The fifth season of “Stranger Things” looks set to become the most-watched English-language series of all time on Netflix and could even beat Squid Game in the overall ranking. But when is it actually coming? There’s some news about Stranger Things season 5 release date that’s… less than encouraging.

It was just announced that Stranger Things season 5 has finished filming, the cast said. Good news for sure, but if you look at how long the show’s post-production takes, that means the release date is still very far away and the gap between seasons 4 and 5 will end up being quite large.

• After a COVID delay, Stranger Things season 4 ended in August 2021.
• Stranger Things season 4 aired in May 2022, eight months later. At this point, post-production hadn’t even been completed on the last two episodes, which weren’t released until July.
• If filming is completed now, the release date for season five would be eight months later in August 2025. However, given that this is the show’s biggest season ever and its grand finale, eight months feels generous for post-production . Suppose ten months were October 2025.

The end result will be more than three years between seasons and most likely closer to three and a half years. Even for Netflix, which is used to long gaps between seasons, this pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable, and it’s hard to believe that in this world there used to be a new season of Game of Thrones every year.

But for Netflix’s biggest series, as annoying as that is, there isn’t exactly mountains of evidence that this matters for Netflix’s biggest series. It’s easy to imagine that some series that have the service’s biggest gaps, like Wednesday and Stranger Things, will still pull in incredible numbers. You could almost argue about the delay helps in a way, because it creates anticipation. Still, as a viewer, I hate it, and so do many others, even if so, we’ll still see it in the end.

Very, very few shows these days manage to overcome the 18 month to two year gap between seasons, stretching to 3+ when things are really bad. The bear releases a new season on time every year. Slow Horses does this pretty much every 8-9 months or so with back-to-back filming and immediate renewals. But they are now the exception, not the rule. It’s a shame for those of us who wished Stranger Things would come back two years ago.

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