The first two series were edge of the seat watching tv....apart from that weird episode where El goes to find her sister or something in Chicago. Like why?

Anyway I felt that at the end of season 3 it had been wrapped up nicely, albeit slightly sadly, but ohhhh no this is America and if there's one thing they like to do it's squeeze out any last bit of interest in a series until someone jumps over a shark on a motorbike.

So, to season 4: ok I'm not going to put in any spoilers but it's as if the Duffers were made to do this at gunpoint or were just writing it as it went along. A new demon is on the loose in Hawkins (of course) and it all starts off creepily until...you see the demon who has a sort of connection to the previous one, and it's just a guy in an octopus suit or something. So now it's just silly.

All the 80s cultural references are still there as are some new characters but some of the existing ones seem totally obsolete now (Will? Why...?). Another annoying thing is allll the sub stories - at one point I counted 6 as the characters are split apart across the world, and the writers desperately try to give them all enough screen time (unsuccessfully) to the detriment of the actual story - who cares about the trip to Utah, or all the long, drawn out pieces with El. And the Hopper storyline just makes no sense.

They should've stayed in Hawkins and gone for the real creepy feel of that town and its apparent curse instead of flapping between Alaska and Russia on the one hand, and California and Utah on the other.

At one point too the writers almost feel guilty that they're losing you so it's almost as if they were like "let's make one of the main protagonists temporarily cursed" and then that's kinda forgotten about too.

Still I watched it because I was bored. By the time they make another series (maybe?) everyone will be like 25 so it's just going to go the way of Friends where some pile on the weight and others get nose jobs which you're meant to not notice.