Stranger Things: What went WRONG?

you know finding a decent watering hole in London there isn't some gimmicky wank fest overpriced tourist trap for ditzy American students who think us Brits really do drink warm beer that tastes like unwashed fee or an absolute dive where the mortality rate hovers somewhere around the death zone of Mount Everest is a challenging prospect even for a seasoned drinker like me so I was particularly pleased when I stumbled on a perfect little place on the side bank last year the food was good the beer was even better and honestly I could have spent the whole night there drinking myself into oblivion and according to the police report I did so imagine my disappointment when I returned earlier this year only to find out that my favorite drinking establishment had me to eat into a pretentious overpriced hipster [ __ ] sellin craft beer brewed in someone's bathtub and vegan gluten free ethically sourced bar snacks that made me want to kill myself and everyone involved in their production the building and even the decor was the same as I remembered but everything that made the place good had been stripped away and there was only one cure for that sort of thing no I mean this anyway the point of this totally contrived anecdote is the facility I ran a bit something else I used to enjoy but which ultimately morphed into a disappoint in pile of fecal matter served up by a pair of bearded hipster looking [ __ ] stranger things was one of the most interesting shows to come out of 2016 a quirky but surprisingly effective mix of horror movie sci-fi adventure and coming-of-age drama all wrapped up in a big ball made of 80s nostalgia it bursts onto the Netflix scene a couple of years back and took the world by storm people just couldn't get enough of stranger things [ __ ] man and even I got caught up in the hysteria the series is centered around the small Midwestern town of Raccoon City Oh I mean Hawkins Indiana was shitty government scientists in a nearby lab have been doing psychic experiments on a young girl named 11 but it all goes tits up and the axe gently open a gateway to an alternate dimension of darkness death and decay known as the upside-down this allows a creature called the demagogue and to crust her into our world and attack local townspeople it's assumed this whole thing didn't happen in the East End of Glasgow to be honest the Demi Gorgon would have taken one look around and been like nah I'll be fine I'll stick with be upside down thanks anyway one of the first people to disappear is a young boy named will Byers which causes his small group of friends to start searching for him they end up joining forces with 11 while his mother gradually convinces the local sheriff that there's more going on than a simple child abduction eventually the rescue will 11 sacrifices herself to kill the deme Gorgon and everyone else lives happily ever after and the show ends right there because it already told a satisfying story and anything beyond this would just be a shameless cash-grab that's what I'd like to see the reality is that when there's money to be made people will spin out a viable creative concept pretty much as far as it can go season 2 basically rehashed the plot from the first season - the intrigue mystery and tragic fairy tale atmosphere that made it so compelling in the first place while adding a bunch of unnecessary additions to an already bloated cast removing the fear factor of the demagogue ins and given 11 one of the most pointless time-wasting parks I think I've ever seen in all my six hours of sobriety so my enthusiasm for season 3 wasn't exactly high when I sat down with my pint of gin last week to play through it eight hours later my glass was empty my fears were pretty much confirmed and there was a suspiciously damp pots where I've been sitting on my couch I think I might actually have pissed myself the premise of season 3 is basically the same [ __ ] we've seen twice already the gateway to the upside down was closed but no some [ __ ] want to open it up again allowing monstrous creatures to come through and invade our world and only our plucky band of misfits can put a stop to it this time around our [ __ ] of the week are the Russians because you know why not right I'm sure there's some kind of viable military application for opening an unstable doorway to an alternate dimension filled with terrifying monsters of unknown power bent on destroying our world what could possibly go wrong this kind of logic reminds me of the [ __ ] who wanted to use massively expensive unpredictable resource hungry and easily killed dinosaur clones to win the war in Afghanistan or the company that thinks a genetically engineered virus with the potential to wipe out the entire human race is a more effective weapon than just dropping bombs [ __ ] off sure anyway the Russians have set up shop in a huge underground military base beneath the local shopping mall because that's totally something you could do I'm sure people wouldn't be curious about the massive amount of construction and excavation work going on there or the huge influx of scientists and other personnel to the area or the regular power blackouts and electromagnetic pulses [ __ ] everything up speaking of which Joyce notices that all the magnets have fallen off her fridge and because her whole reason for bein is to look like a crazy cat lady while obsessively pursuing a subject that nobody else cares about she eventually Rob's Sheriff hopper into figuring out why which causes them to uncover a Russian research outpost and run into this absolute tool meanwhile Dustin intercepts a coded Russian radio signal so he hooks up with Steve who works in an ice-cream parlor for some reason and they discover there's a secret base right beneath their shopping mall while that was lucky while all this insanity is going on local people and animals across Hawkins start acting weird they look like regular humans but there's something disturbingly strange and unnatural about them they operate as a collective hive mind making them incapable of independent thought sounds weirdly familiar they've all been possessed by a creature from the upside down known as the mind flayer the mind flayer wants to cross over into our dimension and take over the world and it's up to the emaciated corpse of local news reporter Nancy to figure out what's happening but none of the men at her newspaper want to help because patriarchy socialists her serial killer looking boyfriend and off they go Jesus and give this girl a cheese sandwich or something it's actually painful to look at her anyway the upshot here is that there are three parallel