Are Stranger Things 4’s huge episodes the next evolution of TV?

Season 4 of Stranger Things is here, and while the show has given fans plenty to talk about, one thing that’s gotten a lot of attention is its massive episode run times. For the first time ever, Netflix has split a season of Stranger Things into two parts: Volume I contains seven episodes and came out on May 27, while Volume II only contains two episodes and will follow on July 1. On premise, holding back a mere two episodes might seem weird…but once you look at the run times, it makes more sense.

Every single episode of Stranger Things 4 clocks in at over an hour; six of them are over 70 minutes, and four are close to 90 or higher. The season finale will be a whopping two-and-a-half hours long.

At first, I was really torn on whether Stranger Things 4’s inflated episode times were actually worth it. It felt like there were some superfluous scenes in the early episodes, instances where the show probably could have gotten the same points across more efficiently. Hopper’s whole plotline felt oddly removed from the rest of the show, begging the question of whether it was the right choice to keep him alive after his fakeout death in season 3.

However, by the time I got to Episode 5 I was whole-heartedly on board with the longer run times. We talk a lot about how the length of television shows has changed over the years; shorter episode counts and longer episodes have become more normalized, partially due to the fact that streaming services and premium networks don’t have hard episode time limits like network TV. In light of those trends, I can’t help but wonder if Stranger Things 4 is introducing us to one of the next evolutions of prestige television: combining movies and television episodes to make an even more immersive viewing experience.

To be clear, the idea of doing movie specials for shows is not new. Netflix itself is in the process of making a movie finale to The Last Kingdom TV show right now, and shows have had two-part specials and the like for ages. But never has a show so ambitiously wrapped movie-length episodes like this into a season of television on this scale.

Though, there was one show that kicked off the current trend…

Stranger Things 4 expands on Game of Thrones‘ TV-movie promise

We can trace this trend of swelling episode run times back to Game of Thrones, which kicked things off with its seventh and eighth seasons. Both of those seasons featured shorter episode counts but much higher runtimes; season 8 in particular had episodes well over the hour mark. The longest was “The Long Night,” which clocked in 82 minutes. These final seasons helped TV get where it is now, where many shows live in a new space somewhere between TV and movies in terms of budget, scale and length.

Just as Game of Thrones changed things, this season of Stranger Things feels like it could do something similar. Many shows have hopped on the bandwagon to try out the longer run times/shorter episode count models, but none have done it so ambitiously as Stranger Things. Like Thrones before it, Stranger Things 4 is doing something that actually feels new. Episode 7 is 98 minutes long, longer than movies that inspired the show like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween. Episode 9 is expected to be around 150 minutes. That’s right around the length of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, and less than 10 minutes shorter than the theatrical release of James Cameron’s Avatar.

Stranger Things 4 watches more like a series of short movies with a full-length film at the end of each volume then it does a traditional season of television. This has never been done to this degree before, and it’s a huge testament to the vision of creators Matt and Ross Duffer that they have been able to build it to this point.

Stranger Things 4 was a big, expensive gamble…and it’s paying off

The success of Stranger Things 4 is a huge win for Netflix and confirmation of their strategy, which allows creators a wider range of flexibility with the caveat that they must bring in views. As much as the streaming platform has had some mixed press in recent days for early cancellations, layoffs, and subscriber losses, Stranger Things season 4 is a fantastic example of Netflix at its best. The company backed a project that no sane streaming service would ($30 million per episode, 70+ minute episodes!!!), and the result is something that actually feels fresh in an extremely saturated genre television landscape. And all that is aside from the fact that this is Stranger Things’ fourth season; a lot of shows don’t bother to innovate this far into their runs.

But let’s talk about that extravagant budget I just mentioned. Every episode of Stranger Things 4 cost $30 million to make, which felt totally outrageous when I first heard about it, but the more I think about it, the more it feels reasonable…if you think of each episode as a short movie. A film made for $30 million would be considered to have a relatively low budget; that’s just higher than Everything Everywhere All At Once, which was made on a budget of $25 million. For nine episodes, that budget becomes around $270 million total, which is insane for a season of television…but is around $30 million less than Marvel spent to make Avengers: Infinity War. Stranger Things is Netflix’s biggest property; is it any surprise they’re willing to sink a comparable amount of money into it?

I’m not saying Stranger Things 4 will necessarily reinvent TV; there are a lot of factors that allowed the show to get to this point. But it has truly contributed something new to television history with its unique formatting this season, something that I could absolutely imagine other television productions trying to copy down the line. Season 4 is, predictably, a massive hit. When Hollywood sees successful things, it’s all but inevitable that others will try and replicate that success.

Stranger Things was already firmly entrenched in popular culture, but season 4 feels like it elevates the series to legendary status. It also makes the upcoming fifth and final season even more exciting…because who knows where the show will go next if season 4 is already this epic?

The first seven episodes of Stranger Things 4 are available now on Netflix. The final two episodes, including the two-and-a-half hour long finale, arrive on July 1.

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