Stranger Things John Fraim www.midnightoilstudios.org Content Introduction The Duffer Brothers Series Bible Pilot Season One Season Two Season Three Characters Symbolism Technique Dramatic Structure 2 Introduction In our culture, it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate the real from the unreal. What a simple dichotomy of a question this seems. But it is a question difficult to answer. Especially with the rise of Fake News. There is so much more Truth from Bull Shit to separate out. There is a new dramatic structure demanded of streaming tv services like the Netflix streaming. Modern screenplay structure for Hollywood films is useful, but the appearance of this story on the rebel, renegade Netflix, says it all really. Perhaps one of the greatest series in this new golden age of TV has been the science fiction and nostalgic return to the 80s in American television. Mostly, thanks to the Netflix phenomenon known as Stranger Things. Created by Matt and Ross Duffer, the setting of the story in the past is a time that many Americans want to return to. Especially, many of the Baby Boom and Millennial generation. Or, such is our theory. The series Stranger Things starts its third season on Netflix to some of the greatest anticipation in the history of streaming television. For instance, the YouTube trailer for the third season of Stranger Things has garnered (as of this writing) over 23 million views and 60,000 comments. The anticipation for the third season of Stranger Things is incredibly high all over the net and social media. As well as America’s gossip machine. It’s been two years now since the last episode in the Stranger Things series. There are articles about the third season in the Hollywood Reporter and other important entertainment blogs or publications. Speculation about the third season is growing and growing until it is almost a constant buzz with the shows group of loyal fans. I can see why as I’ve Bing-watched the entire Stranger Things series up to season three so far. This is something critics for episodic storytelling (Netflix) not connected to cable but based on the Internet. It’s quite an experience to watch the 3 growth of one of the most popular episodic shows yet on the wildly popular Netflix today. My step daughter Sarah and stepson Drew have been trying to get their mother and me to break the cord to cable tv. I told her that it would be hard for me to give up shows like Bonanza and Gunsmoke reruns, or current shows like 90 Day Financee, 48 Hours, Moonshiners or Hard Time. There is a whole different world out there Sarah told us continually. And even bought us a Raku device when we lived in Palm Desert. Despite all of their encouragement to us to cut the cable, we didn’t do anything about signing up for a streaming service like Netflix. That is, until about a month ago when we had a brief discussion and agreed Netflix was something to try. In the first few weeks on Netflix, I noticed my wife got more and more involved in shows on Netflix. I was still into my cable TV shows, the major programs from our local Spectrum cable company in town. Then, I couldn’t take another episode of Antique Road Show, Bounty Hunter, Airplane Repo, My 600 Pound Life, Hard Time, Forensic Files, 48 Hours. I got into Netflix and watched an incredible episode in the Dark Mirror series, a type of anthology of various science fiction stories. The first Netflix program I watched was “USS Callister” the first episode of the fourth series of anthology series Black Mirror. Written by series creator Charlie Brooker and William Bridges and directed by Toby Haynes, it first aired on Netflix with the rest of series four on 29 December 2017. The episode follows Robert Daly (Jesse Plemons), a reclusive but gifted programmer and co-founder of a popular massive multiplayer online game who is bitter over the lack of recognition of his position from his coworkers. He takes out his frustrations by simulating a Star Trek-like space adventure within the game, using his co-workers' DNA to create sentient digital clones of them. Acting as the captain of the USS Callister starship, Daly is able to order his co-workers around, bend them to his will, and mistreat them if they get out of line. When Daly brings newly hired Nanette Cole (Cristin Milioti) into his game, she encourages the other clones to revolt against Daly. In contrast to most Black Mirror episodes, "USS Callister" contains overt comedy, and has many special effects. As a fan of Star Trek, Bridges was keen to introduce many details from the show into "USS Callister", though the episode was 4 conceived mostly with The Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life" and Viz character Playtime Fontayne in mind. The episode has received positive reception, with reviewers praising the allusions to Star Trek, the acting, and the cinematography, though the plot garnered mixed reviews. Some critics saw the episode as being about male abuse of authority, and have compared Daly to recent events surrounding internet bullies and Harvey Weinstein. In 2018, the episode won four Emmy Awards, including the Outstanding Television Movie and Writing for a Limited Series, Movie or Drama. Then, the other night in bed, I found I could sign in to the Netflix account with my iPhone. It signed in and picked a series called Stranger Things to watch. Below we provide a summary of the eight episodes of the first season of Stranger Things along with the title of each episode as well as the director and writer of the episode. Also below is a list of the cast members in the series. After watching the first season almost on a straight Bing, I feel I can give a different perspective on this amazing series than a long-time fan of the show who watched it all in real time, waiting a week or more between episodes of the show. These loyal fans of the series, perhaps one of the greatest audiences of any show in the history of Netflix, have followed this brilliant episodic tv series team. Who are these young millennial Duffer Brothers I wonder. They are certainly a brilliant team. Reminding me of the Cohen Brothers and their amazing partnership. To Bing-watch Stranger Things (like I did) offers an interesting experience of viewing the series from a current viewer perspective of entire series. Anyone who is able to Bing-view the season of a show on episodic tv obtains a certain perspective just from experiencing a dramatic season of a show in a condensed form. 5 1. The Duffer Brothers “There’s a particular feeling that I experienced in those summers in North Carolina that we are attempting to recapture because they were the best times of our lives … As much as Stranger Things is a love letter to these films and books we grew up loving – it’s just as much a love letter to our own childhood in North Carolina.” Matt Duffer Twin brothers Matt and Ross Duffer were born in Durham, North Carolina on February 15, 1984 and are known professionally as the Duffer Brothers. Matt Duffer recalls, “We grew up in the suburbs of Durham, kind of in the middle of nowhere by a tobacco farm. We had woods and creeks, tobacco fields train tracks. It was beautiful.” The brothers were first attracted to film with Tim Burton’s Batman in 1989 when they were just five years old in the first grade. As Matt recalls, “I remember seeing a TV commercial for it and going, ‘I want to see that.’ It was dark for that age and it took a little convincing, but eventually our mom let us see it, and then we fell in love with Tim Burton. He has such a signature style that even at a very young age – like first grade – we were able to track from film to film.” During this early time, Matt notes, “We started to learn what it meant to be a director, [and] we started to find other directors we liked … obviously, Steven Spielberg being one of the main ones. From that our love for movies grew. Also, our dad was a big movie goer. He’s not in the arts himself, and none of his friends liked going to the movies particularly, so we were his movie-going partners. We just went to every movie regardless of whether it was appropriate or not for children. We went to everything.” They began making films in the fourth grade using an Hi8 video camera that was a gift from their parents. In fifth grade they made our first “feature-length 6 film” which was an adaptation of this card game called Magic: The Gathering. Their best friend lived next door to them and was their partner in making their first movies. As Ross Duffer recalls, “Every summer as soon as we got off from school, we would all start brainstorming the next movie to make, and we would spend all summer making it. We never went to camp. We just stuck around the neighborhood and wandered around and made these movies.” * * * They attended the private Duke School for Children from grades K-8. The teachers at the school were positive and encouraging. As Matt remembers, “The teachers found out I loved making movies, and they were very encouraging. No one was like, ‘Let’s be realistic, maybe you should also study to be a lawyer.’ People said, ‘You can do whatever you want to do.’ No one told us how difficult it was going to be.