Stranger Things Renewed For Season 3

Netflix is returning to the Upside Down.

The streaming giant has renewed the Duffer brothers’ breakout hit Stranger Things for a third season. A return date has not yet been determined for the supernatural drama about the happenings brimming beneath the surface of a small American town.

While Netflix — like fellow streamers Amazon and Hulu — does not release viewership information, measurement leader Nielsen cited an audience of 15.8 million viewers who watched the season two premiere within three days of its launch. (And nearly 11 million of them were among the key adults 18-49 demographic.)

Nielsen also found that 361,000 Netflix subscribers streamed the entire nine-episode second season within 24 hours of its debut. (Netflix declined comment on the Nielsen findings.) Stranger Things 2 also was crowned the most popular show in the country, according to data company Parrot Analytics. – Hollywood Reporter

This was always a given, but Stranger Things has been renewed by Netflix for a third season. Similar to Mindhunter’s renewal, you knew it was coming, but it’s still nice to have confirmation. As the Hollywood Reporter article mentions, Stranger Things is an enormous hit bordering on a phenomenon. 361,000 people streamed the second season within 24 hours, which is kind of amazing. I watched it all in the same week, but doing that much damage in a 24 hour period is borderline psychotic.

The biggest issue with shows featuring such a young cast is how certain cast member will age between seasons. It seems the Duffer Brothers are solving that problem by featuring a time jump. When asked where season 3 would pick up, they responded “You can’t start right after season two ended. It forces you to do a time jump. But what I like is that it makes you evolve the show. It forces the show to evolve and change, because the kids are changing”. It’ll be interesting to see how far of a time jump they utilize and how much of the friendships from season 2 are still featured. If Steve and Dustin aren’t the best friends in the universe, I’m officially rooting for the Mind Flayer.

-Ryan