summer.
Also, I’d like the opportunity to luxuriate a bit in the minutia of episodes before moving on to the next one. I like the fan chatter that happens between new episodes, something that really isn’t possible under Netflix’s binge model. But clearly Netflix itself, along with King and many others, disagree.
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