Stranger Things – Finishing Up The Upside Down

(This comes with Upside Down Marshmallows, so did you really expect me to pass it up?)

Stranger Things Season 5 – its final season – is a triple-date release. Four episodes will be released on November 26, three more on December 25, and the series finale on December 31st. I am more than frustrated the Netflix brass and those Duffer Brothers apparently have collective egos so massive they decided to not only stretch out the final season in this three-way manner, but they took direct aim at America’s beloved holidays. The resulting Stranger Things Fear Of Missing Out will disrupt seasonal plans, sending family members dashing to their screens, all as spoilers race across social media. It’s downright sacrilegious if you ask me…as if the Upside Down infected Netflix.

Runtimes for the first four episodes of Season 5 were announced recently:

Episode 1 – One hour, eight minutes.

Episode 2 – Fifty-four minutes.

Episode 3 – One hour, six minutes.

Episode 4 – One hour, twenty-three minutes. (Mid-season “break”)

These are thankfully more in line with the first three seasons. Runtimes are of interest to me. Do they influence you when making a decision on whether to see a new film you might be unsure of, or do you ponder episode lengths… or even the number of episodes when you are considering giving a new show a chance? I know when I am proposing to go see a film she hasn’t heard of before, the first thing Mrs. B asks after who is in it…how long is it? I sometimes will look up how many episodes a show has or will have, as well as how long its episodes are or expected to be. Sometimes, I weigh that potential investment of time if I’m on the fence about viewing.

The Season 4 finale of Stranger Things was two hours, nineteen minutes long. That’s a movie to me, folks. And to be sure, Season 5 is having money lavished on it like its eight episodes will all resemble movies if only in their appearance. The reported budget those Duffer twins have been working with since production on Season 5 began back in January is $50-60 million per EPISODE.

Executive Producer and frequent ST Director Shawn Levy was quoted by Time Magazine recently on the scope of this final season:

“The sets were no less ambitious than the ones I used with Marvel.”

“It happens to be a television series, but it’s epic storytelling by any metric.”

It is.

(They have red filling in them…!)

The first season of Season 1 was released in its entirety back on July 15, 2016, but Mrs. B and I came to visit Hawkins, Indiana much later.  It was the summer of 2020 when we decided to start watching it…after the first three seasons of the show had already been released. I can’t really explain why we ignored it until that time…but I recall having discussions it just didn’t sound like we’d be a good match for it. We were wrong…and I respectfully submit if you have never watched Stranger Things because it just didn’t sound like your kind of show, you’re probably wrong as well.

Interestingly enough, each night that summer we alternated watching Stranger Things from its beginning with another series that had just completed its third season…Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina. Sabrina was a show we had a better heads-up on in terms of style and storytelling as it was from the same creator who was responsible for The CW’s Riverdale, a show we were already watching.

(If you want some more things stranger, we recommend Sabrina. It is funny, edgy, sexy, and dark. It ain’t always easy being a teenage witch, and trying to juggle being on the good side of darkness with staying on the good side of your friends does not always end in your favor. Kiernan Shipka – Sally Draper on Mad Men – portrays the transition of Sabrina Spellman to young adult perfectly)

We love Stranger Things pretty much for the same reasons others do…the 80’s culture and nostalgia, the different genres it touches upon, fully-developed characters, and a deeply-talented cast. It looks good, it sounds good, and it tells epic good stories. I think for the most part the series moved along at a decent clip, but more lengthy run times in Season 4 had me noticing moments and scenes alike that should have been more tightly edited in my opinion. Bigger is not always better.

Time also mentioned the process the Duffer Brothers use to write the show…seated across from each other with headphones on…working and editing the same Google document. It is referred to as their “hive mind.” Fans of Stranger Things can certainly identify with that description of their creative mentality.

Here’s hoping that process leads to Season 5 being tightly-edited, fast-paced, and loaded with more meaningful, memorable moments as the kids and adults of Hawkins try to shut down the Upside Down…once and for all.

