The coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on our TV schedules, with production delays, cancellations and social distancing making it harder than ever to film our favourite shows. Netflix’s 80s extra-terrestrial juggernaut Stranger Things is no exception. In fact — and it might be hard to believe, because the passage of time is as weird right now for us as it was for the kids in Hawkins, Indiana — it’s been almost two years since Eleven and pals graced our screens for season three. But don’t give up hope just yet — season four is on the way.
After a year’s hiatus due to the pandemic, the Stranger Things cast are back in production again, as of January this year, according to star of the show Caleb McLaughlin. Speaking to Flaunt Magazine, the 19-year-old actor revealed that COVID-19 has led to some unconventional changes to how the Stranger Things set would usually look.
“Everything is backwards because of COVID,” said Caleb, who is also starring in Concrete Cowboys, a film about urban cowboys in Philadelphia, with Idris Elba. “If there’s a scene with extras, we can’t film with everyone right now. We have to only film scenes where there are fewer people, so we have to start from a later episode. We won’t start at episode one, we will start at episode five.
“It’s very weird,” he added. “There is so much going on in the world right now.”
Understandably given all that weirdness, the release date of season four of Stranger Things is still unconfirmed. The Duffer brothers have given some clues as to what we can expect from the next eight episode-long arc of their show, however, having revealed that Detective Hopper will definitely return after a cliffhanger in season three left his fate unclear. “He is imprisoned far from home in the snowy wasteland of Kamchatka, Russia,” the writers said in a statement, “where he will face dangers both human… and other.”
The statement continued: “Meanwhile, back in the States, a new horror is beginning to surface, something long buried, something that connects everything…”
Let’s just hope that horror isn’t a deadly airborne virus, or these actors will be 35-year-olds playing teenagers by the time production on season four of Stranger Things finally wraps up.