Stranger Things

[DavidB6937]

I almost felt like Stranger Things became a victim of its own success. It became less about what it was originally, which was a pretty intense show, and generally felt like it existed to attempt to please a fanbase. That probably doesn't make any sense but I feel like sometimes shows move towards being more crowd pleasing and looking for moments and being a little greedy on the socials rather than focusing on being really good. I don't want to go as far as to say it's WWE all over again but the fact they're both on Netflix does make me wonder.

To be fair I'm probably saying the same thing as Pat said above just in a shit way.

[LaGoosh]

1 hour ago, DavidB6937 said:

I almost felt like Stranger Things became a victim of its own success. It became less about what it was originally, which was a pretty intense show, and generally felt like it existed to attempt to please a fanbase. That probably doesn't make any sense but I feel like sometimes shows move towards being more crowd pleasing and looking for moments and being a little greedy on the socials rather than focusing on being really good. 

I think the show went from perfectly capturing the vibe of the 80s Amblin movies while also being clearly inspired by the best horror and sci-fi movies of the 70s-90s to season 5 feeling like a Marvel movie complete with the typical "epic" moments, crowd pleasing fan service, bad CG, weird plotting, endless exposition and snarky one liners.

Edited January 7 by LaGoosh

[DavidB6937]

Also didn't help that it was a 3 year wait for that!

[cobra_gordo]

45 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

season 5 feeling like a Marvel movie complete with the typical "epic" moments, crowd pleasing fan service, bad CG, weird plotting, endless exposition and snarky one liners.

I think that was the issue for me. Everything felt too sanitised. The upside down in the earlier series was this inhospitable nightmare, it looked like it would stink, be freezing cold and everything was trying to kill you. By series 5 it's a sparkly clean CGI Marvel Zone, there's no sense of threat anymore and they've lost a lot of the atmosphere at the expense of having the cast fight a big monster in a hurriedly expositioned new zone.

That might be why I liked the end of episode 4 so much, with Vecna going all Rogue One, it suddenly felt scary again, like, oh fuck, this guy is like a Shao Khan video game boss, how are they ever going to kill him? Turns out fairly easily.

[mim731]

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

I think the show went from perfectly capturing the vibe of the 80s Amblin movies while also being clearly inspired by the best horror and sci-fi movies of the 70s-90s to season 5 feeling like a Marvel movie complete with the typical "epic" moments, crowd pleasing fan service, bad CG, weird plotting, endless exposition and snarky one liners.

Yeah mark me down as a another one who felt that way about it. Felt like it went from something that took major influence from John Carpenter, to the sort of thing John Carpenter would hate. 

[LaGoosh]

35 minutes ago, cobra_gordo said:

That might be why I liked the end of episode 4 so much, with Vecna going all Rogue One, it suddenly felt scary again, like, oh fuck, this guy is like a Shao Khan video game boss, how are they ever going to kill him? Turns out fairly easily

Yeah a villian who has God like power and can alter reality and invade people's minds should probably have had a more creative final fight than push them about until they fall on a sharp rock.

Also the Mind Flayer being a cosmic horror entity of cross dimensional power made of hive mind particles collected in the vague shape of a spider all of a sudden being just an actual giant spider with organs (and even hit points like in a fucking video game) was an absolutely awful change that made little sense.

Edited January 7 by LaGoosh

[DavidB6937]

The conspiracy stuff online about an extra episode is more entertaining than the last season.

[air_raid]

On 1/5/2026 at 9:23 PM, Hannibal Scorch said:

@air_raid it was actually based on me seeing the action figures in my local toy shop and one was a Radio Station Van playset. A van which was used but I wouldn’t say enough to warrant a toy out of it. What’s the meme?

[cobra_gordo]

13 hours ago, DavidB6937 said:

The conspiracy stuff online about an extra episode is more entertaining than the last season.

My favourite is still that the documentary coming out later this month is actually the hidden episode, in the same way A New Nightmare starts out as a documentary.

