When the Duffer Brothers officially announced that the hugely anticipated fourth season of Stranger Things would be arriving at the end of May, they promised that this would be the biggest season ever. However, the number of episodes is pretty standard, which meant there would have to be some pretty long episodes to make the claim that the season was “twice the size of any other” accurate. As Netflix has now revealed the run time of new episodes, it is clear to see that the Duffer Brothers were not lying about how epic this new season is going to be.

When all is said and done, Stranger Things season 4 will clock in around 5 hours longer than its previous seasons, making this almost like two seasons all in one. The first volume of episodes releases on May 27, the same day that Disney+ drops the first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the episodes will consist of the first seven episodes of the season, leaving just two additional episodes to be released on July 1. However, it once again is the run times that tell the real story, as while the first six episodes all clock in around 75 minutes each, episode 7 is 98 minutes, episode 8 is 85 minutes and the final episode is an insane 150 minutes long – around three times the length of regular episodes from past seasons, which gives some idea of where the reported $30 million per episode was spent.

Related: Stranger Things Cast: Character Guide and Descriptions

Stranger Things 4 Is Bigger, But Will It Be Better?

strangerthings4
Netflix

Across its 9 episodes, the new season of Stranger Things comes in at around 13 hours long, and that is a lot of ground to cover for a show that usually delivers around 8 hours of content. When the Duffer Brothers made the announcement that Stranger Things 4 was finally ready to release, they made it clear that as well as the Covid pandemic, the sheer scope of the season had caused a number of delays. The question is, will these supersized episodes be able to deliver, or will it prove to be filler over killer?

Over its previous seasons, Stranger Things has been building in scale and horror, and so far the series has not put a foot wrong. We now know that season 4 will be the penultimate season of the show, which suggests that the Duffer Brothers will be really upping the ante as they head towards some kind of final battle in the fifth and final season.

The real question now, as we head into the final week before season 4 kicks off, is can the show maintain its quality when each episode is the length of a movie? Based on past work, yes it can, and with the storyline now split across the world and not just focusing on Hawkins, it is almost like Stranger Things has slipped into Lord of the Rings territory. There are multiple storylines to focus on, new villains to be introduced and a lot of explaining to do, meaning that it’s time to buckle up and prepare for scariest, bloodiest and most epic season of Stranger Things to date.