The premiere of Stranger Things Season 5 sent unprecedented waves of viewers onto Netflix this morning. enough to trigger outages across multiple countries and briefly freeze one of the most resilient streaming networks on the planet.
Within minutes of the episodes going live, users in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Brazil and parts of Southeast Asia reported streams locking up, login screens stalling and the app refusing to load altogether. Social feeds lit up with fans comparing screenshots of their frozen interfaces as “Netflix down” trended worldwide alongside the show’s debut.
Although service returned quickly, the scale was impossible to ignore: Stranger Things didn’t just slow the service — it overwhelmed several regional clusters simultaneously, a feat almost unheard of for a platform engineered specifically to survive global stampedes.
How many people does it take to break Netflix?
Engineers familiar with large-scale CDN systems say Netflix’s infrastructure can typically handle tens of millions of people streaming at the same time, with an extra 5–10 million streams needed before outages start.
It’s an almost impossible feat, but there is an easier way to cause outages. If a few million fans press play at the exact same second in the same region, that’ll buckle the servers too.
This morning’s outage appears to have been exactly that. Not a full collapse, but multiple regional overloads triggered at once. It’s not the first time it’s happened for Netflix, it’s not even the first time it happened for Stranger Things (the same thing happened when season 4 released). That said, it is a rare event, and one that speaks to just how excited fans are.
How’s Season 5 Faring In The Ratings?
Now the dust is still settling, but early reviews are strong. Rotten Tomatoes is painting a picture of a show that’s fallen off over time, with season 5 being the weakest yet. That said, it’s too early to say for sure as the last episode won’t release until New Year’s Day.
Here’s how each season is standing on Rotten Tomatoes right now:
- Stranger Things 1 — 97%
- Stranger Things 2 — 94%
- Stranger Things 3 — 89%
- Stranger Things 4 — 89%
- Stranger Things 5 — 85%