When “Stranger Things” returns this month, it won’t just be closing out a story. It will be concluding a three-year gap since its last season — and an even longer stretch since the one before that, a hiatus that seems particularly long in the current streaming era where new content is always available and attention moves faster than ever. Such large-scale shows simply take time. A studio cannot make a production like “Stranger Things” annually, not when it involves complicated visual effects, stunt work, character design and the coordination of an entire cast and crew while at the same time dealing with scheduling conflicts, post-production and delays caused by strikes or any other unforeseen setbacks. The production realities do not allow for a season every year even if the viewers wish so.

The longer intervals between seasons can be a blessing in disguise. They provide the creators with the opportunity to produce something intentional and refined, to make a season seem like it was worth the waiting time instead of being rushed or half-done. Season 4 in 2022 was a great demonstration of this; it not only reached the top of Netflix charts, but, additionally, according to Variety, had more than a billion hours of viewing time, thus disproving the notion that anticipation weakens a show’s impact and can even be a source of momentum for its return.

However, long breaks don’t come without setbacks. Due to the continuous emergence of new shows, audience attention is very volatile, and even the most popular series can become strangers to the viewers after a few years. The 2023 Nielsen report states that extended gaps generally result in a decrease of the returning viewers  — the reason for that being that life goes on and the show fades from people’s memory. Furthermore, long pauses highlight the effect of time on the show itself; the children who were on the same age level as the audience have grown up, and the characters suddenly appear older, more mature or even slightly different, which can lead to the feeling of less continuity and difficulty in connecting with the story.

The method of shorter release cycles also brings about its own issues. I reached this inference through my personal experience with shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Gilmore Girls,” where the later seasons became so packed with episodes that they were simply overwhelming, and the storylines were so intertwined that it was difficult to distinguish one from another. Therefore, no anticipation or reflection could take place. Thanks to streaming services such as Netflix, it has never been so easy to watch an entire season over the weekend, which definitely has its advantages, but can also rise to a new type of impatience, one in which viewers used to immediate access and binge will find the waiting time for the next season much longer and may lose interest if the storyline does not captivate them.

There is no flawless method to this. On one hand, long breaks provide room for enhancing production quality, but on the other hand, they also risk losing viewers; whereas short breaks can keep a show alive in people’s minds, they might also cause an overload of the audience or the flattening of the plot. In addition to this, the timing is often not fully up to the creators’ as doing a large-scale series simply takes time and can’t be rushed if the result is to be something of value.

The timing of a show’s return shapes the entire viewing experience: the extent to which the viewers feel connected to the story, the amount of talking they do about it and whether they feel the urge to rewatch it when the next season is out.

The closing season of “Stranger Things” will be the final answer to a question of almost every big-series dilemma in today’s streaming world: how much time is too much time? There might never be a perfect balance, especially when the production realities are often at odds with the audience’s expectations. The conclusion is that timing has become one of the essentials of storytelling, and in an environment where seasons may disappear for years, the time between episodes can have just as much effect on a show as the story ​‍​‌‍​‍‌​‍​‌‍​‍‌itself.

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Devyn Hansen at [email protected].