TV Feature - Stranger Things

Don't deny until you try. (The following article spoils Stranger Things Seasons 1-4 like most people think pineapple spoils pizza.)

We've reached that stage. The one where anyone aware of Stranger Things who hasn't already watched it is either genuinely uninterested or holding back through sheer contrarian stubbornness - the kind of resistance reserved for epoch-defining shows like The Sopranos and The Wire and Breaking Bad. Not that Stranger Things bears relation to any of those weighty dramas, other than the likelihood that it too will be looked back on as a TV watershed moment, a milestone in home-viewing achievement, due to its blend of small-screen character drama and epic big-screen clout. But I'm not writing to convince the holdouts. Seriously, watch it or don't - you know your own preferences. I'm intrigued rather by what has made this show such compulsive viewing for those who do start watching, to the extent that when Season 4 Volume 2 landed last week, it temporarily broke Netflix.

The formula established by writing/directing team the Duffer Brothers in Season 1 of Stranger Things had a magic to it similar to that harnessed back in 2011 by J. J. Abrams with his film Super 8, only in the shape of long-form storytelling. Pit a group of plucky small-town American tweens against a supernatural entity, but set your story in the 1980s so that it's reminiscent of early Stephen King and Steven Spielberg. Spread the '80s references thick like peanut butter, thus locking in an older demographic along with today's teens. But remember to make the tale its own thing, so that you get people talking about the show's distinct mythology - of The Upside-Down and creatures labelled with names from Dungeons and Dragons and a psychic wunderkind known only as Eleven. Stranger Things's first outing did it to perfection, namely blending the warmly recognisable with the fresh and surprising, all courtesy of an ordinary town named Hawkins, Indiana.

Seasons 2 and 3 expanded this nostalgia-steeped mythology, drawing on a host of the era's cultural touchstones from the Cold War tensions of Schwarzenegger's Red Dawn to the teen comedies of John Hughes. They also threatened to overplay said formula with storytelling arcs that while full of enjoyable content felt very (some felt too) familiar. Then Season 4 shook everything up, viewers included, with continent-straddling ambition and a serious injection of Nightmare on Elm Street-style horror. The Duffer Brothers may have been away (thank you pandemic) for three years, but they and their extended cast returned with a bone-snapping vengeance. And Kate Bush.

That doesn't adequately capture it though. Youngsters on bikes, gleefully gruesome monster horror, neat plotting and superb visual storytelling enhanced with production values of which Mr Spielberg and team would be proud, plus a memorable soundtrack employed with enviable creative judgement - none of that cuts to what makes so many fall head-over-heels for this show. And that's the love with which its characters are drawn and developed. 

It struck me when Season 4, episode 3 helped me recover from the cinematic mess that was Jurassic World: Dominion. I felt more emotion during the scene where Jim Hopper was trying to extricate his broken ankle from its chain-gang manacle, frankly, than I had in two hours plus of IMAX dinosaur-dodging. And the simple reason was that I actually gave a damn about whether Hawkins' stumbling but innately heroic sheriff would escape that Russian gulag and get back to the people who loved him (specifically the woman who'd risk fiery aeronautical death to get to him, and the lost telekinetic girl who needed a Dad instead of a 'Papa'). Matt and Ross Duffer's imagination plus the conviction of actor David Harbour made me care about the big galoot - with his ever-deepening back story, and the layers of personality that become apparent beneath his initially buffoonish exterior. Now a leaner, more focused version of the grief-ridden sadsack he'd become, he's a key example of what the show can forge through multiple seasons' worth of logical, painstaking character development. 

Take the central group of bike-riding D&D-playing friends from Season 1. It would have been easy to retain the same bickering but devoted friendship dynamic throughout, but of course that's not how adolescence works. So we've had Mike and Lucas with their problem-strewn forays into romantic relationships, Dustin forging a bond with accidental babysitter Steve as he tries to negotiate the pitfalls of growing up, and post-traumatic Will hiding in childhood (the way he hung around in the den built for him by big brother Jonathan) as his friends mature beyond him. More than once the band threatens to break up, and it's always due more to life as we know it than to demodogs, mind flayers, or any of the other Lovecraftian horrors summoned up by the show's FX department. The reason viewers panic when any of our core characters are threatened, whether by sinister US government operatives, sadistic Soviet-era torturers, or big grisly creatures made of crunched-up people bits, is because we genuinely don't want to be robbed of their always charming company.

