Online Series: Stranger Things (A love letter to the supernatural classics of the 80's)

[Opak]

For me, it's obvious that there will be at least a season 4. Don't think the show can continue for multiple seasons as is, but if some company decides to take a crack at making the show for many years to come, maybe it happens via a spin-off of some sort?

Spoiler

Other than the deaths of Billy/Alexei, the destruction of the mall and the Mayor being removed from office, there was really no other conclusion or closure in the storyline -- the Mind Flayer is still not defeated, the Soviets are still experimenting with the "otherworld", the origins of which continue to be a mystery, etc. This season took most of the characters (Mike and Lucas didn't do much, for example) to different paths of character development that carried out all the way throughout the season, will be interesting to see what the payoff will be, especially in the setting where the Byers family and the now-powerless Eleven move away from Hawkins.

Way too many memorable moments from this season, but the Steve/Robyn/Dustin/Erica plotline and the scene of Will destroying Castle Byers stand out to me the most. The latter part was probably one of the most powerful scenes of the season for me, really represents the theme of how the show is transitioning away from the childhood and into the early adulthood of the main kids.

Billy ended up being such an incredible and complex character. From a minor villain with a comic relief side story, to a possessed psycho main villain with a tragic backstory, to ultimately getting a bit of redemption in the end. The actor had to play so many different aspects of Billy, and IMO did so extremely well.

Season 4 prediction:

Spoiler

Alexei mentioned that the Soviets were experimenting with the technology on their own soil, but later moved to Hawkins because it was easier/faster to open a gate there. What if Hopper escaped the explosion by jumping into the closing gate and later crawled out in the USSR during one of their gate opening experiments? It would explain how the Soviets ended up having an American prisoner, and why said prisoner was valuable enough to not be fed to a Demogorgon (which they would've captured during their earlier experiments with gates).

Also -- if Hopper indeed got inside the gate, what are the odds that the Mind Flayer (or one of the facehugging minions) got to him? Maybe something crawled up inside him, allowing the Mind Flayer to help him escape the Soviet facility, so that he can use Hopper as a puppet in his next gate opening scheme?

 

[LightningStrikes]

Just finished season 3 with the girlfriend last night. Apparently most of the viewers really liked s3 and rank it above s2 and on par with s1. I don't. Season 1 is worlds above s2 which is slightly above s3 for me (except for the god awful Eleven centric episode).

As for season 3: Main characters turned into caricatures (most of all Hopper), the plot didn't even really start until halfway into episode 4, episodes in general were filled with unneeded song montages, pseudo character or relationship development, teenie drama, cultural references, product placement and flashbacks (OMG there were so many flashbacks - do they really thing the audience can't put 2+2 together - even about minor things?) while the main plot wasn't very deep to begin with. Arguably it would have made a nice movie (minus all the unnecessary crap about 90-120 minutes of actual plot). I get that the show aims to satisfy the 80's nostalgia. I also get that last minute recues and convenient coincidents could at least be interpreted as deliberate, as if the show was actually produced in the 80's where such things were just common in TV and movies and people didn't overthink or analyze every detail. For me it didn't work. And there was a lot of cringe and cheese this season.

Bad guys announce themselves 10 minutes before they do something, giving the main guys enough time to prepare a counter strategy. The big bad evil monster is conviently slow or dumb enough (depending on the situation) or just leaves* to give the protagonists time to react and come up with a plan (*same thing with possessed Billy and the Russian Terminator). Every time somebody is in danger a third party will save the day last minute. Nobody in Hawkings seems to care that an entire hospital got terrorized by zombies, people got killed or rather disappeared all over town, property was damaged. Nobody (including his police (!) colleagues) cares that the police chief is missing for several days and only reappears to beat up and extort the city mayor. Hopper inexplicably was turned into an always yelling, bone-headed and impulsive fat dude with a gun and a smoking and drinking problem. But when faced with the Russian Terminator and other elite soldiers, the out-of-shape small-town cop all of a sudden turns into a close combat superhero. Murray conveniently is super fluid in Russian. The kids just come up with explanations for the monster, its zombies, its objective and functioning that all just turn out to be true. How handy! Old favorites of the show have become completey obnoxious (Mike) or obsolete (Will, Jonathan, Lucas). Meanwhile we have to sit through 10+ minutes of two 13-14 year old girls shopping in a mall while 80's music blasts in our faces.

