The Duffer Brothers Explain The Strange (But Wonderful) Episode Lengths in 'Stranger Things' Season 4
Stranger Things is going to see some shorter episodes in this final installment.
The Stranger Things series has (of course) been a show about just that: the stranger, the unusual, and, of course, the upside-down. Fans of the show have been kept on the edge of their seats for seasons at a time, eager to find answers to the many mysteries of Hawkins.
Yet, one of the strangest things about Stranger Things season four has been the structure of the episodes. Several of the episodes in the latest installment ran at or around eighty minutes in length, with the finale of the season being around two hours.
This is certainly longer than any television show. Stranger Things season for is more like a collection of films about Hawkins.
We are not mad: the episodes have been fantastic! On the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Duffer Brothers have explained the reason for the length of those currently running and why the upcoming season will have episodes of a shorter length. Matt Duffer shared:
"The only reason we don't expect to be as long is because typically - or this season, if you look at it, it's almost a two-hour ramp up before our kids really get drawn into a supernatural mystery. You get to know them, you get to see them in their lives, they're struggling with adapting to high school and so forth. Steve's trying to find a date, all of that..."
"None of that is obviously going to be occurring in the first two episodes...For the first time ever, we don't wrap things up at the end of four."
In regards to season five, he continued, saying, "it's going to be moving fast," considering the characters will already be mid-conflict when the show begins.
We can't wait for season five of Stranger Things.
