Stranger Things

Topic

I don’t think there is a Stranger Things thread here yet. Season 4, Volume 1 is sneaking up on us fast and will be available on 27th May. Does the show still have any buzz? How old do the kids look now? Did Steve get a haircut? Can we just ditch Nancy and Jonathan? How about those fictional Russian villains?

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Season 4 looks to be more proof that Netflix doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing. Just simply from a release and structuring point of view. They’ve, for some reason decided to release 7 of the 9 episodes this week, but then will wait a month to release the final 2? It’s nonsense scheduling. Either drop them all or go to a weekly release. On top of that, the episodes are insanely long. The episode length apparently ranges from 63 minutes for the shortest episode to 150 minutes for the final episode of the season. For their sake, hopefully the quality is there to justify the long episodes, but on its face it just looks that such a weird move to have such wildly varying lengths on top of a nonsense release schedule.

Sounds crazy, but if it’s the creators decision to make the episodes this long and to stagger it weirdly, I’m fine with it. They’ve made it all work in the past.

It’s weird that there’s a spooky house in the center of the trailer, and a voiceover from an evil tentacle zombie or something?
Not sure about that direction for the Big Bad, but eh, what the hell. I’m game anyway.

I have enjoyed all the previous seasons, so I trust them to know what they are doing.

Enjoying season four so far. Made it three episodes in and overall they feel like a complete opening act. Some interesting directions for the characters and enjoying some of the new pairings they’re trying out here.

Would also settle for a Clerks style show just focusing on Steve and Robin working in the video store, chatting about girls and movies.

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Andrew

Only watched the first episode so far, but I really enjoyed it. Definite Nightmare on Elm Street vibes, especially towards the end of the episode.

I’ve seen it now. It just got better and better. The part in California with the bullying girl and the lying was the weakest part, but that went away by episode 3, and from that on it was all good.

Oh, and talking about Nightmare on Elm Street…

Glad to hear you guys are enjoying it and it gets better as I’ve only seen the first two eps and barely hanging on.
I’ll stick with it, probably would have anyways, but higher hopes now.

Sean Robinson wrote:

Glad to hear you guys are enjoying it and it gets better as I’ve only seen the first two eps and barely hanging on.
I’ll stick with it, probably would have anyways, but higher hopes now.

I’m at the same point as you. The first two episodes were a huge struggle for me. I hope it gets better but I’ve seen a lot of negative reviews online.

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Sean Robinson

Saw the last episode now. Hard to rate it overall as we need to wait another month for the finale. Weird release schedule. An attempt by Netflix to test not dropping an entire season at once?

The Russia scenes were a massive drag. They could have condensed all of that into about half an episode and had done with it. We all knew where it was going right from the start. Also, the Russians’ plan, or lack thereof, is baffling.

The Joyce story was the most farfetched of all, including all the demonic stuff. At least it was pretty funny in places.

Mike is a dick.

Jonathan seems like a totally different character now.

As ever, it was the Hawkins story that worked the best. They seemed to filter out most of the worst characters and stick the best ones together here to carry the core of the season. Eddie is a great addition to the cast. Sadie Sink has more than stolen Millie Bobby Brown’s thunder.

There’s a guy who works at the Lego store in town who looks just like the creepy orderly dude. Should I be concerned?

saga wrote:

There’s a guy who works at the Lego store in town who looks just like the creepy orderly dude. Should I be concerned?

Probably nothing to worry about; but maybe you should order your Lego on-line rather than in person…

saga wrote:

Saw the last episode now. Hard to rate it overall as we need to wait another month for the finale. Weird release schedule. An attempt by Netflix to test not dropping an entire season at once?

The Russia scenes were a massive drag. They could have condensed all of that into about half an episode and had done with it. We all knew where it was going right from the start. Also, the Russians’ plan, or lack thereof, is baffling.

The Joyce story was the most farfetched of all, including all the demonic stuff. At least it was pretty funny in places.

Mike is a dick.

Jonathan seems like a totally different character now.