46 thoughts on “Stranger Things – Finishing Up The Upside Down”

  1. I remember watching Sabrina after she left the “teenage witch” period and liking it, but sadly Bruce I am one of those folks who has never embraced Stranger Things. Probably because, until recently, wasn’t willing to pay for Netflix. Now there are quite a few shows I love there so I made the commitment to subscribe. Not sure I’ll go back to seek out SThings though. I am fully onboard for you and Mrs. B however. I can see just how much joy it’s brought to your life 🙂

    1. Thanks, Deb. Believe me, we weren’t sure it was for “us.” Perhaps that level of joy taken from it has at least something to do with waiting on it in the first place. Unexpected surprises have a greater impact. Curious to know what shows you are watching on Netflix…

      1. So right now my list includes: Great British Baking, The Diplomat, Interview with the Vampire, and just finished or awaiting new seasons of Black Mirror, Wednesday, Dept Q, A Good Girls Guide to Murder, Nobody Wants This, Bridgerton plus some movies + plus some older sci Fi series that I’m debating on. The Sandman was a great one but the series wrapped as have other limited series. I get a lot out of this subscription after realizing there is a plethora of shows I like here 🙂

        1. DId you watch the second season of Sandman? I was a huge fan of the first one, but I knew it was ending with Season 2 so I have not taken the plunge yet. If you did watch it, how would you rate it vs. Season 1?

          1. I did. I would say I enjoyed season 1 a bit more but season 2 was well worth it even knowing the show was ending. I wanted the wrap up…or is it really a wrap up?? Hmmmm 🙂

    1. Netflix saw the streaming competition coming and is holding onto their intellectual property rights for all they are worth…which of course is a lot of money. I get it.

  3. Thanks for the info on when Season 5 of Stranger Things will be shown, Bruce. In these extremely strange times, showing Stranger Things during the holiday season actually seems more appropriate than strange.

  4. The Season 5 release schedule is an outrage!!😡 Releasing the day before Thanksgiving. ON Christmas Day? and New Year’s Eve? (I hate New Year’s at least). It’s the most egotistical, sacrilegious, irresponsible sh*t I’ve ever seen. Not to mention, this is gonna be a gore fest. It’s not about Christmas… After saying all this, may behoove one to learn Stranger Things is my favorite show ever. Watched the first season when it aired and it was one of the most magical viewing experiences of my life… I fear this fifth and final season is going to be a complete and utter train wreck. Mostly because I can tell the actors are over it, and they all look like they’re going to spend the rest of their careers in therapy. Do I still love it all? Yes I do. Expecting the worst but Hoping for the best. Ha— I’ll look for the cereal👾🙃

    1. Also the Duffer’s said this is the most Special FX ever and I don’t like the special FX action sequences. My favorite moments are the quiet moments, with good writing, acting, and that haunting original score🙂

      1. E.F., maybe if the FX was for/on the big screen, that money would be much more effective/better spent. I am sure that those excellent emotional scenes will share a decent amount of screen time with all of that FX.

    2. E.F., I have read fans are already dreading the “Game Of Thrones” final season scenario. When expectations are sky-high, it becomes a bar set too high. Everyone has their own personal idea of how each character should “end.” There is a moment in the fifth season finale of TV’s Supernatural where Chuck AKA God is lamenting writing endings. Some of the quote was “Endings are hard. Any chapped-ass monkey with a keyboard can poop out a beginning, but endings are impossible. You try to tie up every loose end, but you never can. The fans are always gonna bitch. There’s always gonna be holes. And, since it’s the ending, it’s all suppose to add up to something. I’m telling you, they’re a raging pain in the ass.” I’m not expecting the worst…but I am ready to bitch about it.😁

  5. I was swept into Stranger Things by three of my five grandchildren who were watching it at our house. I caught up to all the episodes and my wife even went to one of the immersive experiences with the three of them and their aunt and uncle. We will all be together at Thanksgiving and Christmas, so I assume we will be watching. We are used to going to big movie openings on those holidays.

    1. Geoff, we also attend movies over the holidays…and of course my sports are “relentless”during that period as well…lots of eyeball material. The immersive experience sounds like great fun.

  6. This is why I don’t watch TV. And don’t get me started on movies. Yay for Mrs B asking how long a movie is. Length? Episodes? All that mattered. And then I just had to stop. Now I am lucky to make it through 30 minutes of world news tonight!

        1. We sometimes don’t switch channels right away at 11 pm ET when watching “regular” TV…so the local news comes on. All the news stations here have a “formula” for keeping viewers when they come on…Murder #1, Murder #2…and then on to the bad weather we’re supposed to get a week from now. 😁

  7. I have to admit, I’ve never seen “Stranger Things” or “Sabrina.” I’ll give “Sabrina” a try based on your recommendation!

    1. Excellent, Belinda! Let me know what you think if you get to it. Sabrina features an excellent cast as well, and with a pretty decent budget to work with the scenery and sets really create a wonderful, witchy atmosphere in my opinion.

