Of course we don’t know much about it. I fucking love Stranger Things so I’ll definitely watch it but I’m not expecting much
I didn’t know until now.
Ross Duffer went as far as calling it more of an anthology situation, revealing that, as far as the show’s spin-offs will go, "They’re going to live in a bit of a different world. There’s going to be connective tissue, but you’re almost anthologizing in a way. Because we’re not Star Wars. We can’t be like, ‘Oh, now we’re on this planet.’”
That would be for the best. Their biggest mistake was trying to follow the same characters and “explaining” stuff.
Hopefully it means the entire spin-off is an anthology, and not just that they’ll have a whole new cast of characters that they’d follow for seasons, but it’s not connected to the original show.
In contrast, the show Tales from the Loop does a good job of not explaining things to the audience. Something like that would be great.
It’s actually surprising that the Duffer brothers haven’t done anything else. Traditionally they would have slowly stepped away after the second season or so and started working on other projects.
The first season of Stranger Things was fantastic. The later season had their ups and downs, but overall have been great. I really give the Duffers credit for sticking with it.
I look forward to whatever they make next.
I never saw stranger things; I watched the first episode and it just seemed very derivative of a lot of gen x nostalgia slop.
Obviously, tastes vary, but the nostalgia crack part of the show is fairly minor compared to the actual story. It’s really there more to establish that it is set in the past and give a quick handwave to character background.
It gets used less after the first episode or two of each season, which do tend to be a bit more focused on set-up and “vibe” building to some degree or another each season.
There’s no guarantee you’d like it, but the first episode of the first season isn’t really a good example of the show as a whole, nor are the first episodes of each season. Imo, they tend to be a way to let both established audience and new viewers “settle in” rather than being integral to the overall plot arcs. They do tend to serve as character updates (after season one where they serve to establish characters) though, so skipping them entirely wouldn’t be ideal. It is doable though.
Which only matters if you’re remotely interested in watching it at all
It wasn’t derivative at the time, that’s why it became successful and also why Gen X nostalgia bait became such a trend for a while there. But your first impression is correct; it’s always funny to me when people pretend this show is any deeper or more interesting than that.
Yep. Though first season is pretty decent. Second would be good if it was half as long.
“I think everyone knows there’s not enough original stuff out there right now. Everything is so IP-driven,” —Ross Duffer.
So full of shit. Just milking that Stranger Things success for more money and then talking about how there’s no original IP.
https://variety.com/2025/tv/features/stranger-things-5-duffer-bros-ending-spinoffs-1236551615/
I’m not convinced it would be capable of distancing itself enough from the original Stranger Things to actually be worth watching. Can they even work out what it is about the original show that has made it so successful? It has tried to do a lot of different things over the seasons and I wouldn’t say it has particularly excelled at any of them.
Honestly, one of the main reasons many people liked the first season was simply because this was one of the first shows in the streaming era to really do the 80s kids movie nostalgia bait thing. Any charm that theme once had is well and truly gone now, and the sci-fi and soap opera/teen drama stuff is nowhere near good enough to base a new series on.
First I’ve heard of it. It sounds like it’ll be a similar flavor to Stranger Things, and that’s enough for me to want to give it a try.
