Stranger Things Season 5: When a Hit Show Becomes Too Impressed With Itself

A cultural phenomenon trades momentum for self-regard

By Cliff Potts
CSO & Editor-in-Chief, WPS News

There is a difference between not being the intended demographic and being unable to escape a cultural product that has saturated the environment. I was never the core audience for Stranger Things, but when a series is this omnipresent—algorithmically boosted, relentlessly promoted, and culturally unavoidable—it drafts viewers who never volunteered.

I watched. I gave it time. And early into Season 5, I stopped—not out of anger, but out of recognition.

What Worked, Once

Season 1 succeeded because it did not yet know what it was. It was lean, atmospheric, and driven by mystery rather than self-awareness. Season 2 was competent but unfocused. Season 3, set around the Starcourt Mall, was the high point: clear momentum, a coherent threat, and pacing that justified its spectacle.

Season 4 was uneven but still functional. Even with the implausible resurrection of Jim Hopper—a decision that introduced one of the largest structural plot holes in the series—the show still appeared interested in telling a story rather than preserving a brand.

Season 5 does not.

From Storytelling to Maintenance

The central problem with Season 5 is not that nothing happens. Plenty happens. The problem is that very little moves. Scenes linger long past their narrative usefulness. Emotional beats are stretched instead of sharpened. The show seems convinced that length and gravity automatically produce meaning.

This is not confidence. It is reverence.

The series now behaves as though its own cultural importance is sufficient justification for its pacing. The audience is expected to feel significance simply by staying in the room.

The Sled

The show now moves like a heavy industrial sled dragged across rough ground by an underpowered engine. In real terms, such a sled does not stall because the terrain is difficult—that difficulty is expected. It stalls when the engine lacks the torque or focus to pull the load forward.

Season 5 is not slow because the story is complex or ambitious. It is slow because the creative engine has become preoccupied with itself. The machinery is no longer fully engaged in motion. It is admiring its own reflection.

Characters in Preservation Mode

Robin Buckley highlights the problem. She should be one of the most dynamic characters in the ensemble. Instead, she has been placed into narrative stasis—allowed to be present and likable, but not to evolve in ways that might disrupt the franchise’s equilibrium.

Across the cast, characters feel maintained rather than inhabited. Familiar beats repeat. Growth is deferred. What once felt like discovery now feels like brand management.

The Cost of Knowing You Matter

What Stranger Things has lost is not budget, talent, or audience. It has lost humility.

Endings require discipline. They require the willingness to stop admiring the structure and return to narrative necessity. Season 5 feels less like a conclusion than a prolonged acknowledgment ceremony—a pause while the show reassures itself of its legacy.

That is not storytelling. It is commemoration.

If viewers are still enjoying Season 5, that enjoyment is legitimate. Comfort television has its place. But for those watching out of curiosity rather than loyalty, the self-regard is impossible to miss.

The sled is not stuck because the ground is rough.
It is stuck because the engine is too busy admiring its own reflection.

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References (APA)

Netflix. (2016–2025). Stranger Things [TV series]. Netflix.

Duffer, M., & Duffer, R. (Creators). (2016–2025). Stranger Things. Netflix.