Los Angeles, California – Stranger Things has finally returned, but Netflix wasn’t quite ready to handle the fan frenzy that ensued!
After more than three years, the sci-fi TV series dropped four new episodes on Wednesday – comprising Volume 1 of its fifth and final season.
But as fans everywhere clamored to catch the premiere, Netflix struggled to keep up.
According to NBC News, outage reports spiked around 9 PM ET – an hour after the episodes hit the platform – but the earliest complaints came about 20 minutes before the premiere.
Ariana Grande spills emotional reason she used her real name in Wicked credits
Almost 16,000 outage reports came during the peak of the troubles.
Ahead of the premiere, Netflix had even increased its bandwidth by 30% in the hopes of avoiding such crashes, the show’s co-creator Ross Duffer said via Instagram.
Fans have been raving about the episodes so far, despite the technical headache, and the season currently holds a fresh 87% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The Stranger Things buzz is set to continue throughout the holiday season, with three more episodes set to drop on Christmas, followed by the finale on New Year’s Eve.
Fans will have the chance to avoid those pesky Netflix crashes with the show’s final episode, as it will head to select movie theaters across the US and Canada between December 31 and January 1.
