The fifth and final season of Stranger Things, a show which started almost ten years ago, is set
to release at the end of this year, after a three year long wait since season four. The actors are
getting older, episodes are getting longer, and the story is becoming increasingly overblown.
Expected to generate well over $2 billion in revenue for Netflix by its close, Stranger Things has
had an undeniable impact on the world of streaming. Its final season boasts a budget of almost
half a million dollars.
Back in 2016, when Stranger Things first released, the landscape of TV looked very different to
how it does now: streaming was in its beginning stages of industry domination, and aside from
big hitters such as Game of Thrones, popular shows encompassed a much smaller scale.
During TVâs conception, the medium had to differentiate itself from film, thus becoming a
serialised form that had no linear story or chronology, and it remained this way for the entirety of
the 20th century – it was easy to dip in and out of classics like Friends or even UK soaps like
Eastenders. Now, it seems the TV landscape is dominated by âelevatedâ stories, with shows like
Severance and Succession sweeping awards seasons. These feature shorter runtimes, with
seasons not usually exceeding 10 episodes. Episode lengths range wildly from 30 minutes to 2
hours, even within the same show, not having rigid cable slots to work with.
The end of the 2010s brought about the death of network TV. The era of the sitcom dwindled,
with the last season of Brooklyn-99 releasing in 2021, and The Good Place finishing in 2020,
each with limited seasons of around 13 episodes. Any sitcoms that have released since then,
such as The Paper or Adults do not exceed 8 half an hour episodes, and teeter on the edge of
cancellation. Teen television, too, has fallen out of fashion. Pretty Little Liars and The Vampire
Diaries were known for their long, convoluted plots and plethora of filler episodes that simply
wouldnât be allowed to exist today.
So how is Stranger Things relevant? Itâs not the first show to have long episodes and short
seasons â BBC Sherlock ended the year after Stranger Things began, and UK TV has long
taken years to produce just a few episodes. But Stranger Things encapsulates a shift in the
medium, the so-called âfilm-ificationâ of TV. The Duffer Brothers, showrunners of Stranger
Things, are no strangers to cinema, originally wanting to become filmmakers. Their cited
inspirations are rarely rooted in the TV medium, the exceptions being Dawsonâs Creek and
Eyewitness. Otherwise, itâs classic 80s horror films and John Hughes movies that permeate the
visual language of the show. In promotional material for season 5, the Duffer Brothers have said
that they aimed for each episode to âfeel like a movieâ, with each season acting as a sequel film
to the previous one, hence the unconventional naming of âStranger Things 5â â itâs as if the entire
season is one 8+ hour cinematic experience. With its success skyrocketing Netflixâs dominance
over streaming, itâs undeniable that other shows would follow suit in style. Just one year after
Stranger Thingsâ debut, Netflix brought out Dark, a similarly structured show. The 2020s seem to
be the decade of high budgets, complex story arcs, and large stretches of time between season
releases.
Personally, I donât think this is necessarily detrimental. The film medium started out as silent
shorts, then grew into something bigger than this â TV follows the same progression. Art is not
static. And The Simpsons will always be there to rewatch if you want to turn your brain off for a
bit. The streaming empire brings many issues â financial barriers, reinventing cable TV with
additions of advertising, and cancel-happy executives â but an increase in high concept
television and film-like visuals are not inherently damaging. Still, it would be nice to see a few
24-episode sitcoms thrive in the upcoming years.