Why Stranger Things' Season 4's Episode Lengths Could Be A Major Problem

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With the announcement that many of Stranger Things season 4's episodes will be longer than the average movie, it seems like audiences are in store for too much of a good thing. There will undoubtedly be many people who will happily accept as much new Stranger Things content as they can get, due to season 4 releasing three whole years after season 3. That's an extremely long time to wait to find out what's next for the denizens of Hawkins, Indiana. That said, drastically elongating the show's format may actually detract from what has previously made it so successful.

Stranger Things season 4's decision to craft longer feature-length episodes has already caused controversy, with many asserting that if they wanted to watch movies, they would watch movies. Stranger Things season 4 furthers a trend that's become common with streaming originals, with Netflix especially being guilty of inflated episode runtimes with shows like House of Cards and Black Mirror. On the one hand, the idea that an episode can be as long or short as its creator feels is right is good in theory. On the other, crafting something lean and fast-paced can be a great thing too.

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While Stranger Things season 4 could certainly turn out to be a masterpiece deserving of epic length, if it's anything less than that, those 1.5 to 2.5-hour runtimes may well outstay their welcome. For example, there's every possibility that longer episodes become side stories akin to the much-maligned season 2 episode «The Lost Sister». Such an outcome would likely be met with groans of annoyance from many Netflix subscribers. The fact that Stranger Things season 4's nine episodes run 13 hours in length