Stranger Things Season 4 is by far the Netflix series’ most epic outing yet — in run time, anyway. Compared to earlier seasons, the fourth season ended with not one, but two feature-length episodes, with Chapter 9 clocking in at almost 2 and a half hours. While details of Season 5 remain a closely guarded secret, The Duffer Brothers have now revealed that the final series of Stranger Things will be shorter than season 4. Speaking with Collider, Matt Duffer said:

"We thought Season 4 was going to be eight [episodes], and they were going to be regular length. So if you had interviewed us before four, that's what I would've said. I think we're aiming for eight again. We don't want it to be 13 hours. We're aiming for more like 10 hours or something. I think it's going to be longer than Season 1 because we just have so much to wrap up, but I don't think it's going to be as long as Season 4."

Considering that Stranger Things Season 5 will be the last for Eleven and the Hawkins gang, many fans will no doubt expect the series to be just as long, if not longer, than season 4. But Ross Duffer has explained why that does not need to be the case.

"This season, for instance, it was two hours before our characters even realized the monster was killing people in Hawkins. They know what the threat is now, and so that will help speed it up.”

So, now that Season 4 has provided all the warm-up, Stranger Things Season 5 can start with a sprint as the gang once again come together to save Hawkins from The Upside Down.

The Duffer Brothers Will Get to Work on Season 5 Next Month

Details of Season 5 remain a mystery, but The Duffer Brothers have now revealed when they plan to get started on writing the final series of Stranger Things. “We're going to take a little vacation in July, and then we're going to come back,” the siblings revealed recently. “I know that the writer's room is going to start in that first week of August.”

Stranger Things Season 4 picks up around six months after the events of season 3. Struggling with the aftermath, our group of friends is separated for the first time, and during this most vulnerable time, a new and horrifying supernatural threat surfaces. Known as Vecna, the final moments of Season 4 Part 1 reveal the shocking identity of this creature from the Upside Down. He is One, as in the One to Eleven’s number 11, and the first super-powered child ever experimented on by Dr. Martin Brenner.

With revenge on his mind, and the power of The Upside Down at his fingertips, what horrors will Vecna unleash on the town of Hawkins?

Starring a large ensemble cast that includes Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, Sadie Sink, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, Maya Hawke, Priah Ferguson, Brett Gelman, Matthew Modine and Paul Reiser, Stranger Things Season 4 is now available on Netflix in all its feature-length entirety.