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Embarrassing and lengthy: The scariest thing about "Strange Things 4" is what the series did to itself - Walla! culture

2022-05-29T06:26:05.371Z


Amid the huge congestion of the fourth season of the hit series, it hides an effective, suspenseful and surprising story, but the three-year break between the seasons puts a completely unnecessary congestion on it. Review


TV

Embarrassing and archaic: The scariest thing about "Strange Things 4" is what the series did to itself

Amid the huge congestion of the fourth season of the hit series, it hides an effective, suspenseful and surprising story, but the three-year break between the seasons puts a completely unnecessary congestion on it.

Between unnecessary new characters and unfounded plot lines and a tendency to be repetitive - it is precisely her protagonists who suddenly feel small

Ilan Kaprov

29/05/2022

Sunday, 29 May 2022, 08:50 Updated: 09:07

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"Strange Things" Trailer - Season 5 (Netflix)

What three years can do.

The last time "Strange Things" hurt in our lives, Netflix was the undisputed queen of the entertainment world.

The object of admiration of investors addicted to the incessant growth in subscribers, a binge model that established facts on the ground and forced everyone to align behind it, and a worldview that there is no such thing as too much - not in the amount of content, not in length, certainly not in budgets invested in it.



With the return of the fourth season this past weekend, all of this seems like a distant history. Not only is Netflix very close to losing its debut as the biggest and most successful streaming service, it is now facing a real constitutive crisis. Viewers are fed up with piles of poor content To abandon, investors have suddenly sobered up from the illusion of subscription growth, and the company that mocked the traditional models is now seriously considering a discounted advertising-based subscription, and let us not know trouble - even content that comes in a weekly format.



In the midst of this flood of bad news, layoffs and gloomy analyzes, a great deal of Netflix's hopes and money hung in one of the biggest hit series to come out of Netflix's hands.

The fourth season was still created in the great glory days of the streaming giant, the ones where the word "no" was said in extremely rare cases.

Here's one statistic that will tell a lot about "Strange Things 4" even if you know nothing more about it.

The series' premiere season - the one in which the characters are required to be introduced, their backgrounds and produce the connection that makes them a revered group around the world - included eight episodes with a total length of 405 minutes.

The current season features seven episodes with a total length of 545 minutes.

A 35% increase for a series that has already shown about 10 hours of television.




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The dissolution of the gang harms her.

"Strange Things" Season 4 (Photo: Netflix)

To the credit of "Strange Things" it can be said that it has indeed significantly increased the width of the canvas.

Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) moved with Will (Noah Schnapp) and Joyce (Winona Ryder) to California following the dramatic events at the mall, during which she also lost her powers.

Her friends (led by Mike, with whom she has a long-distance relationship) remain in Hawkins, and beyond the Iron Curtain lies the world's best-known secret - Hopper (David Harbor) who is considered dead but imprisoned by the Soviets.

During the season parts of the gang will reach as far as Utah, while another mysterious plot will take place in a bunker in Nevada.

There is a lot to tell, and this is before even introducing the world to a new and particularly frightening monster - a demon from the inverted world who haunts the subconscious of his victims until their cruel murder.



The secret to the success of "Strange Things" is its ability to enlarge a world that has become smaller and smaller.

In a reality where technology is making us available and closer than ever, it has taken time back and celebrated the beauty of disconnection.

Just us, the friends and the bike facing the unknown.

Although most of the plots of her first seasons took place in the Hawkins, even a few miles between friends seems like a huge abyss that needs to be crossed.

The new villain this season wisely exploits the consequences of this freedom.

The fourth season deals a lot with trauma, repressed memories that float and rise and deal with them.

Given the horrors its protagonists have had to go through in previous seasons, this is an almost obvious development - and it also serves the detachment element.

The breakdown of the group into details reveals how much this belonging has helped them overcome obstacles that suddenly seem insurmountable.

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The plot escalates thanks to engaging in it.

Sadie Sink as Max, "Strange Things" Season 4 (Photo: Netflix)

On the other hand, the weak point of the series has always been the people who went through adolescence.

With the exception of Hopper, it is difficult to point to another mature character who has managed to enrich the plot.

And as the season lengthens to hour-to-hour and 40-hour periods, these weaknesses become much more pronounced.

Winona Ryder, for example, was the weakest actress in the cast already in the first season, but the need to spend long minutes with her and Murray (Brett Gelman) on a ridiculous trip to the Soviet Union - makes everything much more difficult.