The actors of Billy, Robin and Steve killed it though. The atmosphere, lighting, music etc. was great as usual. The monster was meh. The story overall too. Erica was super annoying.
Originally I was a fan of the mystery which was what pulled me in in the first place in season 1. But we didn't learn anything about the monster, the mindflayer, the upside-down, motives, objectives, functionality, origin etc. When I'm watching a show I like to get challenged, to solve riddles, ask questions, speculate with other fans, think etc. à la Lost or Dark.

Speaking of Dark, I think that series is all ST should have been. Then again, I might not be the ST target audience and that's okay too. Apparently it's meant to be soft TV / mind candy with a mystery angle just not too shocking or deep that still makes people laugh occasionally and doesn't ask the viewers to think too hard. Season 3 was still an enjoyable ride but it's not a show I'd recommend to a friend as must-see material or something I will consider to rewatch in a few months.

Conclusion: 5/10

 

[Rabid Ranger]

Stranger Things is going down the same road so many of my favorite Sci-Fi shows have (X-Files, Lost, Alias, etc.) and that is the end doesn't justify the means. Great premise, great characters, and a lot of great content but they just can't finish the job. The overarching mystery becomes too unwieldy and the show collapses under the weight.

 

[SeidoN]

related, since im a big DBD fan

 

[LarKing]

Yeah it also wasn’t must watch to me. It felt like a chore at times. Glad I finished it but it’s nowhere near the quality of season 1 or even 2 for me.

As @LightningStrikes said, they made a lot of the characters extremely annoying. I hope Hopper is dead if they’re just going to bring him back in season 4 and have him yell every episode again.

 

[Trap Jesus]

I can't remember watching a show where my opinions are so against what seems to be the general consensus.

Season 1: Some really nice elements such as score, look of the show, and some really good child actor performances, but felt like it leaned way too hard into the nostalgia angle without much else to offer. The really poor CGI on the monster also took me out of it.

Season 2: One of my least favorite seasons of television to be completely honest. It just felt like they heard everything that most people liked about Season 1 and just kept serving up plate after plate of fan service. So much of the plot seemed to be a rehash of Season 1, or at least borrowing heavily from things they did in Season 1. And then when they did try to do something different like the Eleven-centric episode, they fell flat on their faces. My big positive takeaway from this season was that they seemed to have a clear knack for casting new actors to add into the world/story.

Season 3: Night and day to the other two seasons. They established a tone right off the bat that they weren't taking themselves too seriously (which I think the first two seasons did far too much), and everything just felt much more fun and enjoyable. Everything just kind of clicked for me, the character combinations, the humor, the monster actually felt like a tangible thing this time, the new characters all worked, etc.

 

[BGDDYKWL]

Apparently I'm in the minority as well. I loved season 3, and the finale was fantastic. The scene on the beach where El sees Billy as a kid and how she later uses that to break through to him near the end. The scene where Hopper nods for the key turn and then later when El realizes he didn't make it and subsequently her reading his letter. They did such a good job of balancing not taking themselves too seriously while also delivering a lot of drama/suspense and really delivering a lot of very moving moments.

I really wish this was the series finale. I just don't see how they can top this. In the first two seasons you had a lot of the same feel, youth, innocence, nostalgia, relatively similar plot. Season 3 diverged, but did so beautifully. The addition of the Russian storyline, and more importantly what the kids were going through with getting older, interests changing, etc. Very relatable. I mean I guess they could continue that for one more season, with a couple of episodes dedicated to Hopper escaping and El trying to regain her powers, but it's gonna be tough.

 

[Tawnos]

Apparently I'm in the minority as well. I loved season 3, and the finale was fantastic. The scene on the beach where El sees Billy as a kid and how she later uses that to break through to him near the end. The scene where Hopper nods for the key turn and then later when El realizes he didn't make it and subsequently her reading his letter. They did such a good job of balancing not taking themselves too seriously while also delivering a lot of drama/suspense and really delivering a lot of very moving moments.

I really wish this was the series finale. I just don't see how they can top this. In the first two seasons you had a lot of the same feel, youth, innocence, nostalgia, relatively similar plot. Season 3 diverged, but did so beautifully. The addition of the Russian storyline, and more importantly what the kids were going through with getting older, interests changing, etc. Very relatable. I mean I guess they could continue that for one more season, with a couple of episodes dedicated to Hopper escaping and El trying to regain her powers, but it's gonna be tough.

The thing we gotta remember is that the nostalgia is taking somewhat different forms as they move through the seasons, because the 80s wasn't really the same for absolutely everone. So the first season really tapped into the ET/biking everywhere kind of thing... the second season tapped more into the 80s coming of age kind of thing... the third season tapped into the mall craze/consumer culture. All of these things were really happening at once during that time, but your ability to relate to each of them really depends on how old you were during the time period. I'm of the age where I really remember the biking thing and a little bit of the mall thing, but I wasn't old enough in the 80s to remember the coming of age thing. I'm interested to see what they tap into next.