The best thing about all the online stuff is that the longer the conspiracies went on the more inaccuracies and continuity errors were pointed out, the more believable it became. It makes the entirety of the epilogue open to interpretation, not just what happens to Ell. So either it's been done on purpose, which is genius and a great way to have the audience second-guessing everything and keep the conversation going long after the show has finished or the Duffers are simply careless fuckwits who rushed a series due to Netflix pressure and ballsed up dozens of details. 

[HarmonicGenerator]

14 hours ago, DavidB6937 said:

The conspiracy stuff online about an extra episode is more entertaining than the last season.

This is quite a good rundown of some of the main theories behind it. Mad, but entertaining.

[DavidB6937]

I admire peoples dedication! But also quite funny that so many thought the final was that bad that there's a desperation for a different version.

[SuperBacon]

1 hour ago, DavidB6937 said:

I admire peoples dedication! But also quite funny that so many thought the final was that bad that there's a desperation for a different version.

This is just modern entitlement to be honest. "It's not how I personally wanted it to end so therefore I must try and change what the writers/directors intended"

Same with Game Of Thrones. Let it go you dweebs.

[DavidB6937]

1 minute ago, SuperBacon said:

This is just modern entitlement to be honest. "It's not how I personally wanted it to end so therefore I must try and change what the writers/directors intended"

Same with Game Of Thrones. Let it go you dweebs.

Fair point. I guess being able to get worldwide reactions these days really does enhance the negativity. Everything pre-internet where you just watched stuff on TV and only really got the opinions of your mates or something always felt a lot more peaceful.

[BomberPat]

it's bonkers. I hadn't realised that apparently this sort of thing happens a lot in fandom spaces - I posted about it on Bluesky, and practically every reply was comparing it to some other example of this thing happening, or acting as if I was an idiot and there's nothing strange about turning a TV show into a treasure hunt for an episode that doesn't exist. I had a bunch of people saying, "well, I'll see you at 7", gloating about how wrong I was and how I clearly just wasn't paying attention, and some agreeing that they would admit they were wrong if there was no new episode yesterday - oddly, none of them have said a thing since.

None of it adds up if you give it any scrutiny, and it's actually a pretty worrying trend that rather than just being disappointed by an episode, people are acting like they deserve something more, and then going into this mad spiral of wishful thinking and convincing themselves that there's definitely something coming, all because their personal fan theories weren't addressed, or because they don't understand that an ending can be intentionally ambiguous (though it couldn't have been more obviously, unequivocally, an ending).

The thing is, what I haven't seen from any of them is a creative or narrative explanation of what a secret finale would even be. I've seen people saying their energy would be better served put into fanfiction, but that's not what this is. They're not being imaginative or coming up with new stories, they're just saying "I didn't like this one, do it again". The best they can come up with is "the characters are trapped in an illusion, so it's not a real ending". Fine, if you want to read that ending as still being in an illusion, you're welcome to, but it's still an ending. If there were a secret episode from the starting point of the world being an illusion, what's the actual content of that episode? They break the illusion, rescue the kids, and kill Vecna. All things they already did in the previous episode, only I guess this time they get to do it "for real", as if that would be any more of a satisfying narrative, and not just a clumsy bait and switch? It's not people wanting more of the story, or a different twist on the story, it's them wanting Mike Wheeler to look straight down the camera and say, "well done you for paying attention, you are very smart, you figured everything out, and you are a better Stranger Things fan than everybody else" directly to them. They're not being creative, they're just desperate for validation.

[DavidB6937]

Plus logically, what if the finale went down well and everyone decided it was brilliant? What are they then going to do? Release the mystery episode and be like "haha suck it!" and fuck everything up?

It only works if someone deliberately makes a shit finale and is willing to risk the wrath of every viewer and destroy any trust anyone's ever put in you. Because you sure as hell won't be getting any faith the next time you make anything. You'll be like M Night. You won't be able to make a damn thing without people expecting that again.