Stranger Things Season 3 – Review – Episode 1

Season Three – Chapter 1, “Suzie, Do You Copy”

The Season 3 Premier – Suzie, Do You Copy is currently available on Netflix.  After getting all excited in my post and forum mention last week, the verdict is – excellent! Personally, I think this is the best Stranger Things season yet!

I totally wanted it to be similar to the previous season but a little bit more grown up and I was really pleased after watching this episode.  Sure they changed the format a little and added quite a few more characters, but I will happily sit through the start of each episode of the series knowing that I’ll be entertained. I’m sure you’ll love it too if you haven’t seen any of the season three yet. This is why:

1. The ‘Stranger Things’ gang are dealing with their changing way of life and how their hormones are starting to influence their decision making and outlook on things. In effect, it makes it a little more mature and a little more darker themed, more shades of gray etc.
2. They have stuck to the honoured tradition of grabbing the millennials with a tough, relateable story set in the distant past and the rest of us (e.g. the millennial parents) with a healthy blast of nostalgia (and relateable storyline).
3. Special effects are wonderful – best season so far for FX fun.
4. Scarier, not edge-of-my-seat scary it was a pleasant surprise.
5. More fun, some good one-liners, great quips and situations to keep things moving along at the right pace and not get too deep.

So, on with the Episode review:

The show opened with a scene in a Russian Lab.  And 80’s Russian Lab no less, so it was a bit dirty and dark and miserable which annoyed the wife who is Russian, she could have pointed out that in the 80’s Russian scientific community was enjoying quite a boom as the competition for star wars project was gaining momentum.  But she didn’t, she just sighed.  Anyway, as you would expect of all Russian dirty deeds labs of the era, it blew up!  The experiment (which was to open another dark portal like the ones previous seasons spent so much time trying to close). Some of the lab technicians were fried in the process – it was pretty gory actually.

On the other side of the world however, in the town of Hawking, Mike and Eleven are having a great time with their relationship in an early teen sort of way – basically they are continually sucking face to the annoyance of Elevens dad who probably felt that they are doing too much of it.

Elsewhere in Hawking, Lucas and Max are still together but they aren’t as much into each other as Mike and Eleven.  Will seems a little lonely in comparison.

Dustin on the other hand has been away at summer camp and next day, after he returns, the gang throw him a surprise to welcome him home.

Dustin has – if we give him the benefit of the doubt – a girlfriend from science camp who lives in Utah.

Steve is now working in a large shopping mall called Speedcourt as an ice cream attendant with his attractive but underappreciated co-worker Robin (played by really well by Maya Hawke, the daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke).

Anyway, the team meet up and try to get to see a horror flick in the Mall cinema aided by Steve who can get them through the back entrance).  Alas, there is a severe power cut and the cinema, and everything else in Hawking, shuts down.

But not alas, a spooky looking warehouse in the middle of nowhere (but still in Hawking).  That seems to be using the power to control a huge number of rats!  Seriously, its like the pied piper of Hawking!  Worse still, some dust cloud action in the warehouse spins up into the shape of a figure.  Very ominous!  And then later, the hapless rats attending the dust thing in the cellar start to spontaneously explode/burst!  Very Gross!

Hopper and Eleven’s developing father/daughter relationship was a great aspect of season two and it continues to develop in season three. It rapidly gets to the point where Hopper, after asking Wills mother for advice, tries to approach Mike and Eleven to see if he can reason with them to show a little more restraint.   It doesn’t help that Mike and Eleven are slightly disrespectful when Hopper approaches them.  The whole situation culminates in a confrontation with Mike and Hopper in the van with Eleven absent) and Mike is driven home.  Nicely done actually.

The rather annoying title for the episode is because of a rather idiotic attempt by Duncan to speak to his new girlfriend (the one he met in camp that nobody believes him about) using a ham radio.  He tries to contact her but instead picks up some radio chatter from those pesky Russians in the lab that we saw at the start of the show.

The show ended when Billy, attempting to meet up with Mrs Wheeler after previously chatting her up at the pool where he works, for a late evening teta-tet, is abducted by the swirly dust cloud thingy in the ominous warehouse.  We see him desperately grasping the door frame just before he is sucked into the cellar.

And there the show ended.  Pretty good.  The writers, Matt and Ross Duffer have done a great job of developing the characters of the main cast and bringing in a couple of others.  I’m keen to see how these will interact with the ‘gang’.

I’d rate this a cool running, 8.8 out of 10.  What did you think?

Let us know in the Stranger Things Thread on the Sci Fi Forum

This review is copyright Tony Fawl and not for reproduction without permission.

This television show, picture scans and everything else associated with Stranger Things is copyright Netflix and Matt and Ross Duffer. All rights reserved.