‘Stranger Things’ 5 Has Series-Low Rotten Tomatoes Scores

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This week, three new episodes of Stranger Things Season 5 were released. Although many viewers haven’t finished watching them yet, early reactions on Rotten Tomatoes show a dip in positive responses from both critics and audiences. Currently, critics give the season an 84% positive rating, and audiences give it 72%, making these the lowest scores the show has received across all its seasons.

While ratings are currently at a low for this show, there’s hope the final episode could improve things. Also, the scores might go up as more reviews come in, since the latest episodes just became available on December 25th.

IMDb is showing some interesting patterns in how fans are rating the latest season. When the first four episodes of Season 5 were released, “Sorceror” quickly became the highest-rated episode of the entire series. However, within a month, it fell to third place, surpassed by two episodes from Season 4: “The Massacre at Hawkins Lab” and “Dear Billy.” More recently, the newest episode, “The Bridge,” has become one of the lowest-rated, only beating out Season 2’s “The Lost Sister.” While many fans had strong reactions to “The Bridge” – particularly to Eleven leaving Hawkins – it’s not entirely clear why it received so many low scores, other than a possible disagreement with where the story is going as the series nears its end.

‘Stranger Things’ Still Has an Impressive Track Record


Image via Netflix

Although recent reviews are the lowest the series has received, they’re still quite good compared to other science fiction shows. It started strong with a 97% positive rating, followed by seasons scoring 94%, 89%, and 89%. Over the past ten years, the show has consistently proven itself as a hugely popular and critically acclaimed television program.

According to a recent Nielsen report, Stranger Things became the most-streamed show ever in its first week of Season 5. The series racked up a record-breaking 8.46 billion viewing minutes that week. What’s even more notable is that the new season only launched on Wednesday evening, meaning viewers were watching both the new episodes and all four previous seasons.

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2025-12-27 02:47