Stranger Things, Seasons 4...and 5?!

[AndyDursin]

Finale was good stuff. Even the score was solid.

[Monterey Jack]

Overall a very good season, but the sheer, sprawling bloat of it took some of the pleasurable edges off of it. Seriously, this one season was almost longer than seasons 1 and 2...combined! The result was subplots that took far too long to resolve, Mike, WIll, Jonathan and Pizza Dude driving around aimlessly for ages and Hopper's stay at the Russian gulag being needlessly protracted (when he escaped, and got recaptured inside of the same episode, I wanted to take a slipper off and throw it at the screen ). There are some moments throughout that can stand with the best of the series, like the immediately iconic scene with Max escaping Vecna's clutches in "Dear Billy" that helped Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" to become the (re)discovery of the year and the spectacular cross-cutting that finally dovetailed the Vecna and Eleven plots. Still, I fervently hope that the next season will have a more ruthless hand in the editing room. had they saved the excessive episode runtime just for the finale, it would have been acceptable, but when EVERY episode ran an average of 80 minutes, you quickly realized it was just because the Duffers were allowed to do so due to the clout they've accrued since 2016. You know how long the season one finale was? Like 45 minutes. I know that the Duffers have said they're gonna save the super-long eps in season five for the last two, and the rest will have more reasonable runtimes, and I hope they stick to that.

[AndyDursin]

I agree. Now I'm less interested in looking at running times and more whether the content requires it. Just because something is "short" doesn't make it good (and vice versa). The problem here was an uneven, at-times misconceived story arc that had too many characters going for no good reason half of the time.

The irony is for a season that was bloated, the finale itself -- just like the third season's -- wasn't at all. In fact I'd argue its 2.5 hours were better paced than any super-hero crap of similar length I've watched over the last few years, THE BATMAN especially. Clearly they know how to package a "movie sized" feature and they construct the story so that it leads up to big dramatic moments -- and then they deliver the goods. We started the finale relatively late last night, thinking we'd watch it in 2 parts, only for it to keep us invested and we finished it all in one sit. It was nicely balanced, it was well written, and it never felt boring at all (IMO). I mean, I'd sure as hell rather watch a big epic climax than some "generic 40 minute Disney+ finale" that isn't even constructed like an episode, more like a long show they've sliced into separate, sometimes arbitrary parts.

It's what was leading up to that -- just too many characters, too many needless plots. Inbalanced writing. Too much gore out of the gate, it felt like it took a couple of episodes for the show to find its actual rhythm again. That's more the problem for me. Millie Bobby has been complaining about how they don't want to kill anyone off, but she's right in that -- plus you can write people OUT even if you don't want to kill them off. There's just too many characters that they diluted the two main strands this year, 11's story and the Hawkins gang -- everything else just felt like it could've been tightened up or eliminated together.

The Russia stuff as we've said before sucked. Badly conceived right out of the gate, a mistake. Honestly Hopper could have died (or spent the entire year "in the void" so to speak) and it would've been OK...you could have worked this season into 11 trying to find her place, and powers, on her own again after his death/disappearance. You know the whole "I can do this on my own" or "I have my friends still to help me" thing. And if you ARE going to bring him back, why not save it for the last season? And certainly minus the dreary "Joyce is springing him out of a gulag" plot.

I was thinking that -- okay so they don't want the characters to die. But how dramatic would it have been if they wrote some of these characters out for 4, then brought them back in 5? Instead they spent time developing one new, likeable character -- only to kill HIM off. I don't think their writing ability is quite up to their technical talents -- and/or they should hire some other writers to work with them.

I mean, was Wolfhard off shooting GHOSTBUSTERS during this season? Mike was utterly useless. Like the entire season he's in a van. Most of their scenes -- the comic relief element notwithstanding (which you DO need) -- could've been tossed like the Hopper scenes. Just not needed.

Overall there were some fantastic moments and I certainly still enjoyed it, it got its act together and the final third was great. Hopefully they reassess what kind of didn't work and pull it all together for Season 5. A little time off will probably help them in that regard.

[Monterey Jack]

I mean, was Wolfhard off shooting GHOSTBUSTERS during this season? Mike was utterly useless. Like the entire season he's in a van. Most of their scenes -- the comic relief element notwithstanding (which you DO need) -- could've been tossed like the Hopper scenes. Just not needed.

Ghostbusters was one of those "in the can" movies that got screwed by the pandemic, and Stranger Things had only just begun production when they had to shut down (and supposedly scrap a lot of footage they shot due to "re-envisioning" the material during their downtime before they could resume shooting). Whatever the reason, Mike was the lead character given almost nothing to do...and he and Eleven are supposed to be the big, leading romantic couple! Same thing with Jonathan (turned into a pothead for no discernable reason) and Will (turned into yet another "repressed, miserable gay character" when the series already had the exact same arc being played out with Maya Hawke's Robin! And Hawke is a far more charismatic actor than Noah Schnapp).

As for Hopper, agreed that it would have been more impactful to save the reveal that he survived until the end of the season, and work towards getting him out of Russia in season 5. I mean, the mid-credits scene at the end of season 3 pretty much told you he was alive anyways. Think about how emotionally and dramatically effective it was to save the reunion of Eleven and the rest of the Hawkins gang until the penultimate episode of season 2, even though we knew she was alive since that season's premiere. If you're gonna separate characters for long swaths of time, you need a solid dramatic reason for doing so, otherwise it lends the material a frustrating "Lucy yanking the football away from Charlie Brown" structure. Again, the fact that Hopper spent about five episodes to escape from the gulag, only to get captured and put back there again WITHIN THE SAME EPISODE, was maddening. If they were gonna have him escape, fine. Make the rest of his arc over the season evading capture, contacting someone in the U.S., arranging transport back to Hawkins...it could have lent a far more exciting Fugitive-style suspense flair to his scenes, instead of the lurchingly repetitive nature of seeing him beaten and tortured and self-loathing himself over and over. This also would have freed up WInona Ryder to be a part of the Mike/Jonathan/Will plotline, instead of sticking her with the increasingly tiresome Brett Gelman (who was amusing in season 2, but has been stuck doing the same schtick ever since).

All-in-all, it was a good season, with some amazing highs, but also a lot of subplot flab that should have been tightened up. Here's hoping there will be a little more discipline next time, and that it won't take another three years to wrap things up.

[Monterey Jack]

Glad I have season one on Blu-Ray...

https://www.insider.com/stranger-things ... phs-2022-7

[Monterey Jack]

[Monterey Jack]

Why does MBB keep dressing and coiffing herself like she's a forty-five-year-old Jersey housewife...?

[Monterey Jack]

[Eric W.]

They know they have a problem with the age of the actors vs the characters. I've seen them joke and make other comments about it. I don't know if they will have a "upside down world had an effect" in the plot before it's all said and done but they need to account for it somehow. Off the top of my head I don't feel like I can remember any passing reference so far. A few extra years went by... something has to happen.

I am looking forward to the final season. Overall it's been a heck of a ride. I am not impressed with the "George Lucasing." Not needed.

[Monterey Jack]

They know they have a problem with the age of the actors vs the characters. I've seen them joke and make other comments about it. I don't know if they will have a "upside down world had an effect" in the plot before it's all said and done but they need to account for it somehow.

If the show actually addressed the real-life time gaps between seasons, then this last season would be taking place around 1992. It's ridiculous that a show revolving around tween characters -- especially one as buzzy as the first season -- has dragged its feet to such a ridiculous degree that one of the leads is suffering from male pattern baldness. The X-Files ran for nine years, but it gave us nine seasons, 202 episodes and a big-screen feature. In the same span of time, Stranger Things will have given us 42 episodes over five seasons. It's a big part of what I detest about the streaming "revolution". When season 2 of Wednesday hits Netflix this fall, it will have been three YEARS since the first one. By the time the second season of a streaming show comes out (if it even does), you've forgotten what happened when it left off! I understand that season 4 had to deal with the Pandemic shutdowns, and season 5 was afflicted by the writer/actor strikes, but this is a show that should have had season 4 in the can and broadcast before the end of 2019.