Stranger Things

It’s such a finely-tuned and executed piece of escapist entertainment that I watched it twice. (Yes, the whole thing.) ... “Stranger Things 3” has absolutely no fat. It's the kind of show that I’d wager almost everyone who starts will find themselves finishing in one or two sittings. The rhythm of “Stranger Things” has never been tighter, but it helps that the cast feels elevated as well.

Through the entire eight-episode season, Season 3 is — minus a few very forgivable faults — everything you want it to be. It's TV candy in its sweetest, most addictive form.

Except for a few cheesy moments here and there, the new episodes are exuberant and excellent, nearly surpassing the creative heights of the first season and providing a path to keeping things strange for years to come.

The third season, streaming Thursday on Netflix, delivers more forward momentum. ... The eight episodes of “Stranger Things 3” generally hang together well if sometimes predictably, although a few character turns offer genuine surprises.

This eight-episode installment available Thursday just might be my favorite of the series. It has more heart and far more willingness to address the messiness that comes with adolescence. It also features several genuinely creepy moments that have everything to do with something not of this world.

Stranger Things 3 practices what it preaches: instead of the pure nostalgia of previous seasons, the Duffer brothers break brilliant, terrifying new ground here.

It’s a real and joyful return to form for the show that has been taken fiercely to the hearts of people who weren’t there the first time round and, perhaps even more fiercely, by those who were. The brothers continue to play with, reference and occasionally lift all the things that made the Johns, Carpenter and Hughes, and the Steph(/v)ens, King and Spielberg, enduringly great and mash them into something equally fun, racy and frightening as hell for us all on the small screen. It’s almost like being young again.

When the band of misfits set out to solve the mystery, “Stranger Things 3” crackles with the same oddball charm, dark suspense, innocence and self-aware humor that made this nerdy monster tale a surprise hit in the first place.

To some this may stand as evidence of a series relaxing into its baroque period, and depending on how much love a viewer has for the show, that’s probably fine. Kid fans are going to love it, although the frights have escalated this season. Adults yearning to be seduced by memories of a past injected into our brains by Hollywood will be amply satisfied. .. A summertime treat built for the broadest range of tastes.

For better or worse, Stranger Things’ new season is as tasty, messy, and fleeting as an ice cream cone on a hot summer’s day. Ahoy!

They don’t have everything flawlessly calibrated in Stranger Things 3, but there’s enough of the taste that got viewers hooked in the first place to keep them cracking open one episode after another.

If Season 2 was too serious, too dark, and too fractured, than Season 3 is pretty fun, very bright, and streamlined to deliver sensory overload.

While the mayhem over eight episodes can grow repetitive and tiresome--I lost count of how many ties bodies were hurled against and sometimes through walls--there's a light touch even in the darker moments. [8-21 Jul 2019, p.14]

A lot of John Hughes-style teenage rom-com material, especially in the early episodes, with the usual heavy overlay of ’80s nostalgia — “Cheers,” Jazzercise, Ralph Macchio, New Coke. The Duffers’ presentation of this is perfectly competent, but it can’t help feeling beside the point.

This is by far the most impressive season, even if the action sequences are — like the threat of the Upside Down itself — a bit repetitive. (You can set your watch to Eleven’s conveniently-timed arrival whenever a good guy is facing certain death.) But the growth of the characters — whether through age or, like Hopper and Joyce, through learning to deal with past traumas — means that they feel different and surprising, even when the story is traveling paths we’ve been on many times before.

It’s a bit of a stretch to say this season is truly gory, but it’s definitely ookier than the previous two. It’s also much more blatantly aware of itself and its place in the Zeitgeist. ... There’s nothing wrong with any of this per se, but it adds to the impression that the Duffers & Co. are writing what they know rather than trying to break new ground. Then again, part of Stranger Things’ DNA is that it isn’t inventing so much as reinventing.

Though it still doesn’t have the freshness of the first installment Stranger Things, the new season marks an improvement over its predecessor.

By the time the final credits roll on season 3 (plus a post-credits scene you won’t want to miss), it’s made much more of a case for itself than season 2 ever did simply by trying to be something different.

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.

This third adventure kicks off with rebooting promise. ... The early fun dwindles. This is another Very Long Movie, full of delayed plot points.

An enjoyably derivative eight-episode binge that's plenty of fun, if probably not worthy of all the hype and fuss.