Netflix is famous for dumping every episode of a new season of television onto the service at once, so people can binge it straight through. When they first started doing this, some assumed that this new model would become the only model for streaming services. Why release episodes once per week when we could just watch everything in one go?
Well, it’s because releasing episodes weekly has some advantages. Just look at how big shows like House of the Dragon or The Last of Us dominated the conversation when new episodes were coming out once per week on HBO Max. It’s harder for a Netflix show like Stranger Things to keep up that level of sustained chatter when all the episodes drop as one.
Lately, Netflix has been pivoting a bit. The latest season of Stranger Things came out in two chunks of episodes separated by about a month, which gave people time to watch, chat and theorize. Now, they’re released the first five episodes of The Witcher season 3, and are holding back the final three until July 27.
The Witcher season 3 is split in two because they wanted to create a cliffhanger
I didn’t choose the Stranger Things example idly. Apparently, the decision to split up Stranger Things season 4 into two chunks directly inspired The Witcher team. “That came up during the edit,” executive producer Steve Gaub told The Verge. “That wasn’t written into the script; it wasn’t known when we were shooting. However, we did know what the season was, and there is a significant pivot point. And whilst we were in production, Stranger Things had come out, and they had split their season. And it was like, ‘well, that’s intriguing.’”
"In a streaming world, cliffhangers don’t really exist because you’re hitting play [right after an episode ends]. You don’t get that satisfaction of the anticipation and discussion and chatting online. So we wanted to give that to the fans, and the story was there for us to do it."
It’s true that the fifth episode of The Witcher season 3 ends on a big cliffhanger. Will that make fans more excited to see the rest, or irritated that they can’t watch it right now? That’s a risk Netflix is willing to take.
Stranger Things inspired The Witcher season 3 release schedule
We can probably expect to see more of this kind of thing going forward. It sounds like The Witcher producer Tomek Baginski is already mulling it over for the show’s forthcoming fourth season.
“Every season, every episode, we learn something new,” Baginski said. “We learn a little bit more about the characters, the Continent, what works and what doesn’t work, also on a purely technical level. We are using all of those lessons in season 4, and there are several amazing cliffhangers there, so who knows? It’s an option, but it’s not decided yet.”
Maybe this is just because I watch a lot of different TV shows, but I personally like when episodes come out one at a time. It’s tricky for Netflix, though, because they built their brand on releasing everything at once. Good luck navigating that thorn tangle.
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.
Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels