Stranger Things co-creator Ross Duffer debunks a rumor concerning the run times for the episodes in the upcoming Season 5. As fans wait for the show’s final season to arrive later this year, there’s been speculation that the episodes are going to be very long. Rumors have purported that all of Season 5’s eight episodes will be feature-length, including some that are over 2 and a half hours long. Before the rumors spread further, Duffer took to social media to shut them down. On his Instagram Stories (via What’s On Netflix), Duffer clearly stated the “leaked” run times are false.
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“Lol not even close to accurate,” Duffer wrote on his post, which also included a table of the alleged Stranger Things Season 5 run times. The longest was the series finale, which was said to clock in at 3 hours. Three others were in the neighborhood of 2 and a half hours. The shortest rumored run time was Episode 3’s 1 hour, 55 minutes.
Stranger Things Season 5 will be released in three separate volumes later this year. The first batch of episodes premiere on November 26th, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Three more episodes will follow on Christmas, and then the finale arrives on New Year’s Eve. Netflix recently released the Stranger Things Season 5 teaser trailer, setting the stage for what should be an action-packed and emotionally charged final season.
In previous seasons, Stranger Things hasn’t shied away from protracted run times. The Season 4 finale was 2 and a half hours. Season 4 also featured an episode that was over 90 minutes in length. The earlier seasons had episodes that typically ran somewhere between 45 minutes to an hour.
With all the character arcs and storylines Stranger Things Season 5 has to wrap up, it stands reason to believe some of the episodes will be lengthy. It wouldn’t be a shock if the series finale was the show’s longest episode, serving as an epic conclusion to the long-running story. However, with eight episodes to play with, there’s no real need to have each one be as long as a movie. Even if some of them are in that 45-60-minute range, the creative team has shown they can craft entertaining and compelling narratives in those blocks of time. Furthermore, shorter episodes that aren’t 2+ hours each will make it easier for people to binge each volume as it comes out. It would be a tough ask to get people to watch 6-8 hours of content at once, but more manageable running times mean fans should be able to fit Stranger Things into their busy holiday schedules.
Duffer saying the rumored run times were “not even close to accurate” indicates that at least some of them could be much shorter than what the speculation claimed. If the alleged run times were close and gave people a rough ballpark figure of what to expect, odds are he wouldn’t have even commented on the rumor. It’s nice to see Duffer took the time to clear things up, allowing this rumor to be put to bed before it gains any additional traction. Hopefully, the actual run times are shared soon so fans can start planning their viewing schedules.
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