There's a lot of TV coming out in 2025, including lots of big shows in the sci-fi and fantasy genres. One of the biggest is Stranger Things, which will be airing its fifth and final season something this year.
Or at least that's the plan. The cast and crew wrapped on filming in December, and creators Matt and Ross Duffer are currently hard at work behind the scenes stitching everything together. “Right now, we’re just cutting all the visual effects sequences for the show so they can get started on those, so that they can be running in time for a release,” Matt Duffer told Variety.
Again, season 5 is supposed to release this year, but Matt makes it sound as though it will be a near thing. “A lot of it hasn’t been decided, in terms of exactly the release dates and cadence,” he said. “That’s one reason I’m not allowed to talk about it. We’re getting on a call in about a couple weeks about it. I just know it was very important for us and Netflix that we get it out this year. But even that is quite the push.”
Ross Duffer pitched in that they're “working as fast as we possibly can.” The fourth season of Stranger Things concluded in July of 2022, meaning over three years will have passed by the time new episodes start dropping on Netflix. “Even Season 4, we cut that so tight," Ross added. "We were dropping in visual effects shots the day after the launch! So hopefully we’ll be a little more on schedule this year … now it’s just sort of climbing up another hill as we head towards finally finishing this.”
Based on what fans have dug up, the final-ever episodes of Stranger Things will come in two waves, one around Halloween and the other around Thanksgiving. That's not 100% confirmed, but it sounds believable to me, even if the Duffers' comments above make it sound like a 2025 release isn't a surefire thing. I think Netflix will do everything in its power to get the final season out this year; even for a show as big as Stranger Things, asking fans to wait to 2026 — a four-year wait — is asking too much.
Even a three-year wait is pretty crazy, but for the final season of one of Netflix's most popular and influential series, I think Stranger Things can get away with it, provided the final episodes are as good as they can, and you know that Ross and Matt Duffer will do all they can to make sure they meet that standard.
Last we checked in on Stranger Things, Vecna had punched a whole through reality, leaving our group of small town heroes to fight him. We'll find out how everything resolves later this year...hopefully.
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