Stranger Things 5 crashed Netflix, but don’t worry, it’s fine now
The premiere of the beloved sci-fi show sent the Netflix streaming service to the Upside Down. Thankfully our heroes were back within five minutes
It’s by far the most anticipated Netflix release of 2025 (or perhaps ever), so if anything was going to crash the streaming service it was going to be the Stranger Things Season 5 premiere
The final season of the sci-fi spectacular that has captivated audiences for a decade dropped on Wednesday night and the sheer number of expectant viewers – settling into visit Hawkins, Indiana, for the last time – turned the streaming service upside down.
On the indicative Down Detector website, the reports peaked at 14,290. Thankfully, the outage only lasted a few minutes and Netflix was able to return subscribers to the action.
In a post on Instagram prior to the initial four episode drop series co-creator Ross Duffer said: “Netflix increased bandwidth by 30 per cent to avoid a crash” but unfortunately the fingers crossed and prayer hands emojis didn’t do the trick. After the crash, he reposted a story from Pop Base about the incident Duffer simply commented “Love you guys”.
Netflix acknowledged the brief outage in an email to Reuters. The company wrote: “Some members briefly experienced an issue streaming on TV devices, but service recovered for all accounts within five minutes.”
This isn’t the first time Netflix has come a cropper, but as far as I can remember, it has never happened before during a non-live streamed event. The Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson ‘fight’ (don’t get me started about what an absolute farce the YouTuber’s bout with Anthony Joshua will be) and the Love Is Blind reality show. But for a recorded show? Wow. We look forward to seeing some stats from Netflix about just how many folks tuned in.
Chris Smith
