Netflix Series - Stranger Things 2 - Oct 27 2017 (1 Viewer)

[Sean Bryan]

Finished episode 4, boy this series is hard to watch. A short 1h30 movie is padded to 9 hours. Nothing interesting happens and they repeat the same thing over and over again. One thing for sure I'm dropping this series after season 2.

Just drop it now. It's not for you. "Easy Peasy"

 

[Jeff Flugel]

Finished episode 4, boy this series is hard to watch. A short 1h30 movie is padded to 9 hours. Nothing interesting happens and they repeat the same thing over and over again. One thing for sure I'm dropping this series after season 2.

Wow, couldn't disagree with this take more! I found season 2 an improvement in many ways over season 1, digging deeper into the characters, even more stylish and confident. So much goodness.
I even liked the much-discussed episode 7, and see it as necessary character progression for Eleven...although I agree with Sean that that particular storyline would have been better served if it swapped places with episode 6, or better yet, was separated into smaller chunks and distributed over several episodes.

Robert, glad to see you enjoyed the series. Like you, Hopper is my favorite character, and I think David Harbour does outstanding work here (can't wait to see what he does with Hellboy). Love where they take his character in season 2. All the cast is strong, which definitely works to make them so likeable and relatable. The various character interactions are the glue that holds the whole show together. All the 80s nostalgia stuff is just the icing on the cake.

 

[Todd H]

Finished season 2 and love love love this show. Bring on season 3!

 

[Tino]

I liked season 2 very much. Although I thought season one was much better.

Hard to pinpoint but to me there were no “wow” moments in this season. Season one had a bunch.

Can’t wait for S3

 

[Sam Favate]

Episode 4 for me last night, and it was more intense than the first three. The little shocker at the end made my wife jump and made me laugh. The show hits all the right notes.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Would you be willing to explain this a little? I feel dense, but now that I've watched the whole show I don't think I understand what you are saying here.

OK, so before I get into this I want to say I have no issue with these things nor do I see them as any sort of problem. I won't guess at what the intent of the creators of the show might be nor what messages they may or may not have intended to send. This will be in spoilers for the sake of anybody that has not made it all the way through the show.

Pretty sure he means the interracial relationship.

That is part of it, yes, and since you addressed that part...yes, oddly and sadly, the country seems to have been thrown into reverse in terms of race relations which I find hideous and cruel and I find where the support for this slide backwards is coming from pretty horrible. So, to me it was a beautiful thing to see the romance develop between Lucas and Max but at the same time I wondered if this was an intentional shot across the bow of all those disgusting people that support a racial divide in this country...and if it is, I say good for the creators of this show for doing it. I did expect after seeing that though that there would be some hideous people out there responding to this in a big negative way...and I am sad to say that.

Spoiler: SPOILERS

Part two of this was the scene where Nancy and Jonathan go to see the conspiracy guy and work out a plan to send copies of the tapes to all the newspapers. During this sequence the conspiracy guy feeds them vodka, humorously mentions Russia, and while feeding these high school kids booze encourages them to share a bed together in his house, then the following morning teases them about sleeping together and what happened. Again, this did not bother me but I can certainly see middle American "values" folks finding all that terribly disgusting. Where I was laughing I imagined some parents would want to ban their kids from watching this show and if an adult fed their kids booze and encouraged them to sleep together in his house...they would be calling the police. Just felt like there could be some ugly reaction to these scenes.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Not to get too far off topic but one Star Wars movie (which deliberately echoed previous SW movies as the previous had) is not indicative of the man's entire career. Even the Star Trek sequel which used Khan doesn't bear much resemblance to the original Wrath Of Khan movie (and, like Star Wars, any resemblances are intended to be seen that way) and the only real similarity between the Mission: Impossible TV series and movies is that they've both got spies in them.

When I look at his career as a director --two Treks, two Star Wars, a Mission Impossible sequel, and his Spielberg knock-off Super 8-- the guy does not come across as anything but a gun for hire that does decent work on prepackaged sequel and reboot stuff. As a director...he seems to be nothing special. I mean I think his Trek films and his Star Wars film were entertaining but I think there were a lot of people that could have done as good a job if not a lot better.

 

[TravisR]

When I look at his career as a director --two Treks, two Star Wars, a Mission Impossible sequel, and his Spielberg knock-off Super 8-- the guy does not come across as anything but a gun for hire that does decent work on prepackaged sequel and reboot stuff.

So he's like every other director of big budget movies today.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I guess so...

 

[Robert Crawford]

I guess so...

