‘Stranger Things’ And The Benefit Of Later Seasons

Writing sci-fi, fantasy, and horror can be tricky. It involves things that are outside the scope of normalcy. The audience’s imagination can stretch, but a writer still has to formulate a plausible world for the story and characters to live in. A new story is particularly hard because the writers are, essentially, starting from scratch. Everything has to be introduced fresh and from the ground up. But a sequel works at an advantage because it builds off of everything the previous installments set up; there is already a groundwork in place. And the fourth season of Stranger Things uses this foundation to great effect.

The program’s world has incredibly dense lore. It takes the concept of parallel dimensions and supernatural creatures and views them through the lens of Dungeons and Dragons. The first season was fairly slow in explaining this concept, and rightfully so. It needed time to allow viewers to grasp these stretches of imagination. The buildup was paced, allowing the audience to be immersed in the world over time.

But by Season 4, fans of the show knew exactly what they were getting. That same slow buildup just isn’t necessary. There are moments of explanation as new characters are brought into the fold, but these conversations are rather curt because the audience is already up to speed. This allowed the season to dive right in to the supernatural and crazy aspect of the show right away. Fans don’t have to wait as long as they had in previous years to get horrific payoffs of tension. Sometimes shows pivot so hard from one season to the next that they have to start the explanation process all over again. But for Stranger Things, they made the right move by largely sticking to the threats and concepts the characters faced before so the narrative could move swiftly.

Stranger Things is now streaming on Netflix.