Eleven suffered a much grimmer fate in an early incarnation of Stranger Things, Ross Duffer has revealed. During a Q&A at California’s Chapman University, the series co-creator explained that when he and his brother originally dreamed up the show, it was only going to run for one season — so it needed a tidy, final ending.
“Maybe I shouldn’t say this because I like to pretend that it was all planned out,” Duffer told the crowd, “but [Stranger Things] was originally pitched as a limited series. So it was like, Eleven was gonna sacrifice herself and save the world and then that was gonna be it.”
Thankfully, Netflix was interested in a more open-ended show, with the option to push out into multiple seasons. “I remember when we went into Netflix and we pitched this they were like ‘well, we like this but how could it keep going?’,” Duffer recalled. “You’re just sort of riffing in the moment, and we were like ‘well, Will’s back from this other dimension and he’s not doing very well.’ And they were like ‘great!'”
Thank goodness Millie Bobby Brown’s Eleven saved her friends Demogorgon and stuck around for season two — don’t expect any of the characters to stick around forever though. The Duffer Brothers are fairly insistent the show runs for four season, with a possible fifth to wrap up any loose ends. Last month, Executive Producer Shawn Levy told EW: “The truth is we’re definitely going four seasons and there’s very much the possibility of a fifth. Beyond that, it becomes I think very unlikely.” Well, all good (stranger) things come to an end.
WATCH: look how cute the stranger things kids were in their first auditions for the show