Fulfilled facial expressions that constantly range from shock to confusion, but in those eight episodes she manages to pay a ransom to a Russian person she has never met, fly a plane, infiltrate a secret and kept Russian prison - and that's really just the tip of the fork.



In general, emerging to Russia in a kind of homage to the great villains of the eighties movies (you see what it is, came back to be like that again in 2022), does not do the series any good.

Instead of capturing the spirit of the eighties that the first seasons distilled in such an exciting way, it connects to the bad characteristics of that decade: exaggerations, dubious taste and turning characters into a kind of cartoon.

The story with Hopper's captive plot in the same cruel Soviet power is a good example.

Aside from horrible and unreliable toothpicks accentuating most Russian speakers, it is repetitive and mostly exhausting.

Hopper is tortured, based on guilt over his loved ones left behind, tortured again - and so on.

This is also the case with the cops who are investigating the Hawkins murders, and look like those who would not have been admitted to the Zahav shifts either.

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Loses the uniqueness of its protagonists.

"Strange Things" Season 4 (Photo: Netflix)

This time the alumni weaknesses are also joined by a completely unnecessary plot of Hawkins High School basketball team players chasing our favorite nerds on a chauvinistic journey that could be forgiven if it was just silly, but is just boring.

So here, even extra teenagers can be accepted.

But if we put that part aside, when "Strange Things" focuses on the things she is good at, she goes back to mentioning the reasons why she became successful.

The plot in Hawkins is suspenseful and chilling, and even escalates into the specific preoccupation with Max's trauma (Sadie Cinque).

The connection and talent of this gang continues to work when it is together.

She may not be as cute as she used to be, but she's funny, touching.

It has a charm that stems from the connection of the various details within it.



But within this vast size of scenes and locations and monsters, she loses the uniqueness of her protagonists.

Some of them, like Will (Noah Schnap) almost completely fade away, others like Mike (Finn Wolfhard) or Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) just look one-dimensional.

As if they were destined to embody a shadow of the character they once were.

It's a shame mainly because "Strange Things" was first and foremost a story about friendships, and the various details that make a bunch who it is.

The monsters, the evil scientists, the weird adults - these were all the shell.

Now the relationship has been turned upside down.

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Unbalanced.

"Strange Things" Season 4 (Photo: Netflix)

And there's also Millie Bobby Brown, the greatest talent to come out of this series, who once again infuses the same winning combination of fish out of the water, courage and kindness.

Nor is her plot devoid of unnecessary repetition, but at least there the Dapper brothers seem to have remained connected to her character and journey.

Elban is the only member of the original gang to develop this season as part of a meticulous self-search, rather than just advancing the plot.

At the climax of the closing episode, it is also part of one of the most impressive twists the series has ever known.



Bottom line “weird stuff” feels unbalanced.

A bit like Finn Wolfhard, she behaves like a giant with tight clothes.

The transitions between her multiple plots are awkward, and at times really hurt the momentum.

She adds a lot of new characters very few of which justify their place.

And most importantly, she seems to be falling victim to the fact that she needs to impress.

She can 't settle for one of Dustin's trials over Steve, she needs five.

She will not stop with a single hit by Hopper, when ten can be displayed.

It will not focus on two monsters, when you can also add carnivorous bats and giant spiders.

And upside down, it is precisely this size that suddenly makes it smaller.

It has a lot of dead minutes, it has a lot of mediocre characters, its adventure is no longer as sticky to the seat as it used to be.

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Was and remains weak in the cast.

Winona Ryder, "Strange Things" Season 4 (Photo: Atsushi Nishijima / Netflix)

All this was said even before the final: two more episodes to come in July with a total length of four hours.

There is a reason why the best series on TV, the ones that are repeatedly included at the top of the lists, have rarely passed the time frame for the episode.

Much of the quality of a series is measured by the ability of its creators to memorize what is important and vital.

A bad story will not get better if only it is given more time, and a good story does not need it anyway.



One of the great sins of Netflix was the complete lack of restrictions on creators during screen time.

It is a disease that is rampant throughout television today, with series after series showing huge lengths without justification.

The last four hours of "Strange Things" may be an extraordinary TV masterpiece.

This chance exists theoretically.

But theoretically, there may also be an inverted world just below us with monsters seeking to penetrate our world.

It is not certain that the probability of the second theory is greater than the first.

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