 

[AtlantaWhaler]

3 was entertaining, but what was missing was the mystery. It was more of just a really long action movie.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

For me, it's obvious that there will be at least a season 4. Don't think the show can continue for multiple seasons as is, but if some company decides to take a crack at making the show for many years to come, maybe it happens via a spin-off of some sort?

Spoiler

Other than the deaths of Billy/Alexei, the destruction of the mall and the Mayor being removed from office, there was really no other conclusion or closure in the storyline -- the Mind Flayer is still not defeated, the Soviets are still experimenting with the "otherworld", the origins of which continue to be a mystery, etc. This season took most of the characters (Mike and Lucas didn't do much, for example) to different paths of character development that carried out all the way throughout the season, will be interesting to see what the payoff will be, especially in the setting where the Byers family and the now-powerless Eleven move away from Hawkins.

Way too many memorable moments from this season, but the Steve/Robyn/Dustin/Erica plotline and the scene of Will destroying Castle Byers stand out to me the most. The latter part was probably one of the most powerful scenes of the season for me, really represents the theme of how the show is transitioning away from the childhood and into the early adulthood of the main kids.

Billy ended up being such an incredible and complex character. From a minor villain with a comic relief side story, to a possessed psycho main villain with a tragic backstory, to ultimately getting a bit of redemption in the end. The actor had to play so many different aspects of Billy, and IMO did so extremely well.

Season 4 prediction:

Spoiler

Alexei mentioned that the Soviets were experimenting with the technology on their own soil, but later moved to Hawkins because it was easier/faster to open a gate there. What if Hopper escaped the explosion by jumping into the closing gate and later crawled out in the USSR during one of their gate opening experiments? It would explain how the Soviets ended up having an American prisoner, and why said prisoner was valuable enough to not be fed to a Demogorgon (which they would've captured during their earlier experiments with gates).

Also -- if Hopper indeed got inside the gate, what are the odds that the Mind Flayer (or one of the facehugging minions) got to him? Maybe something crawled up inside him, allowing the Mind Flayer to help him escape the Soviet facility, so that he can use Hopper as a puppet in his next gate opening scheme?

Spoiler

I think Dr. Brenner is the prisoner in Russia, which explains how they got the knowledge about the upside down, and Hopper is still stuck in the upside down.

 

[Datsyukian Deke]

Yeah it also wasn’t must watch to me. It felt like a chore at times. Glad I finished it but it’s nowhere near the quality of season 1 or even 2 for me.

As @LightningStrikes said, they made a lot of the characters extremely annoying. I hope Hopper is dead if they’re just going to bring him back in season 4 and have him yell every episode again.

I still don't know what purpose Winona Ryder's character serves, she's beyond annoying at this point.

 

[zombie kopitar]

I still don't know what purpose Winona Ryder's character serves, she's beyond annoying at this point.

That's a weird take. Winona brings an off kilter spirit that makes her character kind of the soul of the show imo. I mean she killed season 1, and then season 2 maybe it was a bit over the top. But season 3 she was given a looser role and I feel like that fit right in as well.

 

[LightningStrikes]

Apparently I'm in the minority as well. I loved season 3, and the finale was fantastic. The scene on the beach where El sees Billy as a kid and how she later uses that to break through to him near the end. The scene where Hopper nods for the key turn and then later when El realizes he didn't make it and subsequently her reading his letter. They did such a good job of balancing not taking themselves too seriously while also delivering a lot of drama/suspense and really delivering a lot of very moving moments.

I really wish this was the series finale. I just don't see how they can top this. In the first two seasons you had a lot of the same feel, youth, innocence, nostalgia, relatively similar plot. Season 3 diverged, but did so beautifully. The addition of the Russian storyline, and more importantly what the kids were going through with getting older, interests changing, etc. Very relatable. I mean I guess they could continue that for one more season, with a couple of episodes dedicated to Hopper escaping and El trying to regain her powers, but it's gonna be tough.

The hardest thing for the writers to deal with in a ST4 scenario is that the actors are getting older and older. What will seperate Mike, Will, Dus, Lucas, Max and El from Nancy, Steve, Jonathan and Robin? The younger group will have to deal with the same problems we saw the older group deal with in seasons 1+2 already.

