'Stranger Things': Netflix Addresses Potential Future Shift to Weekly Release
"For the fans of Stranger Things, this is how they've been watching that show, and I think to change that on them would be disappointing."
- Best New Journalist 2019 Australian IT Journalism Awards
For the first time, Stranger Things episodes dropped in two batches.
Many viewers might have been confused by Netflix 's Stranger Things season 4 episode release schedule. The first seven episodes are available now, all dropping at the end of May. Yet, the final two episodes, rumored to be movie-length, are scheduled to be released on July 1, a month later.
Could this be the future for Netflix and Stranger Things release schedules? Thankfully, the answer to that appears to be no. In a panel moderated by Variety, Netflix's head of scripted series for the US and Canada confirmed weekly episode releases wouldn't be the way forward for the fifth and final season of the show.
"For the fans of Stranger Things, this is how they've been watching that show, and I think to change that on them would be disappointing," Peter Friedlander said on Tuesday.
"To not give them exactly what they've been expecting -- which is Stranger Things is a seasonal experience, they go through that with them -- I think that it would be an abrupt change for the member," he said.
Friedlander said the binge model will likely remain in place.
"We fundamentally believe that we want to give our members the choice in how they view," Friedlander said. "And so giving them that option on these scripted series to watch as much as they want to watch when they watch it, is still fundamental to what we want to provide. And so when you see something like a batched season with Stranger Things, this is our attempt at making sure we can get shows out quicker to the members."
Friedlander referenced Ozark, which also saw its fourth and final season drop in two batches -- the first seven episodes arrived in January, the final seven at the end of April.
"That's what you see [with Stranger Things], and that's what you see with Ozark. So we have had some experimentation in that space. But it's also, you're giving multiple-episodic-viewing experiences, it isn't a standalone. So it really does, what we think, honors our relationship with our members and what their expectations are. There have been other types of launch cadences, but that's connected to an unscripted approach or a competition approach."
