Horror legend Stephen King criticized the Netflix mega-hit Stranger Things season 4 for being split across two release dates, but the author missed a key aspect of the release strategy. Stranger Things season 4 finally arrived after an almost three-year wait and soon earned the approval of horror legend Stephen King, who raved about the season on Twitter. However, in the same tweet, the outspoken author took issue with the season being released in two parts, calling the choice “kind of lame.”
Stranger Things had not attempted a split release strategy before season 4, with each earlier season of the series being released on one day. While Stranger Things season 4 fixed many mistakes from earlier outings of the show, King is not alone in taking umbrage at this unconventional release strategy. However, this common complaint ignores an important benefit of splitting season 4 and obscures the real issue with how the fourth Stranger Things volume was released.
While it is undeniably frustrating that viewers have to wait weeks for the final two episodes of Stranger Things season 4, Stephen King is wrong to call the release strategy itself "lame." The massively increased length of individual episodes (with episode 7 alone running 1 hour 40 mines) makes it reasonable to split season 4 across two release dates. This sheer duration alone would have made releasing all 9 episodes at once a terrible idea, and releasing them weekly would have been a radical departure for the show. However, the series should have split at the end of Stranger Things outing "Dear Billy" (season 4, episode 4) where there is a clear narrative break and a cliffhanger ending.
Releasing seven episodes and holding back only two (instead of a more even four and five split) is the real reason that the show's delayed release feels less effective since most of the season’s big twists have already been revealed. Viewers now know who Vecna is, what his connection to Eleven is, whether Murray and Joyce make it to Hopper’s isolated Siberian prison, and what Brenner’s plan for Eleven is. All of these would have remained a mystery for the weeks between release dates had Stranger Things season 4 been split more economically, not to mention the fact that viewers would have more time to focus on the first four episodes of the season.
The opening episodes of Stranger Things season 4 gained Fear Street’s dark edge, killing off new characters with aplomb and introducing a disturbing villain while balancing numerous subplots surprisingly well. In contrast, the season’s later episodes fell victim to common pacing problems for ambitious television shows, with episode 7 somehow having no time for Jonathan, Will, and Mike’s subplot despite its lengthy runtime. This issue would have been a lot less noticeable if these later episodes were released alongside the finale and viewers could barrel through them to get to the dramatic ending, ignoring plot holes and inconsistencies thanks to the increasing tension of the story. Instead, Stranger Things invited viewers to take issue with the show’s messy pacing by sticking a multiple-week hiatus before the last two episodes instead of splitting the season evenly. These problems, however, were more due to the position of the split, rather than the fact there was a split at all.