The 13yo started watching Stranger Things a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been watching it with him as I’m able and we have time for about two episodes per week. He would have watched the whole thing in a day but he’s limited to the times when his younger brother his not around.
We are still on the first season of the show and while I watched it way back in 2016 when it first premiered on Netflix and enjoyed it, I had forgotten just how great that first season is. I am appreciating that it has been so long since I first watched it—and let’s face it, a lot has happened in those intervening years—that I only remember the general outline of the plot and story. I mean, I’m not shocked by any cliffhangers or plot-twists, but they’re still mostly effective. And really, if a TV show or movie depends on you’ll-never-see-it-coming! moments, it was probably not that great to begin with.
Mostly, I just think it’s pretty great when I return to something I used to like and find that it holds up.
Truth be told, while I have some complaints about the show’s subsequent seasons (e.g., they really should have had a time jump between seasons three and four rather than try to convince me that all those kids were still in middle school), they were still pretty great. I wish more people could appreciate how shitty TV used to be; it’s funny to hear people complain about “filler” episodes when 22- or 24-episode seasons used to have entire runs of filler.