story threads woven throughout season three Dustin and Steve infiltrate in the Russian base 11 and the other kids versus the mine flare hopper and Joyce versus the Russian Terminator all three subplots eventually converge for a big showdown to expose the Russians kill the Terminator and stop the mind flayer from sticking over the world now that's all well and good but like the Star Wars prequels the problem lies in the execution there's a whole bunch of things this season gets very badly wrong and to be honest I could probably bore the arse off you by talking about them all day long but for the sake of our collective sanity I've boiled it down to the drinkers top five reasons why season 3 sucks ready is diving number one so many characters the cast of stranger things has become more bloated than Steven Seagal's horrific physical form this season season 1 featured a small close-knit group of kids unified behind the goal of finding their missing friends they each had a unique role in personality Dustin was the smart but geeky comic relief Lucas was the skeptical one who constantly questioned everything and Mike was the all rounder the reluctant leader who eventually formed a close bond with 11 the dynamic worked because each character had their own unique strengths and weaknesses their different personalities made for some great arguments and conversations and they were all played by generally good actors that you couldn't help but warm to then season 2 introduced us to max she's a tomboy who likes to skateboard and she acts like a total [ __ ] towards the group but for some reason they all accept her like she's some kind of ginger Messiah destined to be one of them or something despite the fact they have absolutely no shared interests and nothing in common this is not how childhood friendships play out Dhafir brothers it gets even worse in season 3 when max seems to spend most of her time driving a wedge between Mike and 11 and complaining about how boys are the worst thing to ever exist weirdly she also wants to share a bed with 11 at one point what could they possibly be setting up here I wonder another new addition is Robin who works at the shopping mall with Steve no naturally she's smarter and better than him at everything and she can decode an encrypted Russian transmission using just the dictionary because I'm sure they were that easy to figure out oh and she's gay if it seems like I just dropped that in there for no reason at all then great because that's basically what the Shah does to got a tick that representation box somehow I guess I also love this scene where the Russians are interrogating them and they torture the [ __ ] out of Steve but they won't lay a finger on Robin even though she knows just as much as him and would likely be easier to break under torture I guess ruthless undercover Russian military operatives have a sense of chivalry too then but I left the worst for last and in this case the worst happens to be this insufferable little [ __ ] her name's Erica and she is without a doubt the most annoying cringe-worthy bio inducing character I've seen since Ross Tico taught me to protect the things I love and she's played by an actress who tears the absolute arse out of every line of dialogue she's given like she's in a middle school Christmas play or something I mean I know child actors can be a bit hit or miss but honestly are you telling me this talentless wannabe was the best you could find [ __ ] off sure the point I make with all this pitch is that the bigger the cast gets the harder it becomes to find stuff for them to do either some characters become irrelevant and get pushed into the background or you end up having to create more and more subplots for them which results in a flabby and convoluted narrative that people quickly lose interest in either way your screenplays [ __ ] here's a tip if you find yourself having to think of things for your characters to do instead if there are rules being obvious then you've probably got too many characters to work with number 2 stranger things isn't supposed to be a comedy I don't know why but at some point between seasons two and three this show turns into a goofy slapstick comedy I mean season one did have moments of levity during tense scenes but generally the show took itself pretty seriously beneath all the eighties in jokes an alternate-dimension stuff it was sure that dealt with some pretty heavy dramatic issues such as child abduction illegal experimentation loss grief and acceptance bullying betrayal and redemption trust friendship and loyalty and personal sacrifice the dramatic undertone was helped by the fact that they had some pretty competent actors to do most of the heavy lifting and you couldn't help but empathize with their struggles they even subverted my expectations once in a while like having the [ __ ] teenage bully turn out to be a decent guy who gradually wakes up and redeems himself but season 3 plays out like a [ __ ] SNL skit most of the time with a wacky slapstick encounters and ludicrous situations that actually made me question whether the same people were still right in it for example teenagers in sailor outfits infiltrate in a secret russian base russian scientists like Slurpees magnum p.i sure is funny the most gullible security guards in history a fat man trying to escape down a kiddie slide Nancy's co-workers being total [ __ ] a hundred percent of the time drugged characters acting like drunken idiots Dustin has to sing an eighties power ballad to get a secret code from his girlfriend enough the point is the emotional tone of this season is all over the place one minute were supposed to feel unnerved as a characters mind slowly unravels under the mine flares influence the next were meant to be laughing as Stephen Robin try to negotiate with a ten-year-old girl and then we're supposed to be excited as Harper gets his ass kicked by the Russian Terminator you can have serious drama and action and humor in your show but ultimately one of them has to be the main focus and it honestly feels like the writers prioritized comedy over drama this time around [ __ ] off show number three the Russian connection I've seen enough 80s action movies to know that the Russians were the default bad guys most of the time because communism is evil but honestly the whole set up this season just left me scratching my head so the plants will reopen the gateway to the upside down using a giant laser drill thing how I thought it was 11 psychic powers that did this kind of thing what the [ __ ] is this thing supposed to be and how did deconstruct and operate a massive underground complex like this without