‘Stranger Things’ is the ultimate atmosphere show, and season 5 is what’s left when it’s gone
By Joshua Taylor | Published
stranger things It’s always been a vibe. Read any review praising the show’s season 1 premiere and this is the one common thread you’ll find.
This is also a saying spread on the street. In the first season, stranger things This is the extremely rare streaming era show that almost everyone is talking about in real life. When they talk about it, resonance is always the first thing that comes up.
People are excited about how perfectly the show captures the 1980s and, more importantly, how perfectly it captured the lives of kids from that era. stranger things It’s loved because it feels real, it feels genuine, that’s the vibe of it.
When season five begins, little of that remains. It has become completely constructed and artificial.
In the first episode of Season 5, Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) and Steve (Jon Kerry) climbed up a radio tower for no reason other than some writers thought it might be a funny scene that could be artificially inserted into the plot. When they get to the top, what’s on the screen is the most obviously artificial green screen shot I’ve seen on a television set since Neil Breen’s last movie.
By the way, the production cost of Stranger Things Season 5 is approximately $800 billion. Somehow that price tag makes it obvious that you’re getting a spray-painted toy gun rather than a legitimate-looking prop.
It no longer feels real or relevant to the kids because, well, they’re not kids. The Duffer Brothers have been dragging their feet on making these seasons for so long that nearly a decade has passed and the youngest members of the cast are now in their twenties.
Instead of jumping forward in time and letting them play their age, stranger things Still let them play kids. It’s really creepy and feels as unreal as a green screen radio tower.
Even if the kids are still kids, it doesn’t matter because the cast has become so big and bloated that they’re just a small part of what’s going on. The Duffer Brothers made the mistake that most long-running modern dramas make, they got drunk on their casting. They expanded their narratives, turning their show into a massive final-season payday ensemble that reached as many people as possible.
stranger things Season 5 is like watching a Ponzi scheme in real time, and Netflix has fallen into it. Considering high ratings are guaranteed, I guess they have no choice.
So now a true-life emotional drama about four kids has turned into a hodgepodge of monsters, with a main cast of at least sixteen people, many of them thirty-year-olds playing high school students. Atmosphere? There is no real space left.
all stranger things On the left is Vecna, who never appeared in season one and always felt like an add-on. He was most likely thrust upon because they never planned for five seasons, and when they didn’t know how to do more, the Duff Brothers decided to blackmail Voldemort.
stranger things This is a show that people love because of its atmosphere. Now, stranger things This is a show that people watch because they remember loving the vibe of the first season and they thought they’d better finish the rest of it. After all, that’s basically it. Cash those checks, not the kids.
