TV Show Review: ‘Stranger Things’ season five, vol. one

Stranger Things season five will likely become the most watched show in 2025 for all the wrong reasons. The beloved 80s-based, sci-fi/mystery show, has finally returned for a fifth and final season. Volume one of season five released November 26 with volume two coming out Christmas day, and the finale on New Year’s Eve. For now, volume one stands alone as some of the most uncompelling pieces of television. Yet, who isn’t going to watch it?

The first two seasons of Stranger Things were excellent, followed by a solid third and rockier fourth. The fifth season so far, though, is nearly ripping at the seams. This all comes down to the horrible writing and dialogue, bad camerawork, and stilted acting. Overall, making this show difficult to sit through.

The dialogue has dropped to new lows, even if it’s never been a strength of the show. Characters talk with expositional buzz words that take you out of the story. Instead of showing the viewer, it now tells them explicitly. This isn’t to say characters never have normal conversations. It’s that now every conversation is incredibly unsubtle about its goal. Their conversations are information dumps. Regardless, dialogue has been a strong suit of the show. The viewer might not have even noticed because of the great storytelling. Truly, it’s a show that doesn’t require amazing dialogue like other shows (imagine if Succession had bad dialogue). But now, it’s fallen to the bottom of the importance list. Maybe we just need more convincing actors though?

Half the battle is writing a good script. The second half is finding good actors to give it justice. The biggest issue for this season is the once-child-actors who are no longer children. Obviously, there wasn’t much they could do about their age. But even so, besides the fact that the children don’t look like children — they just can’t act. But this has been an issue since the inception of film and television. Some child actors are only convincingly good actors as kids. Then they will wrongfully assume they’ll be a good adult actor. And this is definitely the case for Stranger Things. I wouldn’t say any one of them is exceptionally bad. It’s more of a collective effort. The issue it seems that they are aware of that fact that they’re acting instead of just acting. Swapping out these actors is obviously not possible. Even then, it’s a major downfall of the show.

On top of all of these, I find the camerawork unconvincing and sterile. It’s the most foundational part of a show. This medium, film and television, is built to show, not tell. Yet the amount of visual storytelling this season is virtually nonexistent. It comes out most prominently in scenes where a character is especially vulnerable and stressed out; expressed using shaky, handheld camera movements. Maybe more subtly is the extensive use of the point of view (POV) shots. An extent that has been pushed past its limit. Because a more omniscient camera would make so many scenes just that much better. 

But how is this possible? A show, beloved by so many, with talented and hard-working people behind the scenes — how does a bad episode or season happen? It’s the budget and time. 

The budget for season five is reportedly $480 million. It seems intuitive that a bigger budget would create creative freedom. But it just does the opposite. If anything it means a new set of problems. There are just too many options. Season one’s, comparatively, measly $48 million budget made decisions simpler. There is only so much you are able to do with that money. And now, this new season falls victim to a pursuit of perfection. The bigger budget lets the creators, the Duffer Brothers, have whatever they want. So before, in earlier seasons, it was about how to get this done. Now, it’s about what is possible. Between seasons, this problem is only accentuated.

Everyone watching Stranger Things is aware of the time between seasons. While it’s frustrating for viewers to wait that long, it’s even more so frustrating for the ongoing story. In a creative field, people need deadlines. The problem of how and what is pushed further without it. There are just too many possibilities to choose between when a deadline is arbitrary. This has been a likely error in creating the plot for this new season. It’s created plot holes with previous roadblocks magically disappearing. But it’s just so hard to hate. 

Anyone who watched the previous season will inevitably watch this one. I find it to be a real mix of love and hate. I love the soundtrack, I love the setting, I love The Fall t-shirt Johnathan, played by Charlie Heaton, wears — it’s hard not to love this show. And it’s possible things turn around in volume two. For now, though, volume one remains an unfortunate beginning.