For some people, the indicator of a great show is its bingeability. To sit down and do nothing other than fully immerse themselves in a show is what makes it worth recommending.
Nowadays, that luxury has been taken away from the people because shows started releasing new seasons in parts, spread over either days, weeks, or even a month apart.
Netflix was known for dropping all the episodes of a season at the same time, unlike other streaming services at the time; however, now almost every service follows the same schedule.
On Deadline, Netflix’s Chief Content Officer, Bela Bajaria, commented on the origin of the split seasons.
She stated that this style of release started during the pandemic because of the many writers’ strikes at the time. With the countless strikes, it took the working writers longer to finalize season episodes.
Bajaria added that the release of certain shows had very driven writers who had storytelling-related reasons for the episodes, such as the case with Bridgerton.
Bridgerton is currently in the process of releasing its fourth season. The first four episodes came out on Jan. 29, 2026; however, the second half of the season is set to come out nearly a month later on Feb. 26.
The show’s first two seasons had all their respective episodes released on the same day, and started the trend of splitting the season with the third season.
According to Variety.com, season three is the most-watched season and the highest-performing, setting a record for the show with 45.1 million viewers during the first weekend. Season four received 39.7 million views within the first four days.
Payton Pankowski, ’27, strongly believes that a season being split into two parts makes the season become disconnected and takes away from her overall excitement of a new season coming out.
Stranger Things, a horror show that took the world by storm, just released its fifth and final season at the end of last year in two separate parts.
This trend for the show started with its fourth season, which coincidentally happens to be the third most popular English-language TV show on Netflix of all time, grabbing the attention of 140 million viewers.
Adam Fritz, ’28, commented, “I think splitting a season into two parts helps build suspense and makes people want to come back for more. I know if I’m left wanting to know what’s next, I’m sure to come back and be more excited than ever.”
The release of episodes does not always depend on the writers and producers. Streaming platforms are also enjoying the benefits of stretching out new seasons.
Services want to keep their customers entertained and subscribed to their businesses for as long as possible.
If popular shows do not release their new seasons in one day for the masses to binge them within a couple of days, they can depend on loyal viewers to keep paying for the service until they completely finish watching the show.
As people do, they find loopholes and ways around unnecessary problems like paying for a longer period of time for streaming services, such as paying only when the last parts of the season come out.
This method of releasing new episodes has mixed feelings about it for sure, but positive or negative, it’s certain that streaming services will keep doing it in the future.