It's fitting that Kate Bush was featured prominently in Stranger Things Season 4 because the series is quickly running up the hill that is Netflix's all-time viewership charts. The sci-fi series has once again taken the world by storm and now its massively popular fourth run on the streamer is set to become the most viewed English-language series on the platform. Currently, the show sits with 621.80 million hours viewed in just ten days, putting it well within striking distance of both seasons of Bridgerton, which sit at 625 million hours for Season 1 and 656 million for Season 2.
Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 1 got things off to the best start possible, taking the record from the Shonda Rhimes series for most hours watched in a weekend premiere with a ludicrous 286.79 million hours. Since then, it's held at a very solid pace with 335.01 million hours watched in its first full week with Netflix. With buzz about the series still at a high and 18 days left to rack up more hours viewed, the show should easily cruise past Bridgerton's Season 2 mark soon. In terms of all series, Stranger Things Season 4 is assured second place on the charts, though it's hard to see it ever catching the global juggernaut that was Squid Game and its unfathomable 1.65 billion hours viewed. That isn't to say global success has been a problem for the sci-fi standout as it became the first English series to hit #1 in 91 countries.
Stranger Things has had the benefit of being one of Netflix's flagships for years now and the long buildup towards Season 4 only intensified the hype. To further emphasize the almost hilarious dominance of the franchise right now, the top of last week's Netflix viewership charts were completely gatekept by the series. Seasons 1 through 4 hold the top four spots with only the Manuel Garcia-Rulfo-led drama The Lincoln Lawyer even in the same ballpark in terms of viewership. With the previous seasons coming back into prominence, the entire series combined garnered a whopping 515.8 hours viewed over that same period.
Perhaps most impressive is the continued cultural impact of Stranger Things even as the ever-expanding streaming age diversifies content. The series has never failed to generate widespread interest in its characters and its world, reaching even the biggest celebrities and directly impacting other elements of entertainment. As a byproduct of the series this time around, Bush's 1985 classic "Running Up That Hill" broke into the Billboard Top 10 at number eight, higher than its original peak of 30.
With two more episodes on the way in Volume 2, including an over two-hour, feature-length finale, Stranger Things will have one more shot to pad out its numbers this summer. Volume 1 brought the gang back together once again six months after The Battle of Starcourt to solve a new mystery involving a gruesome new villain. It stars Millie Bobby Brown, Sadie Sink, Caleb McLaughlin, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Gaten Matarazzo, Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Joe Keery, Natalia Dyer, Maya Hawke, and Charlie Heaton along with a number of guests in Priah Ferguson, Matthew Modine, Paul Riser, Jamie Campbell Bower, Joseph Quinn, Eduardo Franco, Gabriella Pizzolo, and Cara Buono.
Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 2 releases on July 1.