Review: 'Stranger Things' stays close to home for final season
Yes, the "kids" all look too old, but the Netflix hit still has its moments
This is a review of the first four episodes of Stranger Things Season Five, which are now streaming on Netflix. No real spoilers here. I'll have a separate, spoiler-filled breakdown of these episodes on Monday here at What's Alan Watching?
Let's get this right out of the way while discussing the start of the fifth and final season of Stranger Things. Yes, it's been three and a half years since we last saw Eleven and friends. Yes, it's been nearly a decade since the series debuted. Yes, most of the kids are still meant to be in high school. And, yes, several of them now look old enough for their doctor to prescribe them a statin.
It's an unavoidable aspect of the increasingly long gaps between seasons of the hit horror drama. The more popular it's become, the more in-demand actors like Millie Bobby Brown(*), Maya Hawke, and David Harbour have become for movie roles, and the more ambitious Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers have become, the harder it gets to both bring the whole gang back together and to do all the things the Duffers want. And because the Earth won't stop moving around the sun, we now have a situation where this tale of adolescent bonding, which is meant to cover a span of roughly four years, now stars a bunch of actors who seem a lot closer to figuring out their 401K contribution than they do to the seventh grade classrooms from Season One.
