Stranger Things Season 5 Exposes Netflix’s Achilles’ Heel

Stranger Things is back, and Netflix is doing that thing it does now: drop a chunk, make us wait, drop another chunk, and then save the finale for a big holiday blowout. It works for hype. It also spotlights Netflix's ongoing identity crisis about how TV should roll out.

How Season 5 is being released

• The first four episodes landed on Thanksgiving.
• Three more episodes arrive on Christmas Day (December 25, 2025).
• The series finale hits on New Year's Eve (December 31, 2025).

So yes, three separate dates over five weeks. Festive, but also a little fussy.

We've seen this play before

This isn't brand new for Stranger Things. Season 4 was split too: seven episodes in May 2022, then the last two in July. Netflix has been edging into this staggered-release zone for its biggest titles for a while.

Case in point: Squid Game, the streamer's biggest series, got a two-part Season 2. The first batch premiered in December 2024, and the final six episodes followed in July 2025. Clear goal: stretch the buzz and keep the conversation going.

Netflix's big issue, laid bare

Netflix built its empire on the binge: drop an entire season at once, let people inhale it over a weekend, and ride the word-of-mouth wave. Now it's trying to thread the needle between that and old-school weekly TV. Most shows still come in batches, but the marquee ones get carved into chunks to keep subscribers checking back in.

Does it hurt? Hard to say. Stranger Things Season 4 put up monster numbers, and Squid Game Season 2 did too. From a viewer angle, though, the middle-ground approach can be awkward. The binge model ends the party fast, sure, but this partial-drop method doesn't necessarily fix momentum either. Weekly releases build anticipation and make every episode feel like an event. When you drop an uneven handful at a time, only a couple installments end up feeling like capital-E Events, and juggling multiple release dates just complicates the watch plan.

Will it matter for Stranger Things?

Probably not. This show is bulletproof on Netflix. The real test is whether the split-release strategy actually helps less massive series or just chops up the viewing experience without the payoff. For now, Stranger Things Season 5 gets the holiday victory lap. Whether this model scales for everything else is the question.