Plus the plot is more or less dealt with unless they go in a completely different direction, say a Russian centric season with the main guys like El and her friends as side characters. But would people watch that?

 

[Jussi]

They’re filming season 4 in October.

I’d imagine another 1.5-2 years until it’s released.

Nope, still not confirmed there'll be season 4.

 

[M.C.G. 31]

Nope, still not confirmed there'll be season 4.

The producer already confirmed it. It just hasn’t been renewed by Netflix, but there’s zero chance it’s not being renewed.

 

[Jussi]

The producer already confirmed it. It just hasn’t been renewed by Netflix, but there’s zero chance it’s not being renewed.

Gaten Matarazzo said in a livestream that they're not filming this Fall:

 

[Trap Jesus]

I'm trying to remember if Season 1 had a distinct seasonal-feel. Season 2 was distinctly Fall/Halloween and Season 3 was distinctly Summer.

 

[M.C.G. 31]

Gaten Matarazzo said in a livestream that they're not filming this Fall:

It just means a longer wait. There's going to be a s4 but they can't film without the actual renewal.

Again, there's zero chance Netflix doesn't renew for the presumably final season. It just means we have another 2-year wait or so...

 

[Cor]

When is the last time a show had this active of a thread. Game of Thrones obviously, but outside that? Walking Dead back in season 4ish time?

 

[Osprey]

I was watching Predator again last night and was reminded that the dead Green Beret that Dutch (Arnie's character) recognizes from his dog tags is named Jim Hopper. I wonder if it was a deliberate 80s reference for the Duffer brothers to give one of their main characters that name.

 

[M.C.G. 31]

 

[Oscar Lindberg]

I can’t wait for S4. My guess is this will come late 2020

I’d love to see them shock drop it though if the rumors were true they actually filmed S3 and S4 back to back, it would be crazy.

 

[discostu]

I can’t wait for S4. My guess is this will come late 2020

I’d love to see them shock drop it though if the rumors were true they actually filmed S3 and S4 back to back, it would be crazy.

It doesn't sound like that. Seems like season 4 has been tied to a very large development deal with the Duffer Brothers

'Stranger Things' Renewed for Season 4 as Creators Ink Nine-Figure Netflix Deal

It's very vague on specifics, other than saying a 9 figure deal. Sounds like it's for tv and film projects. I was wondering when you'd see an announcement like this. Stranger Things is probably one of, if not greatest Netflix's success stories. Netflix needs shows to counter the Disney behemoth, so it makes sense the creators would cash in like this.

 

[Osprey]

It doesn't sound like that. Seems like season 4 has been tied to a very large development deal with the Duffer Brothers

'Stranger Things' Renewed for Season 4 as Creators Ink Nine-Figure Netflix Deal

It's very vague on specifics, other than saying a 9 figure deal. Sounds like it's for tv and film projects. I was wondering when you'd see an announcement like this. Stranger Things is probably one of, if not greatest Netflix's success stories. Netflix needs shows to counter the Disney behemoth, so it makes sense the creators would cash in like this.

That brings up a good point. I imagine that this deal is as much about keeping the Duffers to themselves as anything. After all, both parties were seemingly happy to negotiate a season at a time until now, so you have to ask what changed, and that seems to be that Disney is about to have a competing streaming service and is going around contracting talented people to produce content for it and for the big screen. For example, they "stole" Benioff and Weiss from HBO for an upcoming Star Wars trilogy and brought in Jon Favreau for The Mandalorian. With the new Disney+ service, they're going to need a lot more content, and a successful team like the Duffers would've probably been a prime target for them. I bet that the most important line in the entire deal has to do with restricting the Duffers from creating content for other streaming services or major studios.

 

[discostu]

That brings up a good point. I imagine that this deal is as much about keeping the Duffers to themselves as anything. After all, both parties were seemingly happy to negotiate a season at a time until now, so you have to ask what changed, and that seems to be that Disney is about to have a competing streaming service and is going around contracting talented people to produce content for it and for the big screen. For example, they "stole" Benioff and Weiss from HBO for an upcoming Star Wars trilogy and brought in Jon Favreau for The Mandalorian. With the new Disney+ service, they're going to need a lot more content, and a successful team like the Duffers would've probably been a prime target for them. I bet that the most important line in the entire deal has to do with restricting the Duffers from creating content for other streaming services or major studios.

Yeah, I assume exclusivity is a key part of it.

It's pretty crazy to see those dollar figures, but, it feels like we're at the peak value for show runners right now, so good on these guys to cash in.

I'm guessing 10 years from now when the streaming industry has settled, that you won't be seeing this type of money thrown around.