2017.10.30
Stranger Things is Nostalgia Chow(tm).
Aliens. ET. Gremlins. product placement foods. Firestarter. every 80s horror movie cliche as a Halloween costume in 4 seconds. someone wearing Siouxsie as a Halloween costume. someone wearing Johnnie Rotten not as a costume. John Carpenter style music. An extremely specific model of flashlight (red plastic, chrome) from the late 70s/early 80s that I haven't seen since then. Some hair care products from then. A dustpan. etc.
And I'm eating it right up. This is just like that book, Ready Player One. Take a rather sterotypical story, and festoon it with decorations in some particular style. In this case, the style that pushes all my nostalgia buttons.
And yet there are some modern touches which feel like fresh air: the good guys (warrior-mom Winona Ryder, Our Gang of kid heros, and small town cop) and the bad guys (arrogant government top secret experimental science lab doctors and soldiers) are cooperating, and even even cutting each other some slack when things start getting out of hand. Sometimes... they even listen to each other.
Only two episodes to go.
2017.10.31
Done, and on Halloween, no less. The only spoiler I saw was the 4 kids in Ghostbusters costumes (indicating Halloween... this is years before cosplay... but the quality of their costumes was too high... almost like cosplay... indicating a show that is overfunded and possibly overproduced...).
I liked it, even though it ended on a happy note. Nostalgia Chow aside, this ending feels undeserved at first, but when you think about it, it is earned. The first season felt like our heros getting beaten up, and ending on a down note of everyone having lost something. Which is actually a good season ender, as you leave lots of questions and problems in need of resolution. Season 2 ends with every problem solved, with a bow on it. Our heros have been through a year or two (or lifetime) of hell, and deserve this break. But where does that leave the show?
This is a fine ending, the show could continue or not. But the season one ending was raw, and demanded continuation. This ending is satisfied with itself, and ready to settle down. The gate is closed, there's no need for anyone to do anything else. If there's a season three, they're going to have to go looking for trouble.
P.S. Biggest nitpick: nosebleeds equal mana points expended; single nose bleeds are used all the time, so you know shit's getting serious when at the finale we go to full double noseblood, and then have to go even further to screaming streaking double nosebleed. This is, of course, a direct reference to Stephen King's Firestarter, where one of the main characters has psionic power at the cost of nosebleeds - but it really was a cost, not some cosmetic afterthought. Its been years since I read that story, but I think he basically had half a dozen nose bleed psionic power displays, and then he died. Eleven (Jane) could go single nostril bleed power display any time she liked, with no cost. Even when she went double-nostril-bleed rampage of rage on the gate monster... she was still just fine to attend the rhythmic ceremonial ritual.
