PEL Presents PMP#213: Stranger Things Grown Familiar

This is pretty much pop culture podcast, a collection of spunky kids set to take on evil forces while growing emotionally. Today, Today, we're discussing Stranger Things, the Netflix Duffer Brothers science fiction series that began in 2016 and just wrapped up its fifth and final season. I'm Mark Linsenmeyer. Glad that this show has increased awareness of people like me who have the rare condition where my various triangular lips open to reveal row upon row of shark like teeth. I'm Al Baker. And that thing you thought was a plot? It was just a tunnel from one plot to another. I'm Sarah Lynn Breck, and I love the message that no matter how nerdy and scared you are, you can do anything you want as long as you have superpowers and your mommy is there to help you. This is Lawrence Ware coming from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and I can tell I'm gonna be the only person who defends this shit. I think you're wrong about that. I think Good. I'm making a bet here that all of us at least thought that the first season was really nice. Mhmm. Let's scratch some nostalgic okay. Al is maybe Al, start us in a No. No. No. Okay. For how many of us around this table was the first season of Stranger Things, like, made for you? Because I feel like the first season of Stranger Things, I was one of the people for whom it was made. Like I have eighties nostalgia. I'm a nineties kid, which means I grew up with the shadow of eighties nostalgia hanging over me. All of my favorite media from the nineties was made by like Gen X creators who were suffering from eighties nostalgia themselves. So I I recognized the huge amount that was going on in in Stranger Things, and it felt great. And, obviously, I'm I don't obviously, but I'm also a huge D and D nerd. So that element of the first series is also great. It was also a really well made and innovative piece of TV. It put Netflix on the map. And my memory is that it was the first time since Game of Thrones that there was some kind of speculative fiction sci fi fantasy monoculture, and it really put put Netflix on the map. It was a huge deal. Mhmm. And I felt like it was made for me. So I really, really love that first series. Agreed. The rest of the show, I think ebbs and flows. I think maybe it would be interesting to see where we think the ebbs are and the flows are. The last season, I thought, was a bit I didn't like it at all, really. I thought it stuck the landing in a very kind of clumsy way. But, you know, I watched it all the way through. I didn't hate any particular season of it. It's a pretty good achievement, and that first season remains, …