Stranger Things 4's first volume did nothing to justify its bloated episode runtimes - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

TMC · 06-04-2022, 05:26 AM

https://www.thedailybeast.com/strang...-too-damn-long

"When the episode runtimes for Season 4 of Stranger Things were announced last month, critics and Twitter users alike balked," says Jordan Julian. "Every episode would be comfortably over an hour long. And if that weren’t disturbing enough, the season finale would clock in at around two-and-a-half hours. The horror! That is simply too much Stranger Things. That’s too many consecutive minutes of watching teens with bad haircuts finish each other’s sentences. Most movies shouldn’t even be two-and-a-half hours long, in my humble opinion, but that’s an article for another day." Julian adds: "But at no point throughout the season does the show convincingly make the case that its newly inflated episodes are a necessary improvement. It certainly never proves that 20 extra minutes of Steve whining about hanging out with kids (you don’t have to, dude!) are worth the personal cost that is my boyfriend falling asleep halfway through every episode, annoyingly requiring me to summarize what he missed the next day. Whereas if Season 4 of Stranger Things were tighter and more focused, it would almost certainly be better for it. It distractingly jumps between subplots that are all set in different geographic locations. There’s Dustin, Max, and co. fighting the Vecna in Hawkins, Eleven and the Byers brothers out in California, Hopper plotting to escape a Russian prison camp, and Joyce and Murray in Alaska trying to orchestrate Hopper’s rescue. In other words, it’s too ambitious for its own good."

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With Vecna, Stranger Things finally gives fans a villain -- not just a monster: "In past seasons of Stranger Things, the primary antagonists have been faceless monsters trying to find their way from the Upside Down into Hawkins," says Patrick Caoile, adding: "From the Demogorgon to the Mind Flayer, and every other creature in between, the monsters of the Upside Down have served their role as threats to Hawkins and its citizens. But these monsters have never had such personal stakes in their quest to take over our world. Though Billy does raise the personal and emotional stakes for the series, especially as his death affects Max into Season 4, the Mind Flayer remains, still a looming, absent shape in the Upside Down. This season, however, Stranger Things needed more than alien-like monsters as antagonists to raise the stakes."
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06-04-2022, 05:26 AM	#1
TMC Member Forum Idol Join Date: Jan 09, 2001 Posts: 125,857	Stranger Things 4's first volume did nothing to justify its bloated episode runtimes https://www.thedailybeast.com/strang...-too-damn-long "When the episode runtimes for Season 4 of Stranger Things were announced last month, critics and Twitter users alike balked," says Jordan Julian. "Every episode would be comfortably over an hour long. And if that weren’t disturbing enough, the season finale would clock in at around two-and-a-half hours. The horror! That is simply too much Stranger Things. That’s too many consecutive minutes of watching teens with bad haircuts finish each other’s sentences. Most movies shouldn’t even be two-and-a-half hours long, in my humble opinion, but that’s an article for another day." Julian adds: "But at no point throughout the season does the show convincingly make the case that its newly inflated episodes are a necessary improvement. It certainly never proves that 20 extra minutes of Steve whining about hanging out with kids (you don’t have to, dude!) are worth the personal cost that is my boyfriend falling asleep halfway through every episode, annoyingly requiring me to summarize what he missed the next day. Whereas if Season 4 of Stranger Things were tighter and more focused, it would almost certainly be better for it. It distractingly jumps between subplots that are all set in different geographic locations. There’s Dustin, Max, and co. fighting the Vecna in Hawkins, Eleven and the Byers brothers out in California, Hopper plotting to escape a Russian prison camp, and Joyce and Murray in Alaska trying to orchestrate Hopper’s rescue. In other words, it’s too ambitious for its own good." ALSO: With Vecna, Stranger Things finally gives fans a villain -- not just a monster: "In past seasons of Stranger Things, the primary antagonists have been faceless monsters trying to find their way from the Upside Down into Hawkins," says Patrick Caoile, adding: "From the Demogorgon to the Mind Flayer, and every other creature in between, the monsters of the Upside Down have served their role as threats to Hawkins and its citizens. But these monsters have never had such personal stakes in their quest to take over our world. Though Billy does raise the personal and emotional stakes for the series, especially as his death affects Max into Season 4, the Mind Flayer remains, still a looming, absent shape in the Upside Down. This season, however, Stranger Things needed more than alien-like monsters as antagonists to raise the stakes." Kate Bush’s "Running Up That Hill" has soared 8,000% on streaming in the past week "Running Up That Hill" was perfect for Max's grief because the 1985 Kate Bush song is more complex than it looks Duffer Brothers address complaints over a Season 4 plot hole Even the Duffers forgot about Will's birthday Stranger Things fans are getting Eleven's tattoo without realizing its Holocaust connection