Stranger Things - Season 2

Typically, season two offers more of everything, everything is bigger and everything happens faster. Pairing up of characters sets of in unexpected directions, but the discovery of the world inside out still takes place only very gradually. Jane is put off onto the sidelines so that some sort of danger that wouldn’t matter could arise, but the whole storyline with searching for her sister just holds back the action. Otherwise again it’s a great watch in Stephen King style. Still pleasant entertainment. (23/11/2017)

The film makers make no secret of the fact that they do not take it as a second series, but as a classic 80's (not surprising at all) sequel, hence number two in the title. So it has all the attributes of the second movies, bigger, longer, more expensive, more epic, more relying on what worked in the first move, more characters, more at stake, and it is conceived (and built) in a way that the second Alien relates to the first Alien. You can hear criticism that it has a rather slow start, the individual story lines are independent for too long, some of the songs are used solely to impress and the stand-alone seventh episode is from another series (in terms of style but what is even worse, quality). And these are legitimate and true complaint. Especially the last complaint, I hope, does not foreshadow the direction it intends to take in the future. But... The pros (from the cast and the work with the characters, through the purely non-serial cinematicity to the impressive atmosphere mastering the multi-genre style and the congenial ball epilogue) still overwhelmingly prevail, and it is still in every thinkable respect tailor-made for me by Duffers, especially the fifth, sixth, eighth and ninth episodes. (05/11/2017)

The second series of Stranger Things has managed to do the same thing as the first one; it came up with a mysterious story that smoothly connects to the first one, all while creating its own confident environment which was fun from the beginning till the very end. The 1980s atmosphere is apparent from the hairdos alone and there are nice moments where the creators paid homage to some film legends from Terminator to Indiana Jones. By the end, I wished that the main gang with Eleven in the lead never got old and stayed this awesome forever. Let’s hope that the third series comes as soon as possible. (16/11/2017)

Four stars after nine episodes is a decent score, but I was disappointed by Ellie's journey to her mother. The whole Episode 7 felt completely out of place. I wonder how the child actors' growing up will affect my rating of future seasons (I still haven’t gotten over Brandon Stark). I was otherwise very happy with this season, even though it failed to keep up the atmosphere I was used to in the first one. Despite my occasional nitpicking and the constantly overplaying Winona Ryder, I did enjoy Season 2 and look forward to the next one. (09/02/2018)

I found the second season a bit weaker than the first, but I have to admit that it's still very good and I enjoyed the last episode. The retro feel has faded a bit, which I thought was a shame, but there were a few bright moments. Some of the plot digressions seemed almost unnecessary, but you'll end up liking the characters anyway. (07/11/2017)