If you look at the cast of Netflix’s Stranger Things, you can easily see how many years have passed since the show first premiered. Most of the young stars were preteens and now they qualify for AARP. But, sure, it’s easy to sit here and make fun of the Duffer Bros. and Netflix for taking way (way, way) too long to wrap up its most popular series, however, it’s way more fun to point out what other series fit their entire runs within the timeframe of Stranger Things.
Stranger Things premiered July of 2026. By time it drops its very final episode, it will be December 31, 2025. That’s 9 years, 5 months, 17 days. Across its five seasons, that will amount to only 42 episodes. Yeah, not that much.
Discussing Film made a very handy and visually pleasing list of major TV series that began after Stranger Things and ended before.
Some of these, like Loki and Andor, only had two seasons and a pretty small number of episodes. But others? Others far eclipsed Stranger Things in episode and season count in fewer years. Some of my biggest standouts?
- Riverdale (2017-2023) – 7 seasons, 137 episodes, a series that had multiple time jumps and alternate universes.
- Young Sheldon (2017-2024) – 7 seasons, 141 episodes.
- The Good Doctor (2017-2024) – 7 seasons, 126 episodes.
- This Is Us (2016-2022) – 6 seasons, 106 episodes.
- Cobra Kai (2017-2025) – 6 seasons, 65 episodes.
- What We Do in the Shadows (2019-2024) – 6 seasons, 61 episodes
- Star Trek: Discovery (2017-2021) – 5 seasons, 65 episodes
- You (2018-2024) – 5 seasons, 50 episodes.
- Yellowstone (2018-2024) – 5 seasons, 53 episodes
- The Good Place (2016-2020) – 4 seasons, 53 episodes
Not to mention, shows like The Punisher, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and The Defenders, also on Netflix that all began and ended, were de-canonized, and now partially re-canonized while Stranger Things takes years-long breaks between seasons. I’m not saying all or even any of the above series are better than Stranger Things because they have more episodes, but it’s just fascinating to note, even in the streaming age, how much TV can have full, massive runs while this one show still hasn’t finished.
Stranger Things 5 will drop the first four of its final eight episodes on Thanksgiving.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.
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