Why Stranger Things' movie-length season finale doesn't work

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https://www.popbuzz.com/tv-film/stra...untime-length/

When the runtime for the final episode was announced on Twitter, some people criticized the whole thing, complaining that TV shows shouldn't be a long as movies and that quality was more important than quantity.

In an interview with Variety, Matt and Ross Duffer spoke about the length of the episodes, explaining that the way in which the episodes are written mean that it was impossible to break it up.

"We looked at the final episode 'cause it's so long. There really wasn't a good spot to break it," Ross explained. "So it's like, why, at the end of the day, you know, if someone wants to pause it, they can."

He continued: "Even to do sound and editing, we had to break it into reels. Reel 1 is build up/dread, reel 2 is action/chaos, and then reel 3 is our traditional come down. You didn't really wanna break it after just the build up, it wouldn't feel like a satisfying episode. So, at some point we just said, 'Well... it's just a mega episode.'"

Official finale runtime: 2 hours and 19 minutes

— stranger writers (@strangerwriters) June 3, 2022

Speaking further about the length of the other episodes in the season – all around 75 minutes long – the brothers explained how they ended up leaning into the oversized runtimes.

"To me it wasn't about length, it was about pace," Matt explained. "Ross and I stay very focused on pacing and making sure that pacing is working. And then the length, the fact that we could say it's supersized – we were worried about fans were getting really irritated at the length between seasons. And so we're able to go, 'Yeah, it's been a long time because the episodes are extra long.' You're almost getting two seasons."

He continued: "You look at one of the episodes, like, you couldn't cut it out 15 minutes early. Structurally we have this year, I think it was four major storylines. And they each have three or four beats per episode. So they're all building toward a specific point."

There you have it. And I don't know about you but with confirmation that Stranger Things is ending with season 5, I'll take as many super-sized episodes as they're offering. A 3-hour series finale? Give it to me.

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Was Stranger Things' Two-Plus Hour Season 4 Finale a Good Idea? It Depends

Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) knew what he was talking about in more ways than one.

As the battle with the big bad of Stranger Things 4 reached its endgame, and the fourth season’s myriad storylines finally coalesced into one thread, Vecna told a super-powered Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), “This is only the beginning, the beginning of the end.” Sure, he was probably referring to the apocalyptic chaos to come in the real-world version of Hawkins. But he might as well have been talking about the massive season finale itself, as there was almost a regular length episode’s worth of runtime left to come once the battle started wrapping up.

We’d heard for months that the episodes in Season 4 would make the previous run seem brief in comparison, and it did not disappoint on that front. Every episode clocked in at over an hour, with most episodes averaging around 1 hour and 20 minutes in length. But even those seem short in comparison to the season finale, “The Piggyback,” which clocks in at a hefty 2 hours and 22 minutes.

For the sake of comparison, the Season 4 finale is longer than most feature films, including hits like Mad Max: Fury Road, The Social Network, and Looper. To be clear, those aren’t simple movies—and they still told their stories in a shorter span than the latest Stranger Things finale. It pushed past those and came closer to something like a Marvel Studios tentpole. It’s pretty much the same length as the first Avengers film, and mercilessly clocks in just a bit shorter than Avengers: Infinity War.

But the real question is, does it work? Was it worth it to produce a season finale longer than most films? There’s no easy answer, though your mileage will vary based on how much you love Stranger Things and how much you trust the auteur concept when it comes to the craft of TV and filmmaking.