Stranger Things: I just don't understand why people love this show

When Stranger Things was first released with Season 1 I jumped on board just like everyone else did. It was refreshing and innovative and it also mixed in a bunch of 80's nostalgia that for someone like me that was growing up in those times, was a nice throwback to my youth. I admired the time and effort they must have went through to replicate the 80's in modern times and they clearly had a very big budget to play with.

I thought season one was OK but still good. Then I feel as though it really went downhill.

Mild season 3 spoilers ahead!

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With season 4 having just been released a few weeks ago, a lot of people are talking about it and since Netflix is kind of running out of original content, it is one of their flagship shows at the moment. I've heard that season 4 is "excellent" by some reviewers but I gave up about 4 episodes into season 2 so I was very far behind. I wasn't going to go back and watch that again so I thought I would compromise by watching the recap and all of season 3. Let me tell you, it was kind of a struggle making it all the way through all of those episodes.

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Season 3 centers around this new shopping mall that is causing problems in the city of Hawkins because it is putting small shops out of business. It doesn't take a genius-level IQ to figure out that there is going to be something supernatural about the shopping mall's sudden appearance in the show.

I like how they incorporated a mall into the series because it was such an iconic part of 80's and early 90's life. Malls weren't where you went shopping, it was where you hung out and wandered. It is strange to think about doing something like that today but that is what we did back then. They represent this pretty well in season 3 and I appreciate that. I don't appreciate almost everything else about this season though.

It drags, it really really drags and is just boring.

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To be fair to the show I'll go ahead and reveal that I am not a fan of child actors especially when they are put into roles where they are smarter than all of the adults around them. This is clearly done to attract a younger audience but in reality it is just kind of irrational to suggest that children would be more capable of dealing with some sort of Russian-backed supernatural underground fortress hidden in a shopping mall that none of the adults are even aware exists. The kids don't even mention it to any of the adults and just keep it to themselves for some reason. I am sure this is addressed somewhere and the adults probably don't believe the kids or something like that. I can't say for sure because season 3 moves so slowly that I was frequently looking at my phone and just kind of paying attention to what is happening on screen.

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I guess you could say that I kind of enjoyed the addition of Billy as a villain but the way in which he came to being that is something that is just too convenient and well, stupid. Billy wasn't even involved in the supernatural stuff at all yet for some reason it targets him and the way in which he is turned to the dark side was a bit too convenient and was just poor writing. I don't like when supernatural powers can just reach out to anyone and make them hallucinate and drag them to the depths, so to speak, even though there is no good reason for them to be targeted at all. This is a recurring theme in Stranger Things that I have a problem with across the board.

Why target Billy? He's just a playboy lifeguard that isn't involved in investigating the unknown depths at all. Yet he is dragged into this world against his will in a really convenient and silly manner. I suppose I appreciated Dacre Montgomery's acting a lot more than you younger co-stars. I'll give him that.

Herein lies the biggest problem I have with Stranger Things in a general sense. Most of the show is about a bunch of whiney kids who fill up 50% of every episode with their in-fighting with one another. Since they stick to an 8 or 9 episode season format with 1-hour episodes, a lot of what happens in each episode is simply filler to take up time and doesn't really progress the story in any meaningful capacity.

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All of the kids have this permanent look on their faces about how they are about to get really upset and aside from Gaten Matarazzo who plays Dustin, the kid with braces and a lisp, I don't think ANY of them are good actors.

Should I watch it?

I only suffered through this to get some backstory in order to attempt to enjoy season 4, which many are saying is the best season yet. I kind of regret wasting 8 hours of my life on this season because even though I didn't finish season 2, I really can't imagine it being more convoluted and stupid than 3. Season 3 was just terrible IMO and had I not had an endgoal of preparing myself for watching season 4, I probably would have given up on it just like I did season 2 years ago.

I wouldn't suggest anyone repeat what I did and to just go into season 4 and watch the recap at the start of season 4 instead. There isn't much pertinent information in season 3 that isn't summed up in this 5 minute recap. In all honesty I really think that all of season 3 could have been put into 2 episodes and the rest of it was just boring as hell.

Let's hope season 4 is better because I felt that 3 was just awful.