Warning: Stranger Things season three spoilers to follow.
Let me say this up front: For the most part, I still love Stranger Things. Yes, there are times when it feels like pop culture's geekiest recycling project. There's no argument that what the Duffer Brothers have done is load into a blender a bunch of things that were either insanely popular in the 1980s (the novels of Stephen King, the movies of Steven Spielberg) or have come to define that decade for a specific group of people (the movies of John Carpenter, Dungeons & Dragons). They push start, whirl them all together and Stranger Things is what pours out. And that's fine. In this age of constant remakes, reboots and franchise expansions, I'll gladly take a successful original story, even if it's one that so barely disguises its influences that it's practically an overt homage.
Ever better, the one thing Stranger Things gets right is the most important thing for any television series to get right — its characters. Some movies can succeed on plot or tone alone. However, TV shows, which you will be spending far more time with, are required to provide you with compelling and/or fun people that you want to hang out either week after week (the old-school method) or for a bunch of hours in a row over a whole weekend (the binge method) for them to succeed. Stranger Things is an overwhelming success in this regard, offering up a large group of kids and a few adults that I can't imagine getting sick of. Sure, depending on the season, some characters fare better than others (except for Steve who ALWAYS rules), but there's rarely a complete downer in the bunch. And the Duffers have even mastered the trick of adding characters to an already crowded show and making them feel integral. Max was a delight in season two, while Maya Hawke's Robin practically runs away with season three. There's no question I want to see what happens next to this group of people.
The problem is that "what happens next" keeps looking an awful lot like what happened before. I mostly enjoyed season three, but by the end I couldn't shake the feeling that it was a slightly remixed version of season two, which itself was a slightly remixed version of season one. A portal opens, monsters arrive, the kids along with Hopper and Joyce must fend them off … the end. That's not just a season of Stranger Things; that's ALL the seasons of Stranger Things. In fact, I'd argue the most diverse season from a story perspective was the first, when we also had the mystery of Eleven and Will's disappearance as driving narrative forces. Since then, it's kind of been the same old, same old with a lot less mystery.
Here, let me ask you a question: What is the driving, overarching goal of the heroes in Stranger Things? What are they ultimately trying to accomplish? I realize TV shows are written season by season and are largely made up as they go along, but being that it's long-form serialized storytelling, there should at least be some semblance of an objective that the heroes are trying to achieve over the course of the entire story. In Lost, the castaways want to escape the island and return to their homes and normal lives. In The X-Files, Mulder wants to find his long-lost sister. The heroes of Stranger Things don't really want anything. They're just going about their lives, the same shit keeps happening to them, they fight it off … and then they just go on with their lives again. It's a reset every season. And, yeah, sure, Buffy the Vampire Slayer sort of reset every season too, but Joss Whedon was smart enough to concoct a new threat with new emerging storylines every single year, making each season feel like a sequel to the last. Despite dropping a new sequel-identifying number right there in its opening credits each year, Stranger Things doesn't operate like that. Instead, it feels like one long, singular story that just keeps repeating itself every chapter.
Okay, let's try it this way: Maybe it's the villain who is driving the show's narrative. So let's ask that question: What is the driving, overarching goal on the Mind Flayer in Stranger Things? We don't know that either! Okay, it kind of has an objective in season three — to kill Eleven so she can't once again stop it from crossing over from the Upside Down. But what's the Mind Flyer's goal after that? Just breaking down the barrier between worlds? Totally consuming Hawkins? Taking over the world? Turning everyone into Body Snatchers-esque zombies? It's all a little vague and not helped by the fact that the Mind Flyer is a giant, Lovecraftian spider monster that has only spoken once (through Billy) in the whole series so far. And, hell, that speech was given away early in the season three trailer. It would have been so much smarter to let the Mind Flyer communicate with Eleven regularly this season, spelling out its goals and giving a clear indication of what it intends to do with our world. And even if you think "opening the portal = bad for humanity" is all we need to go on, I'd argue that it's still a problem when the Mind Flyer's goal (and its success rate at achieving that goal) has barely fluctuated from the beginning of season two to the end of season three.
So what should the Duffer Brothers do about this? For starters, let's set an end date — likely with either year four or five serving as the final season — and start building toward an actual climax. Make our heroes a little more proactive and not just reactive. Let's shake up the formula. I do not want another season where there's a new portal, monsters cross over and our heroes have to fend them off. I just can't do it again. In fact, I think the best move they could make is to set a sizable portion of next year (two to three episodes at the least) inside the Upside Down. I think there's a lot of untapped potential there and would love to see some of our heroes head into the Upside Down on a fantasy-novel-type quest. Hey, there's even a reason to do so now since I'm 100 percent convinced that Hopper jumped through the portal, escaped the explosion and is stuck there right now. Let's spend some time with him on the other side. Maybe he learns what destroyed the Upside Down and how to stop it from happening to our reality. And maybe Eleven and the team decide the only way to end this madness once and for all is to go in, rescue Hopper and take the fight to the Mind Flayer on its own turf. Now that's plot movement I could get behind!
Otherwise, it's just going to be a continuing case of diminishing returns. Yes, I love these characters, but it's time to do something with them that looks and feels different that what has come before. That escalates and not just repeats. That sends them on a journey that seems to be heading somewhere new and not just duplicating seasons past. I can handle Stranger Things constantly regurgitating its many, many influences. I cannot deal with it constantly regurgitating itself.
