As much as we’re looking forward to “Stranger Things” season two, I’m not sure I want to think about it given how much current TV I need to get through (“Riverdale” season finale! “The Leftovers“! “Fargo“! “Master Of None“! “The Handmaid’s Tale“!), but you can bet Netflix will be making sure that no one forgets their premiere show is returning. And in lieu of new marketing, producer Shawn Levy had some red carpet comments for Mashable, and it seems that the series’ gurus The Duffer Brothers were blessed with too many good ideas for the upcoming season.
“As the episodes were written by the Duffers, they realized that there was too much story for nine episodes. So it forced us to be judicious in which stories we tell this season,” Levy said. “So one of the surprises was, not all of our grand ideas are going to be serviced in one season… If we had 40 ideas going into the season, 30 [we] are going to pick, and the rest go in the back of our head for, hopefully, future chapters.”
Levy explains that this idea of paring back is to give “Stranger Things” space to breathe, and also allow the creators to strike an equal balance between the characters and the fun, supernatural stuff.
“As much density of story as our show has, we have to service the characters — and the moments and relationships between characters — above everything,” he said. “If we stop being character-anchored, and we become pure genre, I think we take the beating heart out of ‘Stranger Things,’ and we take the thing that people maybe don’t write articles about the most, but I think it’s what they love the most — these characters on screen.”
That’s a great perspective, and it bodes well that the forthcoming season will give fans what they want, without betraying the careful mix of ingredients that made season one so winning. “Stranger Things” returns on Halloween.
