Stranger Things Season 4: Volume 1 Review - 6 Ups & 4 Downs

Downs...

4. Every Episode Is WAY Too Long

Stranger Things hasn't ever been above the occasional episode exceeding an hour in length, but season four truly takes the cake as all of the seven released episodes are in fact an hour-plus, with six of them even being over 70 minutes long and the last of the batch running in at a beefy 98 minutes.

Yet making so many of the episodes close to the length of a movie doesn't feel like it was necessitated by the material - this is a mostly sluggishly paced seven episodes packed with melodramatic bloat, largely in the way of numerous saggy, unnecessary subplots.

Far too much of the early season focuses on Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) trying to settle into her new high school in Lenora Hills, California, not to mention the strained romance between Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), and Lucas' (Caleb McLaughlin) attempts to fit in with the jocks on the basketball team.

These are just a few examples in a season of TV that has no interest in killing its darlings or, dare one say, respecting the audience's time.

There's just way too much meandering "character development" and repetitive breadcrumb following derring-do. Less is more, guys.