Changing your avatar to Burt Lancaster from "Vera Cruz" still won't get you on my good side.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Changing your avatar to Burt Lancaster from "Vera Cruz" still won't get you on my good side.

Well, we're still brothers in Burt.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I started this season with my wife on Friday or Saturday, and we just finished the second episode last night.

This thread - and the internet at large - is an example for why I hate this method of delivery for shows. It seems that most people just binged it on the weekend or Friday night. Looking through this thread is a little bit like tripping through a minefield (though I appreciate those who used spoiler tags), and it's the same thing with headlines on the internet. I'm not even trying to look up Stranger Things to read out, but just in the course of normal web watching, it's "ABOUT THAT ENDING!!!!" and "HERE'S WHERE SEASON 3 MIGHT PICK UP!!!" and that kinda stuff.

My enjoyment of episodic television watching - which had been declining for years - was reinvigorated this summer with Showtime's Twin Peaks revival, which aired week-to-week. I enjoyed looking forward to each new episode, and then having the week to think about it, rewatch it, and participate in discussions here at HTF, as well as with real-world friends and colleagues. With Stranger Things and other Netflix-style deliveries, I feel that something is lost when all of the episodes are just dumped out there at once. We can all watch it separately, and talk about it when we finish at our own different paces (most of which seem way faster than my pace), but talking about each episode as an individual unit seems to be impossible.

In the end, as far as the internet is concerned, Stranger Things 2 is almost "over" - by the end of the week, I doubt people will be talking about it much. Within two weeks, in the world at large, it'll be fair game for anyone to use a spoiler and talk about what a hypothetical season three could be about, and there will be no consideration for the fact that not everyone wants to binge this.

I feel like my choices are either to binge at a pace I'm not comfortable with for the sake of finishing it before everything is openly spoiled everywhere, to watch at my pace with the acknowledgment that I'll probably get the beans spilled before I get anywhere close to the end, or just give up on it altogether. The idea of watching all eight or ten episodes in a single sitting doesn't appeal to me, and if anything, the thought of having to do that makes the show seem more like a chore or obligation than something to look forward to.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Well Josh, this is a subject matter I have to disagree with you on. I didn't plan on binge watching this series, but once I got into it, I couldn't stop watching it because it entertained me that much. With that said, I couldn't binge watch a bad series like Fox's Inhumans. There is no way I can watch that entire series in 3 days.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Well Josh, this is a subject matter I have to disagree with you on. I didn't plan on binge watching this series, but once I got into it, I couldn't stop watching it because it entertained me that much.

The "problem" for me (and I say this with the acknowledgment that if this is my biggest complaint in life, that means life must be pretty good) is when my wife and decide to watch a show together, our differing work schedules make binging almost impossible to do. She could binge the show in a couple days if she wanted to, and I could binge the show in a couple days if I wanted to, but the only way we'll be able to watch it together is if we limit it to one episode a time, maybe two if time permits.

Maybe my initial complaint didn't come out right, but I am definitely missing the chance to be discussing this show here the way TV discussions normally unfold during a more traditional week-to-week rollout. It's not HTF membership's fault but just the nature of the beast. It's really challenging to try to scroll through this thread trying to determine if anyone is at the same place I am, and the conclusion I'm coming to is that I probably should just bow out until I've finished the season. And I'm sure by the time I get to that, the discussions will be long concluded.

I also realized, perhaps as a side effect of this method of delivery, that I didn't really remember anything from the first season, which makes sense because I saw it in less than a week over a year ago. If it was a more traditional series release, instead of it having been over a year for new episodes since I last saw an episode, it would be a few months off between seasons instead of a year or more.

I appreciate that the ability to binge is great when you get on a roll with a show, and especially when you're not trying the impossible task of watching it with someone on an opposite schedule to you, but I miss the whole cultural zeitgeist thing and the water cooler talk that comes with a hit show being on air on a weekly basis.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I rather have the option to binge watch than to have to wait until all the episodes are available to watch nine weeks later. I have so much going on in my life as far as home video entertainment, the traditional way of watching TV shows just doesn't appeal to me at this stage of my life as a retiree.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I agree that the Netflix model of releasing shows is a major hindrance on discussion, since everybody consumes the run of episodes at their own pace. I really enjoy the episodic discussion, here and elsewhere, of shows that are released weekly, and I do miss it for shows like this.

