Stranger Things ends with its fifth season, as they put it, one last adventure.
(Not counting the already announced animated series set between 2 and 3.)
A sci-fantasy series set in my childhood (I had that lunchbox! Rather mixed feelings about the treatment of the character who has it...) with RPG playing kids as the heroes was always going to interest me but with some unavoidable distancing. The occasional anachronism would stick out (those guns are late 80s!) and don’t get me started on how they should be playing AD&D and have Sorcerers being a class 13 years early.
(How would you play it? Not with
D&D. There are various kids on bikes games including
Kids On Bikes. What would I do? Maybe timeslips, as mentioned
here.)
Creators Matt and Ross Duffer were born in 1984, so all their early to mid 80s references are second-hand.
Its modernity shows to me most clearly in
the reliance on walkie-talkies, a rare novelty here used like mobile phones now. I remember when genre media was set in the 80s so people wouldn’t have mobile phones so the writers wouldn’t have to deal with them – now things like this have to have them despite it being too early!
And season 5 adds some more time-bending, informed by the prequel stage play The First Shadow, which puts all the grown-up characters in high school at the same time - including Henry, which is some serious reverse Dawson casting.
Dawson casting is of course a problem for a series where four years pass in-character but nine out-of-character. Galen Matarazzo and Sadie Sink are the only ones who still read ‘kid’, and Noah Schnapp at twenty-one looks and sounds like he could skip college roles and go straight on to playing grownups.
But in S5 they also age up Holly, Nancy and Mike’s little sister, who was played by twin four-year-olds in season one and is now supposed to be ten or eleven, not seven, and played by a fourteen-year-old. No wonder I had to double check this wasn’t a Dawn Summers situation in character. As well as OOC because she suddenly becomes a major part of the story.
I also went back and rewatched
the opening D&D game and Mr. Clarke’s explanation of the Upside Down. The internet is nice like that.
I also also went back to the look at the original series pitch,
Montauk. It’s recognisably the same show as the first two years in particular. And that link includes the original “sizzle reel” cut from various inspirational media- hey, I’ve made those!
Season 1 had more of a balance of the Steven Spielberg with the Stephen King, season 2 less so by dint of deepening the threat. Coming a year apart they’re more of a unit.
Season 3 shifted away from the brown leftover-70s early 80s to the central mall setting making it
THE 80S! of popular memory, and is an odd standalone in other ways, notably the “wait, Russians? Really?” threat.
Season Eddie, I mean
season 4, came late for unavoidable reasons so it was a nice thing to get at all. Introducing Vecna as a monster the characters could talk to shifted the dynamic, in ways that reminded me less of models like Freddie Krueger and more of the Borg Queen. And not just because of the hanging on CGI tentacles entrance. (The play makes him more sympathetic and raises the question of possible redemption, which is raised in 5 but as it isn’t featured as heavily as in the play they don’t go all in with it.
And now 5 pays off a lot of stuff. While also adding some new stuff. Because there really is a lot of 5. Two episodes of the eight are under an hour, and the finale is two. (And I am genuinely baffled by the conspiracy theory that there would be a secret ninth episode, because apart from some things going different ways what more could you want?)
I liked that it doesn’t write out characters who would realistically help for the sake of dramatic stakes, but this does result in battle and briefing scenes with a dozen characters in them. Remember how the Fellowship of the Ring were actually all together for half a book? But it mostly gives enough of them enough to do. And as part of that I liked that some previously out-of-the-loop characters got to join in.
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| And this doesn't include all the kids. |
I loved the little touch where, having split the town in half at the end of 4, they cover it with metal plates - and kids use it for sledging. Totally irrelevant, basically establishing that shocking ending was actually totally unimportant, but delightful.
I could have done with a bit less time on the emotional conversations, it would have given the really key ones some more punch. And that goes for the sheer amount of ending too. That’s my main issue with it, it gets maximalist. But it’s a finale, and I’ve done my share of maximalist finale runs for long-running games too.
Redoing and improving on one of the groaner moments in The Rise Of Skywalker was a choice too.
In all I liked it - it’s always been a sow I like, but know its inspirations too much to love - but the bigness of this season got in the way for me. But it’s nice that we got it at all, let alone that we got it so crazy big. I’m curious to see what the creators do next.
And yeah, the finale end credits were cheap heat but that cut always works.
And there’s a bit near the end that Gary Gygax would have hated, so points for that too.
