Rumors about when Stranger Things Season 5 will air are greatly exaggerated.
Ross Duffer, who co-created the Netflix hit with his brother Matt Duffer, revealed the length of the first four episodes of the show’s final season on his Instagram account on Monday. The season 5 premiere, “The Crawl,” airs for 1 hour and 8 minutes. Episode 2 (title not yet fully revealed) is 54 minutes long. Episode 3, “The Turnbow Trap” is 1 hour and 6 minutes. Episode 4, “Sorcerer,” is 1 hour and 23 minutes.
The post refutes a viral social media post claiming that each episode of Season 5 will be at least 90 minutes long, as well as an October 6 Pac News report that each episode will be “90 minutes to two hours long.”
“Stranger Things” Season 4 has been significantly expanded since it first aired in 2016, when nearly every episode was under an hour. All but one episode were over 70 minutes, and the last three episodes were all full-length, with the finale running 2 hours and 22 minutes.
Netflix is splitting Season 5 of the show into three separate releases, with the first four episodes premiering on November 26 during the Thanksgiving holiday, with “Sorcerer” serving as the midseason finale. The next three episodes will premiere on Christmas, with the final episode, “The Rightside Up,” premiering on New Year’s Eve. Along with the Duffer brothers, the episode was directed by executive producer Shawn Levy and filmmaker Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption). The entire cast will return for the final season, including Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, Sadie Sink, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, and Maya Hawke.