My only other complaint about all-at-once is that it makes the wait for the next season really long. If Netflix had released this weekly, the season would have continued though the middle of December. At that point, we'd only be talking ten months until the next season. Not a short amount of time, but in the ballpark of HBO's release schedule. With this, as soon as you finish it, it's going to be a whole 'nother year, give or take, until the story continues.

But there are pleasures that the binge model offers that the weekly model does not. When I catch up with broadcast shows after the season is over, watching the episodes in quick succession downplays the flaws and turbocharges the momentum.

For shows that are designed with binging in mind, it opens up additional possibilities for the writers. They can take their time laying the groundwork in the early episodes, knowing that audiences won't have to wait a month or more to "get to the good stuff." They don't have to waste time on reiterating important information, because the audience only has to remember back a few hours instead of weeks or months. They can be lean heavier into the serialized elements, because the episodes don't need to work as a standalone hour. The production schedule has more flexibility, because they don't need to meet airdates. If they're in out on location, they shoot all of the material for all of the episodes at once. Anecdotally, this seems to allow serialized shows to be more aggressive about leaving the soundstages.

The "Twin Peaks" revival was the greatest television-watching experience I've had in a long, long time. I can't imagine anything displacing it as my favorite TV experience of 2017.

But "Stranger Things 2" is currently a strong second, for entirely different reasons. Spending my nights this past weekend in Hawkins, Indiana brought me immense pleasure, and being able to flow from one episode into the next and choose my own stopping point each evening was a big part of that pleasure.

 

[Wayne_j]

The Netflix model takes a lot out of episode by episode discussion and theories that could have developed if there was time between episodes.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I definitely agree that there can be pluses to the non-linear, all at once episode dump. But then, I wonder, are we still dealing with "television shows" or a new medium altogether? Not that there's anything wrong with that - but if it's not made the way TV is made, not released in the same way other TV is released, and not consumed in the same way other TV is, is it still TV?

I find for all of the benefits of binge watching, one of the downsides for me personally is that things don't resonate as much or stay in my mind in the same way. When I started this new season of Stranger Things, I couldn't believe how much I didn't remember - character names all disappeared, and I couldn't even remember what happened other than that Will got rescued and Barb didn't (though I can't remember if she's dead dead or just missing). I think something happens, at least with me, when I'm forced to watch these things over a longer period and digest them more slowly. When I binge, it's often fun in the moment but I don't necessarily make all the emotional connections that the audience is supposed to - I feel like I'm almost absorbing plot and nothing else, and it becomes in my head all about what happens, and not about why or how.

To go back to that Twin Peaks revival example - if I had binged it all in a weekend, I physically could have done it but I would have missed so much. I feel like I could sum up the entire season in just a couple sentences if plot was all we were talking about. But I'd be missing the forest for the trees if I did.

Maybe this would work better for me if I just thought of Stranger Things and other Netflix-type shows as long made-for-TV movies instead of shows. No one pops into HTF to comment on the first third of the movie they just started watching (at least, I hope not!) so maybe I should take that mindset.

And there also may be something to be said for the quick release tamping down on rampant speculation and ranking each episode individually. I'd get a little miffed when Twin Peaks reviewers would call one episode an A, and then the next a B-, etc, when it still wasn't clear where it was all going - I can't imagine reviewing serialized television on an episode by episode basis when it's clearly part of a whole. Watching them all at once elimanates some of the temptation to do that. And sometimes guessing plot twists can just kill a thing. And I think too many theories can kill a show too. Nothing wrong with having a theory, but I found it offputting the way, for instance, certain Westworld viewers declared their theories as fact from the start, and browbeat others who didn't share them or delighted in "spoiling" things for others. The binge watch helps with that too.

I think Adam's point about the wait for the new season to start being extra long is right on.

So maybe they just need to make a law that says my wife and I get the weekends off each time a new show is put out, and then I'll learn to love it!

 

[benbess]

I agree that I would like it better if they released an episode a week, rather than all at once. But, since I really like the show, I'll take it any way I can get it.

 

[Tino]

When I look at his career as a director --two Treks, two Star Wars, a Mission Impossible sequel, and his Spielberg knock-off Super 8-- the guy does not come across as anything but a gun for hire that does decent work on prepackaged sequel and reboot stuff. As a director...he seems to be nothing special. I mean I think his Trek films and his Star Wars film were entertaining but I think there were a lot of people that could have done as good a job if not a lot better.

I thought every one of those films( except SW9 of course) was excellent and shows what an extraordinary director JJ is. He’s one of the top directors working today imo. I think Very few directors could have done better. I couldn't disagree with your opinion more.