It took a long time to get there, but a release date was finally revealed a while back for the final season of Stranger Things, arguably the biggest upcoming Netflix show that we know about. Better late than never, though there's been no shortage of jokes that several of the "kids" of the show have been full-blown adults for a while now, a consequence of taking nearly a decade to finish a series. While not everyone has a problem with that, there are some vocal netizens who do, including fans of The Orville.
Stranger Things will end alongside 2025 as a whole after taking nearly a decade to bring the spooky and twisty series to its conclusion. As a user on X pointed out, however, that time frame has not resulted in a ton of episodes. In fact, it's far less than one might expect, if we weren't already painfully aware of how little content we've seen from the series over the years. For those who don't remember, take a look:
34 episodes in nine years is why this era of television sucks. https://t.co/sX6tNTb3VQJuly 15, 2025
To immediately clarify: a fair amount of pushback followed this response in the replies, perhaps by those who were more spellbound than others by the massive Season 5 trailer. So the fandom isn't in danger or dissoving or anything.
That said, I wouldn't point to the above complaint as a hot take either, because there was no shortage of tweets supporting this stance, and readers frustrated that they've only seen a relative handful of episodes with their Netflix subscription, as opposed to a more consistent release schedule:
- The time between seasons is the worst part. I forget a lot of what happened between seasons - @terifcus
- don't even remember what happened - @vladdwavy
- Absolutely awful. I don’t mind high quality and a lower number of episodes, but waiting 3+ years between each season? Come on. They use to crank out 22 episodes in a year with ANOTHER season starting the next year. Surely with good planning they can do 6 - 8 episodes a year - @JoshAquilaDev
- Can you imagine the show 24 today? It would have to be called 6. Besides, between "days," Jack Bauer would age two or three years. - @NeurusC
- It all went downhill once the 10 episodes per season thing took over - @germankontakt
Fans of The Orville were definitely present in the comments, too, noting Stranger Things isn't the only show on streaming to take a long time to release episodes. Fans are still waiting on confirmation or denial that Season 4 is happening, and Alex Hollings explained how frustrating that is for fans:
There was a year between seasons 1 & 2 of The Orville then over 3 years between seasons 2 & 3 and now it's been almost 3 years again since season 3 and they're still in early production for season 4. Only 36 episodes in 8 years so far.
As someone still trying to make heads or tails of every star's opinion on whether The Orville Season 4 is happening, it's a pain I know all too well. It's undeniable that we've gotten some quality shows with much higher budgets than we would've gotten in the traditional days of television. That said, there has to be a middle ground where we can still get quality shows with a somewhat reasonable timeline for release, right?
Catch the beginning of the end of Stranger Things on Netflix beginning on November 26th. CinemaBlend has the full release schedule for the final season for those having trouble keeping it straight, and our staff will be so excited to see this fun series finally come to a close.
