Stranger Things official season 5 poster
Prestige Online
Why We’re Shocked They’re Not Kids Anymore: Unravelling the Challenges of Nostalgia and the Illusion of Time with Stranger Things.
DECEMBER 1, 2025
Jim Hopper - “I don't want things to change. So I think maybe that's why I came in here, to try and stop that change. To turn back the clock. To make things go back to how they were” (Stranger Things 1:08:30).
On July 15, 2016, the first season of the hit series Stranger Things premiered on Netflix. Almost nine and a half years later, the final season began on November 26, 2025. Due to delays caused by the pandemic, the SAG-AFTRA strike, and the Writers Guild of America strike, this five-part story has been extended by 10 years.
Actors who were once the right age for their characters no longer are. Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas Sinclair) was 14 playing a 12-year-old during season one. When season five was filmed, he was 22, turning 23, playing a 16-year-old.
Junior Yashvi Singh pointed out, “The characters started the show in 7th grade, and they’re in junior year now, and I remember that season four came out when we were in seventh grade, and now we’re in junior year.”
The Duffer Brothers, creators of the show, told their story in Stranger Things season five as eight blockbuster movies. Each episode has story arcs that start and end in that same episode. The episode runtimes range from 54 minutes to over 2 hours. These hour-long episodes took an entire calendar year to film.
With all the strange things that happened in this show, the CGI and VFX are a large part of the process. This season, the Demogorgons are now entirely computer-generated. For the flashback to Will in the Upside Down in 1983, the VFX team had one of the biggest challenges in filmmaking: de-aging.
Many claim that long gaps in between seasons ruin television as a whole. Events that caused production delays, among other factors, have shifted the industry: year-long breaks are now the rule rather than the exception.
For instance, the Netflix show Wednesday aired season one in 2022, and season two was released in 2025, with a 3 years gap. Additionally, Ginny & Georgia also had long gaps within seasons; the first was released in 2021, the second was released in 2023, and the third was released in 2025. Diesel La Torraca (Austin) was about 8-9 years old when he filmed season one, and 10-11 in season two, and he will be 14 in season three. This is an issue because Austin is supposed to be solely 9-10 years old in the last season, but instead, he is undergoing puberty. Shows like these put a huge toll on the child actor industry; it can lead to psychological and emotional stress, and even an identity crisis.
As the child actors have grown older on Stranger Things, so have the kids who watched this show since the beginning. Junior Amber Chawla said, “I think it came out when I was second or third grade, and I've watched the show grow, and I've watched myself grow, and it’s magnificent."
The complexity of shows has grown immensely; in turn, the gaps between seasons have grown. This could harm the show due to aging actors or loss of interest, or could result in a very well-crafted season.
