Stranger Things Final Season Won’t Shift to Weekly Releases

The first seven episodes of Stranger Things 4 arrived on Netflix at the end of May and immediately started smashing records for the streaming service. The season is already one of the most-watched Netflix TV seasons in history, as fans have been quickly binging the new episodes in anticipation for the final two episodes on July 1st. The success has some fans wondering if Netflix will consider switching to a weekly release model for its upcoming fifth and final season. That won’t be the case.

Peter Friedlander, Netflix’s head of scripted series for U.S. and Canada, said on Tuesday that the release model won’t be changing for Stranger Things. He didn’t rule out potential shifts for new shows, but stated that Stranger Things has been a binge series from the start, so it would be unfair to the fans to change it now.

“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,” Friedlander told Variety during a panel 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.”

Friedlander went on to say that Netflix’s binge model allows subscribers to decide how they want to watch a show. They can binge it all at once or watch the episodes on their own time.

“We fundamentally believe that we want to give our members the choice in how they view,” he 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.”

Stranger Things is one of the most popular shows ever released by Netflix, and it could definitely see even more engagement if released on a weekly basis like the Marvel and Star Wars shows on Disney+. But that has never been Netflix’s approach to original releases.

What did you think of Stranger Things 4? Let us know in the comments!