As ever, it was the Hawkins story that worked the best. They seemed to filter out most of the worst characters and stick the best ones together here to carry the core of the season. Eddie is a great addition to the cast. Sadie Sink has more than stolen Millie Bobby Brown’s thunder.

There’s a guy who works at the Lego store in town who looks just like the creepy orderly dude. Should I be concerned?

The whole Russia bit was absolutely dead weight and filler. It was basically there to give Hopper, Joyce, and Murray something to do.

Mike and the road trip crew were also filler.

Eleven’s story was a form of exposition, providing details to her story and how it ties to Hawkins.

The Hawkins storyline was the best and the most solid. I loved how they tied showed how Hawkins and Eleven’s stories tied to gether. That was a well done sequence.

I think the big problem for me was how they split up the everyone at the very end of Season 3. It felt forced and unnecessary. Now you have to find ways to bring them back together. The storylines end up feeling forced. Even if they kept everyone in Hawkins, it may have still been hard to find stories for everyone. The cast is now so big, there is a challenge in giving everyone somthing to do.

I have to stay away from the last-episode posts. I’m up to no.4, the Dear Billy episode. I have… mixed feelings about this season. I like everything in Hawkins – the Nightmare on Elm Street thing is cool (and nice that they had Englund on the show!), I like the metal nerd roleplay dude, and all of those kids are doing alright. But the other stuff all got on my nerves. Hopper as an action hero is just silly (and the way they showed the prison camp was also so stupidly over the top, even for a show that’s doing a cold war TV homage), El’s bully troubles are a bit cliché especially at this point of the show and the El-Mike thing just doesn’t work. Weakest part of the season are Will and Mike, anyway. The show clearly doesn’t know what to do with those guys, and the actors aren’t doing great, either – you have to wonder if either of them would be cast at their current age. So they’re sidelined, but have to pop up now and then which is just annoying. Oh, and while I like Brett Gelman a lot (have ever since Go On) Murray and Joyce’s quest is also just an annoying distraction and I wish they’d just wrapped this whole thing up quickly and gotten Hopper back to Hawkins.

But, like I said, I like the Hakwins stuff a lot and that’s the majority of the show, so I’m fine with the season overall. Also looking forward to Eleven’s Jedi training thing, that should be fun.

I also haven’t quite figured out the Big Bad yet. I mean, I first thought he was the kid who did the massacre in the institution, because clearly that wasn’t El but she was the one who defeated the bad kid. But with his first appearance being fifty years ago, that doesn’t work anymore, so now I’m thinking it’s the first victim’s son, who was acting totally sus in the guy’s memories and he was in a coma for a week, so I’m guessing he’s patient zero for Eleven’s kind of mutant and when he “died” was when his conscience passed over into the Upside Down and he was dormant there and taking roots and connecting to that world for a few decades and he couldn’t find a way to our world until the mutant kids in the lab caught his attention and them he was able to reach because of their powers so he got through to them and slaughtered them all until Eleven stopped him.
So, that’s my theory. My very first thought was it’d be whatshername, Barb, which would’ve been totally awesome.

Christian wrote:

I also haven’t quite figured out the Big Bad yet. I mean, I first thought he was the kid who did the massacre in the institution, because clearly that wasn’t El but she was the one who defeated the bad kid. But with his first appearance being fifty years ago, that doesn’t work anymore, so now I’m thinking it’s the first victim’s son, who was acting totally sus in the guy’s memories and he was in a coma for a week, so I’m guessing he’s patient zero for Eleven’s kind of mutant and when he “died” was when his conscience passed over into the Upside Down and he was dormant there and taking roots and connecting to that world for a few decades and he couldn’t find a way to our world until the mutant kids in the lab caught his attention and them he was able to reach because of their powers so he got through to them and slaughtered them all until Eleven stopped him.

Pretty much called it, except for misunderstanding the time frame a little and because of that thought that the kid had somehow passed into the Upside Down earlier. Eleven pushing him allowed for a lot more dramatic tension, even if it is very convenient that she repressed the memory so hard that she never told anybody about the story that would’ve allowed everybody to immediately identify Vecla.