You really drove it home with those last couple of paragraphs. I loved season 1 at the time, felt a little meh about season 2, and then didn't bother to watch season 3 until people pestered me to much with talking about season 4 that I basically had to binge two seasons in a row. Needless to say, it became a chore. As someone from '99 with only parental nods to the 80s, what I enjoyed the most were indeed the film references. They didn't feel too on the nose when they stole something, like you mentioned, but managed to capture that small-town-big-event feel of King novels and Spielberg movies.
I think that is also why I turned away from it in the later seasons. It expanded too much beyond the town borders. I remember thinking the first time I saw those mushy pumpkins on a Hawkins patch: "Upside-Down again?" Personally, I would've loved it if it became an anthology series. Maybe just kept it to a single season.
I could go on a whole tangent here about the things that all possibly went wrong in my eyes but I'll keep it at the two most stinging thorns:
Basically every season there was a moment of "Gosh, X again?" to the point that when that scientist papa appeared in season 4 I had to actively look up who he was again because he was so uninteresting before.
And also (because I work in a bookstore) the fact that the first official book based on the series is titled "Suspicious Minds" tells me enough about the lack of original thought for the sake of nostalgia points. I bet it has nothing to do with Elvis, but boy will people pick it up and go "Hey, I know that song from when I was young!"
You really drove it home with those last couple of paragraphs. I loved season 1 at the time, felt a little meh about season 2, and then didn't bother to watch season 3 until people pestered me to much with talking about season 4 that I basically had to binge two seasons in a row. Needless to say, it became a chore. As someone from '99 with only parental nods to the 80s, what I enjoyed the most were indeed the film references. They didn't feel too on the nose when they stole something, like you mentioned, but managed to capture that small-town-big-event feel of King novels and Spielberg movies.
I think that is also why I turned away from it in the later seasons. It expanded too much beyond the town borders. I remember thinking the first time I saw those mushy pumpkins on a Hawkins patch: "Upside-Down again?" Personally, I would've loved it if it became an anthology series. Maybe just kept it to a single season.
I could go on a whole tangent here about the things that all possibly went wrong in my eyes but I'll keep it at the two most stinging thorns:
Basically every season there was a moment of "Gosh, X again?" to the point that when that scientist papa appeared in season 4 I had to actively look up who he was again because he was so uninteresting before.
And also (because I work in a bookstore) the fact that the first official book based on the series is titled "Suspicious Minds" tells me enough about the lack of original thought for the sake of nostalgia points. I bet it has nothing to do with Elvis, but boy will people pick it up and go "Hey, I know that song from when I was young!"
thank you for this insightful comment and for taking the time to read this piece