Netflix’s flagship series Stranger Things returned in a monster way this weekend. The first part of the series’ fourth season landed the streamer its biggest premiere weekend ever with a total of 286.79M hours viewed, according to Deadline. Debuting this past Friday, the seven-episode volume surpassed season two of Bridgerton’s 193M.
The season, which sees our main cast combat new evil in three different locations, was the number one viewed series on Netflix in 83 countries, via Deadline. This is a first for the show created by The Duffer Brothers. It also landed in the top 10 in all 93 countries where Netflix records this data. Other series included in the listing were the final season of Ozark, The Boss Baby: Back in the Crib, the latest edition of the anthology series Love, Death & Robots, season two of Bridgerton, and the fourth season of the reality competition show, The Circle.
This season the Duffer Brothers have inserted more horror elements in the series, highly influenced by classic films of the 1980s. When a string of unexplained teen murders occur in Hawkins, our tried and true teen protagonists discover another creature from The Upside Down is stealing lives. In addition to the supernatural warfare, the kids are growing up and dealing with the social strife of high school, which is testing their own relationships. Elsewhere, viewers learn what happened to their beloved Hopper after the battle at the mall.
In addition to its global viewership, the series managed to stack Netflix’s daily top-10 tracker with the former seasons. According to Deadline, all four seasons appeared in the top five, with the initial season taking the third spot, followed by seasons three and two. The new drama series, The Lincoln Lawyer landed at number two.
The fourth season also broke records over at iTunes as the heavily-featured Kate Bush song, “Running Up that Heal (A Deal With God),” soared on iTunes and saw record streams on Spotify. The song appeared at the top of the iTunes songs chart 37 years after its initial release.
Volume two of Strangers Things’ fourth season is set to release on July 1 only on Netflix.