If there's one scene that sums up this devotion to character for me more than any other, it's that of Robin's coming-out in the latter part of 3. The situation, you will remember, has been set up with precision. Steve douche-to-hero Harrington has almost unconsciously fallen for the quirkily witty band-nerd throughout the season, until beaten up and bloodied and coming down from Russian truth serum he proclaims his feelings lying slumped in the restroom cubicle adjacent to hers. But the perfect two-shot shows Robin burying her head in her hands next door as the friendship she's unexpectedly come to cherish threatens to implode. So when Steve slides under the partition for a heart-to-heart, she levels with him regarding his misconception from their earlier conversation - it's not Steve she ever had a crush on, but rather the girl in class who was crushing on him. She tell it with dread, and we share her fear, that this revelation will lead to the kind of rejection, revulsion even, that we might have expected from Season 1 Steve. Having absorbed the unexpected news and his personal disappointment, however, he matter-of-factly reassures Robin that the girl who broke her heart wasn't all that, teasing her about it till soon they're laughing unrestrainedly together, friendship reaffirmed. 

We're happy for Robin that she's found a friend and confidant, and happier still that it's Steve, whose progress to emotional maturity and good dude-hood accelerates visibly during the conversation as he realises that friendship matters over all. It's a heartfelt, funny, and deeply touching moment (in a shopping mall toilet no less) that exemplifies Stranger Things' character-building craft. When two people have shared a moment that profound, how can you not care about them down the line when, say, a sentient vine in a parallel dimension attempts to throttle the life clean out of them?

Which brings us to season 4 and the current end-point of all things Stranger. The budget this time around reportedly averaged a staggering $30 million per episode, and it's all there on your home-viewing screen. The creatures, whether the demonic Vecna's prosthetics or the computer-generated detail of the demogorgons, are never less than impressive. The editing and sound design (consider the parallel basketball/D&D contests in episode 1) are exhilarating. The stunts, from laboratory massacres to helicopter crashes, are staged with nothing short of magnificence. Yet all of it is icing on a cake that's been baked expertly from the age-old ingredients of great story and great character. The nostalgia too is as much fun as ever it was (counting how many horror franchises are referenced is this season alone is a fun game), but even that just serves as the sprinkles on what makes the show truly terrific. 

So when Max is running up her own personal hill, it matters more because the Duffers and Sadie Sink have made her such an appealing human being. Likewise when Hopper takes on a demongorgon with a sword, or doomed metal guitarist Eddie Munson unleashes Metallica's Master of Puppets for an audience of peculiarly nasty vampire bats, or Steve, Robin and Nancy combine forces to take down Vecna. We're rooting for them all in extremis, because writers and performers have made them supremely watchable even when life is mundane. And when nemeses Eleven and One face off in a deciding 'mind fight', we're doubly invested because protagonist and antagonist alike have been written with depth and motivation, with the gifted likes of Millie Bobby Brown and Jamie Campbell Bower (more names, more talent?) cast in the roles. 

One criticism levelled against Matt and Ross Duffer is the unwillingness they display to trim the core group that has expanded each season, for the most part choosing instead to bump off single-season players when stakes require raising. The reason they give in interview is a solid one. They're not making Game of Thrones, they say; this show is pure uncontaminated escapism, however thrilling, so wiping out key players in a Hawkins-style Red Wedding would hardly suit the vibe. But I suspect an additional reason, for all the show-makers' screenwriting integrity. If you were to list the recurring good guys, who would you cull first? One of the original four junior high-schoolers? No - don't permanently break up the band. What about Jonathan? You couldn't do that to Will and Joyce. Murray? He's hilarious. Nancy? She's too bad-ass. Robin? The girl's just coming into her own. Steve? Steve??? No - please not Steve!!!

See? It's the result of making a show this darn entertaining with heroes this darn cheerable. Season 5's conclusion of may choose to break our hearts more than the end of Season 4 did - it's the climactic right-side-up versus upside-down stand-off, after all. Admit it - you're glad most of the familiar faces will still be there. That you'll get to hang out with the Stranger Things gang one last time.