  8. Bruce, I’m one who hasn’t signed on for Stranger Things (yet!) I haven’t seen Sabrina either. What is beginning to sound like a trend with netflix, of stretching out a series’ season, is irritating as hell to me. They did that with the latest season of “Wednesday,” (which I highly recommend for a lot of reasons) but they didn’t give any warning. I binged the first so many episodes and it went to a screen that said (the rest of the season will be …) it shook me. I got over it, but I’m still peeved if this is going to become the usual MO.

    1. Lisa, Wednesday is one of our faves and we hated that release schedule for sure. We knew going in what it was, but it was frustrating.

      1. So happy you know about it and have watched it. Such a wonderful cast. Buscemi as the headmaster is priceless. I love Wednesday’s parents also. Perfect casting.

        1. Agreed on all counts. We actually watched the first season over again before the second one started, and I’m pretty sure we’re gonna watch the second season over again soon.

  9. Excited to see the end of Stranger Things. Not sure how I feel about the long runtimes though. Plus the fact that a 5 season show took 9 years to finish with the entire young cast being adults.

    1. One thing entertainment producers should always be sensitive to is audience reaction to characters aging. When you start a show revolving around or using children in key roles, probably good to get those seasons in asap because they age out of what the audience is used to super-quickly.

  10. Hi Bruce, I loved Stranger Things but series four – while indeed compelling – was as you described; in need of a little editing. And yes, I’m with Mrs B, preferring to know the length of things before committing to them. I have a rule that nothing should go beyond a fifth series. Better to go with people wanting more than them giving up on a format that has grown tired and run out fresh ideas. Anyhoo, enjoy! We’ve just finished watching The Hack (it’s a British drama about the newspaper hacking practices undertaken by News International journalists), and it was terrific.

    1. Hi, Emma. Thanks for stopping by and commenting. The Hack sounds very interesting and promising. What a great cast – big Tennant fan here. I also agree most of the series I have seen were unable to maintain the same momentum once they had five seasons or so completed. No matter how much you like the characters themselves, you can almost feel the aging of the show past a certain point. Of course, the other thing that happens is just as you are getting used to it powering on…the powers-to-be power it off!

  11. Lulu: “Our Dada seems to think that with movies and shows, longer is better! We have noticed that Mama doesn’t necessarily agree with him since she usually falls asleep.”
    Java Bean: “Sí, but she doesn’t mind getting foot rubs the whole time Dada is watching whatever he’s watching that doesn’t interest her. Such as this ‘Stranger Things’ show, which she has never paid any attention to despite all the 80s music in it …”

  13. I haven’t watched Stranger Things, due to my general aversion to the ‘scary.’ But I am fully with you about splitting the final season into three parts. It’s a pure selfish move on Netflix’s part. When they do that with my favourite shows, I just wait until close to when the final part is released, then I start watching. However, I know that not everyone has the iron-clad patience of yours truly! 😁

    1. I was really dumbfounded when I heard about what they were doing on this release. Releasing Wednesday in two parts in late summer/early fall is one thing, but to release ST on three holidays really is just the result of a few people stroking their own egos. I try to use that iron-clad patience as well, but so many spoilers show up on my entertainment news feeds I can’t read them again until I watch for myself!

  16. Hey Bruce, gonna try this reply a second time (not sure the first took)…

    I guess I like Netflix because you don’t have to sit through commercials. I get pretty ticked when I pay for Prime subscription or whatever and then have to sit through several minutes of commercials on top of it.

    I just finished the first part of Stranger Things, Season 5. I thought it was pretty decent, though they could have shaved 25% off the runtime and not lost a thing. Too much empty space as far as I can tell.

    Look forward to your thoughts when it all wraps up.

    1. Hey Vance, I have only seen a couple of the new eps so far so I am reserving judgement until I get through them all. It is nice to have it back, although I’m still mad as can be they rolled it out in this manner, and at this time of the year. Tacky, Netflix…but yeah, thanks for no commercials!

  17. Hey, Bruce. I’m going to admit that I didn’t read this because I’m still waiting to begin watching the final season. I’ll circle back and read this afterward. I’m not sure why I felt the need to comment now, though. I think I’m being influenced by the Downside Up or whatever it’s called.

    1. Mrs. B and I have been “slow-walking” watching the first four episodes released, trying to wait as long as we could for the next batch of eps to arrive. So…we just watched the fourth episode last night. Let me just say I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with that one in particular. We both loved it.😊

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