The global streaming platform was out for a few minutes on Friday as the final two episodes of Stranger Things Season 4 premiered. According to Downdetector.com, which monitors the uptime and downtimes of websites, the outage started as soon as Volume 2 of Stranger Things Season 4 went live. Several users also complained around this time that they could not access Netflix. Luckily, the streaming giant resolved the issue within 30 minutes, leaving everyone to watch the season finale of the penultimate season of Stranger Things in peace. We’re curious just how this development will affect the viewing numbers of Stranger Things 4. The latest season of the sci-fi horror series already set a Netflix record for most-watched English-language series. It’s also just the second series on Netflix to reach a total of 1 billion hours watched within a month of coming out. We doubt that the two episodes in Season 4 Volume 2 will allow Stranger Things to reach Squid Game’s numbers, but we can’t just dismiss the possibility. Episodes 8 and 9 clock in at nearly four hours of total runtime, with the season finale alone running for some 150 minutes. To put that into context, the second-longest MCU film, the 2018 film, Avengers: Infinity War, lasted for 149 minutes.
— Netflix (@netflix) July 1, 2022 The success of Stranger Things Season 4 has generated some interesting debates about the release schedule of Netflix. Netflix championed the binge-watch-friendly movement, which see the streamer release a show’s entire season in one go as opposed to the usual schedule of weekly releases. However, some argue that this worked best when Netflix was the upstart. Now it’s the platform-to-beat, so Netflix might want to switch things up even if it’s only for shows like Stranger Things. After all, shows like Stranger Things tend to lend themselves to complex mythologies that fans love talking about. Leaving a week or so in between episodes will give audiences the time they need to discuss and digest what just happened. Ultimately, there’s no incentive for Netflix to change anything. After all, why would Netflix bother fixing something that isn’t even broken? With Stranger Things set to end with its fifth season, it’s unlikely that things will change for the series’ final season. But, we are curious if Netflix is open to such a change.
