I tried, despite my misgivings. I tried watching this new season of Stranger Things.
I made it a half hour before giving up.
I have noticed that inevitably these expensive streaming series that suck up your time for 8 or 10 or 12 episodes in their first season decline precipitously if the powers that be decide to give them another year. They’ve already had over 8 hours to tell their story, and they couldn’t do it? So now you give them 40 or 50 hours to stretch out the story? If they couldn’t do it the first time, they’re going to definitely fail the fifth time. If I’m going to watch something, I prefer to search in the movies section, where we have directors and producers who comprehend the economies of narratives. The blight of the streaming series has produced a generation of storytellers who only know how to dither and babble and stretch out profits for as long as possible.
I know I’m old, but that’s how I felt about Stranger Things even before I took a taste. Lowest possible expectations.
But even setting that aside, the show was terrible to a degree that you can only get with a massive budget ($480 million!!!) and the confidence that comes from building on a foundation that has churned out 4 previous years of incoherence. This one has another handicap: a massive, tangled cast of bad actors. They started out as child actors who got by with innocence and fresh approaches, but now they’re all gawky young adults who never had to take their craft seriously, and it shows. They’re in this to milk one more payday out of the franchise before they age out totally.
That’s what killed the first episode for me. I couldn’t stand watching these actors trying to awkwardly reprise a children’s dark fantasy story. It wasn’t much of a story, either: evil monster Vecna is scheming to turn our world into a hellscape, and somehow the same gang of kids have to frustrate him, probably by splitting up and doing magical psychic things.
No thanks. Nope. I’m outta here.
I enjoyed the first season. It was unique and, like Lost, it kept me wondering WTF was going on. Season 2 was a disappointment. I lasted 2 episodes before I pulled the plug. The creators completely lost their way. I never saw subsequent seasons because I dropped Netflix.
Off topic. Today is December 5, in much of Northern Europe it is Krampusnacht. Krampus night, when Krampus delivers birch switches to bad girls and boys. Krampus parades will be held today in many Europen cities. Krampus impersonators march through the streets. Search google youtube for examples. See Amazon for Krampus T-shirts. Yeehaw!
The “decline in quality” is pretty common for TV series. (Yes, that includes Star Trek, TOS).
First season, they have a whole set of shows thought out during the time when the producers are trying to get an okay to put on the show.
Second season, riding remaining energy/ideas from first season, not as good but okay.
Third season: out of new ideas, spinning their wheels
Fourth season: If not cancelled, get new writers, some early problems but then starts improving.
Once you observe this trajectory a few times, it becomes pretty obvious.
Larry@1: Exactly the same for me!
I didn’t expect to enjoy the first season as much as I did, not a fan of modern horror in general, but in season two there was no mystery for me, it was obvious what was happening from the beginning and in the few episodes I saw the plot seemed to be driven by every character having turned into a complete idiot during the brake.
Probably written this before: Back in the 90s I was thrilled with Babylon 5 having a story spanning several seasons instead of Star Treks Planet of the Week stories. These days with streaming series stretching a plot long past breaking point and everything at least needing an “arc” I’d really like a classic planet/monster of the week show!
I’ve found the best source of background noise for me is TubiTV, a free streaming service (with commercials). They have a rich trove of old movies, especially SF and horror, so I can play old B&W creature features to my heart’s content. Cheesy, cheap, and always an hour and a half long, perfection.
How about simply the sound of silence?
Or sound of nature.
With no music, no words, just listen to the natural world. Far from human noise.
Different people think in different ways. I need a level of ambient noise to help me concentrate — nature sounds would tempt me to leave the world of screens and papers and leave to look for spiders.
I avoid watching TV series in the first place. That includes the British fare that my wife likes to watch. This is a problem because she wants to watch them together, and I can’t sit still long enough for it. Ten minutes and I’m done. ADHD maybe? I had all my vaccines when I was a little kid, so maybe. I should contact Dr. Junior…I might be the poster child for him and his branch of the oligarch tree.
PZ @5: I use PlutoTV for the same thing. Mystery Science Theater 3000 or Mythbusters makes good background noise when I want to concentrate on something else.
One thing that was good about The Strain as a series was it went in with a limited arc trajectory. Other shows milk it for all it’s worth…looking at you The Walking Dead and many spinoffs.
TubiTV is great and so is Pluto. One of my horrorcasters, Ghost Pirate Entertainment often does highlight episodes for horror you can find on Tubi.
I managed to tweak my lower back a bit recently so I guess I’ll be reading and streaming the next several days of relative inactivity, so my back doesn’t become a horror show of its own. It’s given me a few jump scares already.
BTW I recently discovered Sammy Davis Jr was a bona fide satanist. https://nerdist.com/article/leslie-odom-jr-horror-movie-sammy-davis-jr-church-of-satan-based-on-rolling-stone-article/
That’s an interesting premise for a horror movie. The Rolling Stone article was far more detailed on his connection to LaVey.
As for streaming shows I’m currently into, The Chair Company is a wild ride. I looked at a reddit thread and someone joked Season 2 might get into the tables instead:
PZ Myers@5: Tubi is even better up here in Soviet Canuckistan. They’ve had some big flicks on like The Fifth Element of late.
