Stranger Things teaser trailer: A first look at season five of the hit Netflix show

It’s been so long since the most recent season of Stranger Things, you’d be forgiven for thinking the show had actually wrapped up.

How long, you ask? Three years and 16 days. How long will it be between seasons? Three years, four months and 25 days. Those kids are now approaching retirement.

Given the extended hibernation, the Stranger Things team has promised something epic for the final chapter, which will technically be broken up into three instalments, releasing on November 26, December 25 (nothing says festive cheer more than underworld demons) and December 31.

It’s finally getting close-ish so after years of little hints and one behind-the-scenes cast photo, Netflix has released the first Stranger Things season five teaser trailer.

The two-and-a-half-minute video is a montage of what to expect, quick edits of all the characters in various forms of peril, whether it’s hiding from demon dogs or Hopper letting loose with two grenades.

There also seems to be a military presence – maybe the authorities are finally coming to play – and a fierce-looking Linda Hamilton charging in, gun drawn.

Only three pieces of dialogue is heard throughout, exactly the kind of lines you’d expect when being teased with the culmination of all these battles - “After all we’ve been through, this thing, it ties us together. Forever” and “Wherever this blood leads, I need you to fight one last time. Let’s end this, kid.”

It ends on two ominous words which appear to be spoken by the Big Bad of the series, Vecna, “Found you”. Chilling.

Stranger Things premiered in July 2016 and took everyone, even, one suspects, Netflix, by surprise when it became a massive hit. The supernatural action, sometimes-horror, series is set in the 1980s in a small American town that is beset by a gateway between our world and the “Upside Down” hell dimension.

The show stars Winona Ryder and David Harbour, and introduced an ensemble of younger actor including Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Noah Schnapp, Joe Keery and Sadie Sink.

For her role as the telekinetic Eleven, Brown’s star exploded although she has worked, almost exclusively, on Netflix projects in the decade since.

Wolfhard starred in the two It horror films and in the Ghostbusters sequels. Sink was recently nominated for a prestigious Tony Award for her role in the Broadway production of John Proctor is the Villain.

The show was created by brothers Matt and Ross Duffer.