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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
142
Mixed:
32
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
Jun 30, 2019
Season 3 Review:
It is, indeed, bigger and not better. It's also bigger and not deeper. After establishing this world, we've now had two seasons that have done nothing to enhance the mythology of the Upside Down, to make me more interested in the monsters that dwell there, their goals in our world or justifiable explanations for why stupid scientist-types keep fiddling with this dimensional breach.
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Jun 30, 2019
Season 3 Review:
Most of season two’s flaws and frustrations have been ironed out in satisfying and interesting ways in season three. ... This time around, however, a new set of problems arises — and weirdly enough, a lot of them don’t concern the story itself, but the show’s aesthetic and technical choices.
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Oct 30, 2017
Season 2 Review:
All in all, Stranger Things season 2 is ultimately more of the same, but still a very worthy sequel, which is good news for those of us (like me) who only hoped for the Duffer Brothers to manage to carry through the success of the original run with an affecting, and believable, continuation of the story.
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TV Guide MagazineOct 26, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Stranger Things 2 is a blast. [30 Oct 2017 - 12 Nov 2017, p.12]
Oct 26, 2017
Oct 26, 2017
Season 2 Review:
I’m not sure Stranger Things creatively needed a second season, and for several episodes it seems like Stranger Things 2 isn’t convinced of it either. But it’s a still a good time, it’s nicely paced at nine episodes and it blends the suspense of ’80s horror with the heart of an ’80s teen romance.
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Oct 26, 2017
Season 2 Review:
The new season of Stranger Things isn’t as good as the first. The Empire Strikes Back and The Two Towers notwithstanding, sequels hardly ever are. Though, as with so many sequels, what happened before happens again only more so, it is somehow more than the sum of its disparate parts.
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Oct 26, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Season 2’s first three episodes top the suspense, weirdness and fun of last year thanks to sharper writing, more dynamic storytelling, a honed sense of humor (some of it self-referential) and a young cast that has developed its acting skills alongside their adult teeth.
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Oct 24, 2017
Season 2 Review:
The result is a second season that replicates and, indeed, enhances the show's central charms -- its group of pubescent nerds, and nostalgic sense of time and place -- while still feeling less compelling with its teenage contingent. All told, it's an impressive follow-up, if one perhaps burdened by expectations raised by the over-the-moon reaction, to couch it in the fantasy of the era, to the debut.
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Oct 23, 2017
Season 2 Review:
There really is a kind of sophisticated genius behind Stranger Things, and while others may try to imitate what the Duffers are doing, it’s harder than it may seem. If anything, the pair have moved the game forward in the second season by making the show scarier without losing the wise innocence of ’80s films as embodied by a bunch of kids, riding around Indiana on bikes in the middle of a real adventure.
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The Daily BeastOct 23, 2017
Season 2 Review:
While it might be frustrating to have sat through nearly 300 minutes of television only to realize not much has happened, the Duffer Brothers have constructed such a rich, vibrant universe and populated it with such entertaining characters--those kids really are a hoot--that it’s still fun to go along for the ride, slower though it is.
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Oct 23, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Stranger Things 2 is quite good and, if your expectations are in check, largely satisfying. The Duffer Brothers fall into very few traps of self-importance or self-awareness and they deliver a second season with an expanded assortment of '80s influences, an expanded cast of instantly embraceable characters and some expanded Stranger Things mythology without the bloat that inevitably dooms sequels.
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Oct 23, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Until Stranger Things 2 really gets going--and that takes a while--it trails an air of self-consciousness that veers into strained fan service at times. The good news is, the show’s core cast remains an extremely versatile and effective ensemble, and once the story kicks into a higher gear about halfway through the nine-episode season, a lot of the old magic returns.
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Jul 26, 2016
Season 1 Review:
There’s a higher bar for original stories--even homages--to clear when it comes to incorporating the lessons Hollywood has learned recently about depicting female characters who are as layered as their male counterparts. For all its charms, Stranger Things doesn’t quite meet that standard.
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Jul 16, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The real star is Brown, who brings the enigmatic and ill-used Eleven to heart-wrenching life almost without benefit of dialogue. Her face flickers with wonder, woe and menace, often in the same scene, in a way that even cynics who make a point of rooting for horror-movie monsters will not be able to resist.
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Jul 15, 2016Jul 14, 2016
Season 1 Review:
Harder is capturing the tone of another era. The Duffers manage that quite well, too, thanks to a fine sense of restraint that increasingly seems a lost art these days. There are a few good shocks here, but mostly there is patience. None of it would work without solid acting, and the series has that in abundance.
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Jul 14, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The nostalgic tone of Stranger Things succeeds less from discrete moment to moment than as an overall ambience; in synthy music, vivid shooting style, and deeply earnest performances, the show is committed to selling you a sort of story that doesn’t exist in mainstream pop culture anymore.
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Jul 14, 2016
Season 1 Review:
What I like most about Stranger Things is the way the Duffer Brothers never short-shrift the emotional content of the show in favor of thrills and CGI. ... [Ryder's] hysteria can be grating. At points, she’s almost a parody of a crazed mother, one that might fit in more on a different, more comedic show.
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ColliderJul 14, 2016
Jul 13, 2016
Season 1 Review:
Over the course of the eight hours, the story and characters take on enough life of their own so that the references don't feel self-indulgent, and so that the series can be appreciated even if you don't know the plot of E.T. or the title font of Stephen King's early novels (a huge influence on the show's own opening credits) by heart.
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Jul 13, 2016
Season 1 Review:
Stranger Things tries to strike a tricky balance between going fully meta and creating a piece of paranoid, magical, terrifying realism that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the works of Spielberg, Stephen King, John Carpenter, and Wes Craven that it so overtly references. At times, it wobbles in that effort. But it manages to right itself pretty quickly by effectively hooking us into its central mystery and so evocatively conjuring up a not-so-long-ago yesteryear when walkie-talkie conversations were our Snapchat and what’s now considered free-range parenting was just called parenting.
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Jul 12, 2016
Season 1 Review:
Stranger Things reminds us of a time marked by a kind of no-strings escapism. And as it does so, we find ourselves yearning for it because the Duffers have made it so irresistibly appealing. There may be other equally great shows to watch this summer, but I guarantee you won’t have more fun watching any of them than you will watching Stranger Things.
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TV Guide MagazineJul 8, 2016
Season 1 Review:
It's agreeable popcorn fare, though like many Netflix originals, might have had twice the impact at half the length. [11-24 Jul 2016, p.17]
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