When Wednesday premiered in 2022 it was more than just a hit show, it became a global phenomenon unlike anything we had ever seen in the streaming era. Not only was it a viewership juggernaut, but Jenna Ortega’s face became emblazoned on every mug and T-shirt, every little girl was dressed with pigtails and dark eye makeup for Halloween, and you couldn’t go five seconds without Lady Gaga’s Bloody Mary playing on the radio.
Simply put, you couldn’t have got a hotter show than Wednesday Season 1.
Until… in September of 2025, its second season crawled its way back onto Netflix, and all of its goodwill and pristine, queen-of-the-castle reputation seemed to vanish with a… well, click click.
Sure, it wasn’t a complete disaster, it’s sitting pretty at number four on the Netflix all-time charts. However, it’s a meager 100 million views behind the first season, and the general consensus amongst fans is that the overall storytelling and quality were greatly diminished from Wednesday’s first adventure.
But really, the second season of Wednesday never stood a chance at being the juggernaut that the first was, not when fans had become so soured after a grueling three-year wait.
This viewership fatigue and sourness is not solely a Wednesday problem though, it’s more of a widespread TV epidemic. From Stranger Things to Euphoria, The Last of Us and every Disney+ and Netflix show in-between… no show is safe from the dreaded delay. Therefore, in this article, I aim to detail the damning trend of the year-season delays, and the effects that waiting so long between instalments can have upon the reception of new seasons.
Problem 1: Fan Speculation and Theories
Whilst I don’t believe this specific factor has affected Wednesday, because there wasn’t really an ongoing mystery for fans to speculate on between seasons, a lore-heavy show like Stranger Things has greatly suffered from dwindling fan speculation and theories.
After the explosive Season 4, Stranger Things was at an all-time high in terms of fan interest and fan theories. In August of 2022, TikTok and Twitter were ablaze with fans wondering what Vecna would do next, what the Upside Down really was, and how our band of heroes would close off the evil world once and for all.
Now, a mere month out from the final season, speculation has never been so low. The recent trailer, of course, excited the core fandom, but that fervent, general-public anticipation has faded away. Three years is almost a lifetime for those not highly invested in the story, and its safe to say that anyone who isn’t a die-hard Stranger Things fan sitting with a countdown to November 27th, has more than likely forgotten about it entirely.
Three years is just simply too long these days. Theories quickly die out, fan pages lose interest and go inactive, and the excitement fades into a fond, “Oh yeah, I remember that show.”
Problem 2: Great Expectations (Not Met)
The second and equally damning effect of long delays is that expectations and fan excitement can become so intense that the new season simply cannot match the hype.
The prime victim of this is The Last of Us Season 2, which underdelivered in terms of awards representation, fan expectation, and critical success. The first season of The Last of Us was a cultural moment, right up there with Game of Thrones and The White Lotus as prime HBO television. It created memes, fan theories about how they would continue the legacy of the games, and turned Pedro Pascal into a global superstar. They could not have been any hotter going into the second season.
Yet in the three-year interim it took to get Season 2, conversations started to turn intense. How would the TV show skirt around the controversial game? Would they change any elements to make it more palatable? How would an expanded season deepen the lore of the narrative?
Well, it turns out that all of these questions were futile, as the show turned out to be just as controversial, if not more, than the game. New fans of the TV show did not feel satisfied with the storyline of this new season, and the fans of the game were frustrated that nothing was changed to make it more palatable for a general audience. Simply, no one was happy, and creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann could not deliver on the hopes and wishes of the fans who wanted their show to continue to succeed.
This is not just a problem for The Last of Us, however, as the upcoming third and final season of Euphoria has taken a whopping four years to come together. The expectations are mighty high for another outing of the Zendaya-led teen sensation, but with the unexpected loss of a main cast member, several controversies from lead actress Sydney Sweeney, and countless behind-the-scenes allegations about creator Sam Levinson, it feels almost impossible at this point for Euphoria to recreate the magic of its first two seasons.
The longer it takes for a show to return, it allows for mythology and fan speculation to grip audiences, and when it finally returns, it can be a mighty tall task just trying to meet the impossible standards the fans have set up.
Problem 3: Production, Production, Production
Of course, a lot of the issues regarding these productions can be attributed to factors far outside the control of the creators, but they are indeed major contributors to destroying hype for these shows. Stranger Things, in particular, has had a rocky road with delays, having been affected first by the 2020 global pandemic and then again by the 2023 actors’ strikes. Seasons that would have been shot much earlier had to be postponed again and again.
The prolonged productions have resulted in actors aging out of roles, engaging in public controversies, or simply becoming disinterested in the project due to the intense amount of time spent in that world. This has most recently been cited at Stranger Things 5 on November 6th. Between David Harbour’s controversy surrounding his ex-wife Lily Allen’s album detailing their relationship, Brett Gelman’s activism surrounding the Israel–Palestine conflict, and Noah Schnapp’s similar controversies online, the delays in production coinciding with these public events have significantly waned public interest in these properties.
When productions stretch for years, real life seeps into the fiction. Actors grow older, public images shift, and what was once a simple nostalgia trip becomes complicated by everything that’s happened off-screen.
Having the long delays has allowed actors to not be gripped by the iron-claw of Netflix media training and as such these characters have now become synonymous with actors who have controversial, at best, and dangerous, at worst, public perceptions.
Problem 4: Believing the Characters
Game of Thrones, once the shining arbiter of excellence in the streaming era and now the prime example of how to ruin its goodwill, had one excellent ace in its back pocket: a tight filming schedule. The actors were stationed in Belfast, Ireland for six months of every year, allowing for just a year-long wait between seasons. This meant that these actors didn’t just live and breathe these characters… they simply were them. Emilia Clarke was Daenerys Targaryen, Peter Dinklage was Tyrion Lannister, and there was no more iconic performance than Lena Headey as Cersei Lannister.
Whilst this may be detrimental to their careers now, as they struggle to find another role that eclipses their Game of Thrones fame, it made that world feel more real and their performances all the more captivating. Actor and character blended into one, and the show became ingrained in the zeitgeist. Comic-Cons and public appearances felt like events because it felt like Daenerys herself was in San Diego, or Cersei Lannister was in New York signing goblets and Funko Pops.
But with long delays, actors are free to stretch their wings creatively, which might be good for their careers, but bad for the illusion and for fan investment. Since Stranger Things started, Millie Bobby Brown has successfully franchised Enola Holmes, David Harbour has joined the MCU, and Finn Wolfhard has wowed audiences in It. Since the last season of Euphoria, Sydney Sweeney has become a lightning rod of controversy but also a bona fide movie star, while Jacob Elordi and Hunter Schafer have also joined major productions that eclipse their Euphoria roles. They aren’t just their characters anymore, but are celebrities returning to these characters… and that makes all the world of difference for fan investment and immersion in the world.
Sure, an actor acts, that is their job. But the longer the break, the more the magic wears off. The specialness of these characters, the sacred connection audiences once had to them, begins to fade.
No. More. Waiting.
All in all, Stranger Things and Euphoria have done immense damage to their public image and public interest as they enter their largest and most definitive final seasons. Whilst this should be a moment of great strength and buzz, all interest has turned to bitterness as the joy and fun that once came from waiting for these new seasons has grown stale and impossible to maintain as the years have stretched on.
Back in the day, waiting built anticipation and gave fans the chance to build hype again, but with three-year delays now, anticipation has turned to burnout and complete loss of interest.
The most we can hope for is that when these new seasons drop, Stranger Things in a mere 20 days and Euphoria in the spring of next year, they are good enough and exciting enough to warrant these three/ four-year delays.
— Darragh Evans