The Upside-Down is officially the right way up for Netflix. The highly anticipated fifth season of Stranger Things has smashed records, becoming the streaming giant’s biggest English-language debut ever.

The first four of the final eight episodes dropped, achieving an incredible 59.6 million views in just its first five days on the platform.

This performance immediately places Stranger Things 5 as the best premiere week for an English-language series in Netflix’s history. Only the second and third seasons of the Korean phenomenon Squid Game have achieved higher overall debut numbers.

The new season’s success represents a massive leap from the previous instalment.

Season 4 Debut (2022) had approximately 22 million views (based on the previous ‘hours watched’ metric of 287 million hours over three days).

Season 5 Debut got 59.6 million views in the first five days.

This translates to an estimated 171% increase in viewership, though it is noted that Season 5’s total included five days of viewing compared to Season 4’s three-day debut window.

The excitement for the final season was so intense that it caused technical issues for the streaming service.

The influx of viewers caused the platform to temporarily freeze during the premiere.

The co-creator, Ross Duffer, said that Netflix tried to stop the crash by boosting their internet capacity by 30%. Clearly, even this big increase wasn’t enough for the huge number of fans who logged in all at once.

The day before the premiere, anticipation was so high that all previous Stranger Things seasons landed in Netflix’s global top 10 list, a first for any show on the platform.

The final chapter, three years in the making, returns once again to the fictional small town of Hawkins, Indiana, in the 1980s. The show continues its battle against increasingly ominous otherworldly activity.

Regulars Winona Ryder and David Harbour reprise their roles. Notably, the new season features a time jump to accommodate the former child stars such as Millie Bobby Brown, Joe Keery, Finn Wolfhard, and Sadie Sink, who have now aged into adults.

The creators, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, have promised a dark conclusion. They have teased that the finale will feature “the most violent death of any season.”

Critics have largely applauded the show’s return. The Guardian’s Jack Seale praised the early episodes, particularly the fourth, which runs at feature-length.

This was a “solidly thrilling 90 minutes of flame-throwing, bullet-dodging spectacle that makes good use of what looks like a virtually limitless effects budget, and which culminates in a moment that will have fans standing on their chairs and hollering joyfully.”

Stranger Things 5 will conclude later this month, with the next three episodes premiering on Christmas Day, and the series finale airing on 31 December.