anyone knowing about it I mean I know they had the local mayor in their pocket but are you seriously telling me that nobody outside of Hawkins had any idea this was going on is this town that isolated like nobody from the US government was keeping an eye on the place considering there used to be a top-secret research lab right next door and what are the Russians even hoping to achieve with all this it would be like unleashing Cthulhu to overthrow the regime in North Korea how did they even find out about the Gateway in the first place never mind learning enough about it to reopen the thing nah [ __ ] who cares the writers clearly don't the point here is that the evil scientists from the first season were worthy secondary antagonists because they had the authority of the US government behind them they were willing to experiment on children sacrificed their own people and murder innocent civilians to further their aims they were bad people doing bad things behind the mask of respectability in authority the Russians here are like dumb cartoon villains in comparison totally inept laughably gullible and monumentally stupid the fact that one of their scientists is willing to defect to America because he likes slushies and Burger King is one of the dumbest things I've seen since the last time brie Larson opened her mouth number four the main foyer isn't scary remember the Demi Gorgon from the first season that was a genuinely unsettling antagonist because it was thoroughly alien both in nature behavior and in appearance you didn't really understand what it wanted or why it was here it was immensely tough and strong and pretty much unstoppable you could hit it with baseball bats shoot it with bullets they even said it on fire and it would just keep coming like the best monsters in cinema it effectively tapped into our primal fear of the unknown you didn't understand it so you can begin to grapple with it and there was the even more unnerving possibility that this thing was just the tip of the iceberg that there were even more dangerous and monstrous creatures lurking in the darkness of the upside-down but by season 3 we know exactly what's lurking in the darkness the mine flare the intelligence behind everything in the upside-down wants to come through the gateway and destroy our world because you know why not all we saw of it before it was this towering shadowy creature that made of smoke or something but when we finally see it for real in season 3 it just looks like someone threw up over a modern art sculpture and believe me I can tell you plenty of stories about that it stops being scary because it's no longer an alien entity with unknown powers and abilities no it's just a big hulking monster that breaks through walls and it feels cheap yeah Billy becomes its human avatar for a while and he has some decent scenes fight in 11 but he ultimately plays second fiddle to a big old chunk of overblown CGI what's a waste number 511 yeah I realized that was probably a confusing subheading now but what the [ __ ] I've started so I'll finish xi was one of the most interesting characters of the first season a little girl who could barely speak and seemingly had no concept of the world outside her lab she was small and frightened and lost but beneath it all she had an immense power that she was just starting to understand seeing her gradually form a childish bond of trust and friendship with Mike and the others was heartwarming and her final sacrifice to kill the deme Gorgon at the end of the season was genuinely poignant and gripping the idea that she was willing to give up her young life to protect a group of people she barely knew from a monster she'd helped to unleash it was a perfect bittersweet culmination of her character arc and like I said before it played well into the fantasy dark fairy tale aspect of the story if the writers had actually left her dead then I would have considered that a brave and very mature dramatic choice but now why worry about dramatic integrity when there's money to be made 11 was a popular character so they brought her right back to life in season 2 through the most contrived [ __ ] explanation possible now it's a few years later and she's basically a normal teenager she goes to school she talks like everyone else she goes to shopping malls and she has a boyfriend everything that made her so unique and interesting and sympathetic is kind of gone now well except for the psychic powers she can still use and Wow does she use them I mean all the time for pretty much everything whether it's closed doors throwing people across rims spying on her ex-boyfriend or Terran giant monsters in half it seems like there's no limit to what she can do or how often she can do it I mean is there a resource cost to any of this does it hurt does it need to recharge I thought the constant nosebleeds were meant to show that her powers were actually causing physical damage to her and using them too often could possibly kill her but now it's like she doesn't give a [ __ ] she can do it as often as she likes for any reason and this creates the problem that I like to call the Captain Marvel paradox if you have a character who can do basically anything and overcome any problem with no limitations then what's the point in anyone else even be in there also I know that mili Bobbi Brown can cry on command and that's impressive but it kind of loses its impact once you've seen it for the tenth time it reminds me of Lara Croft in the new Tomb Raider games gunning down enemies by the Dozen while simultaneously apologizing and crying about it [ __ ] off sure so there you have it my top five reasons why stranger things is a bit [ __ ] now it's certainly not the most comprehensive list I could come up with but it covers my main grapes pretty well in my experience shows like this usually go downhill when the rater is either run out of ideas or lose sight of what actually made their show good in the first place but in this case the duffer brothers have somehow managed to do both at the same time well it's impressive if nothing else I just hope they have the good sense to either get stranger things back on track or the courage to end it before it becomes a total embarrassment like another show I can mention and that's all I have to complain about today go away now

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 1,832,323

Keywords: Eleven, Millie Bobby Brown, David Harbour, Hawkins, Will Byers, Lucas, Dustin Henderson, Winona Ryder, review, humour, SJW, Season 3, Demigorgon, Mind Flayer, Upside Down

Id: iUgvkwSXozs

Length: 19min 27sec (1167 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 23 2019