My pro tip: yt-dlp is able to download any Tubi content that isn’t DRM’d. I’ve had instances where the film doesn’t restart properly after the advertising, so I use this to get around that.
TubiTV is great — unfortunate that it’s owned by Fox Corporation.
I don’t see an issue with telling different stories with each season of a series, but I agree that sometimes it gets a bit drawn out and many series do decline in quality over time. However, for me, there are some that either don’t decline, or they don’t decline so much that it turns me off.
The Expanse (currently on Prime Video) was one that I though got better with each season, at least until the end, which was very rushed.
Yeah, it’s very much a mixed bag. Barbie is on there right now, alongside Amazon Women in Outer Space and Piranhaconda. Honestly, I’d rather watch Arachnoquake than a short bit of Stranger Things.
No episodes? Granted, the streaming services no longer make TV episodes. It’s all prestige TV, where the entire season is a giant movie.
I’ve soured on prestige format. It’s been done to death. Bring back the self-contained TV episodes.
When I want some background noise or something to give my place some atmosphere, YouTube has ambience channels that have pretty scenery like forests, cabins or coffee shops (some of them use real places, some are artistic creations) with nature sounds or music. You can leave them on for hours without having to pay much attention.
One of my favorite ambience channels is called Calmed by Nature. Lots of wintry and seasonal videos.
@3: Really? ISTM a lot of shows spend their first seasons trying to find their footing, and don’t really hit the groove until S2. Certainly ST:TNG survived S1 only because it was Star Trek, and fans were desperate after the Long Drought. Otherwise, a lot of it was a rehash of TOS (and not the best bits either), only with a bigger budget.
I decided I was done with “Stranger Things” when, in the last few minutes of the last episode of S4, it was revealed that: a) the high-school characters would NEVER have time to actually deal with any of the adolescence/growing-up issues that made them interesting characters, because b) their last big climactic world-saving battle with Vecna didn’t accomplish anything and the Hellmouth was opening up again anyway. I don’t need to watch any more of this any more than I needed to watch more than two Alien and two Terminator movies.
PS: If anyone here is looking for a decent series on Netflix, I suggest “Pantheon,” an anime series set in S. CA and revolving around issues of “uploaded intelligence.” It’s apparently based on short stories by Ken Liu. Second season recently came up.
@#3
All the more reason to cherish those shows that manage to keep that new first season smell for the entire run. I’m thinking Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, The Wire, and Mad Men here. Maybe a season didn’t completely live up to the rest but, over all, they were great television. Also, they all benefitted from the show’s creators knowing when to quit.
You know, it’s not just TV where this is a problem. Comic books have had the same issue for a couple of decades now: everything is a story arc, you can’t pick up a single issue and have a story anymore, they’re all written for the trade paperback format now, so you need five to six issues to get the actual story.
Youtube. Rainstorm. Ambient noise. With or without lightening and thunder. I have a few faves running 8 or ten hours.
When the first season’s episodes 5+6 suddenly reveal themselves, for no good story reason, to be filler episodes, then you know someone is already eyeing up a second season. You will either get an abandoned ending, or a dissatisfying non-ending to lead into season two.
Writers assure me this isn’t the case, but my expectations plummet anyway, and it takes wild horses to draw me beyond.
Alas, as I age I get ever fussier.
I’m never been more aware of how true Sturgeon’s rule is.
Maybe I’m jaded, maybe just past the point of coping with formulaic derivative stuff.
Maybe (heh) my brain is too finely-tuned.
So, that show i dressed up as nostalgia as I discovered when attempting to watch it.
Since I was never USAnian, the resonance wasn’t there.
Also, can’t help seeing a thematic link between Stranger Things scabbing the D&D Vecna monster which sure seems like it drew on Moorcock’s Kwll and Rhynn.
Still, so it goes. Most people would not be aware of all of that.
Regarding the show, I had Netflix when it launched and tried, but bailed inside fifteen minutes. Pure Americana, no hook, nothing happening in S1E1.
I skipped around a bit and it never had anything of interest, so obs, I quit and have nevermore wasted time on it.
Now I hear about 5 seasons and can’t feel bad for those who spent time on it.
Hey, how long did it take the crew to film the first season of Stranger Things anyway?
I mean, since it’s a streaming series that isn’t in danger of being canceled by a network, they probably should have filmed the second season immediately after they’d finished filming the first.
I remember there’s a similar thing for Doctor Who, called “double banking”, where they occasionally film two episodes simultaneously (like “Midnight” and “Turn Left”).
I enjoyed the new episodes quite a bit. I thought it was a clear improvement on seasons 3 and 4.
I much prefer series that have a focused plot and a definite conclusion. The Good Place, Silicon Valley, Queen’s Gambit, Barry, Veep.
I watched that episode just to see if it was enjoyable entertainment. It was boring. Very boring.
The writers are obviously huge Stephen King fans, and I find most of his writing equally boring. Vecna may as well be moneypenny the evil clown.