Stranger Things 5 | Date Announcement | Netflix

Volume 1 - November 26th
Volume 2 - December 25th
The Finale - December 31st

Glad they're conclusively wrapping it up; too many successful shows get dragged out long passed the point where they should have ended just cos they bring in the cash.

I enjoyed the series so far and I'll definitely be checking this out, here's hoping it goes out with a bang.

There’s been a trend toward anthologies and limited run series.

They’re the bread and butter of Apple TV+ and HBO. Netflix has always kinda delved in that region, but has mostly been open-ended shows. Disney Plus might swing that direction after Andor gave them the taste of an Apple/HBO-like show they can stick into a major IP.

To recommend some across platforms:

Apple TV+ has The Afterparty (Comedy), which also had a sequel season which IMO is even better - it has an episode shot just like Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

Netflix has Beef (Dark Comedy), which I believe has a sequel being considered.

Disney+ has the aforementioned Andor (Drama), which is two seasons and leads into Rogue One.

HBO has White Lotus (Dark Comedy), an anthology going onto its fourth season. IMO, the second season (Sicily) is the best, it has two carry-over characters from the first season.

Paramount has Star Trek Picard - my controversial taste is actually enjoying this show. It makes certain online people angry. If you like a sci-fi story which is about the Fermi-Paradox of Synthetics and sub-textual story telling season 1 is the way to go, if you’re more into fan service and on-the-nose storytelling, season 3 is the way to go. Season 1 acts as a sequel to the TNG episodes The Measure of a Man and Offspring and resolves the visual and cultural discrepancies between TOS and TNG Romulans (two different nationalities that dominated at different points in history), while Season 3 is a sequel to the Dominion story of Deep Space 9.

And, if you want to go back to beginning these sorts of shows. I’d recommend watching Babylon 5 - planned and executed as a 5 season show. While the show may look primitive, it nailed the formula that sci-fi shows kept trying to replicate. JMS (J. Michael Straczynski) wrote the show years before its release in the 1990s, and is a reimagining of Tolkien (primarily The Silmarillion) and the Cold War. JMS split the show into three main phases: it began as an episodic show to introduce all the characters and elements, then it shifts into a more arcing story by the end of the first season. The second phase, season 2-4, features the main story arcs, and the third phase, season 5, is the epilogue - and optional.

Babylon 5 is about a space station that exists as a place where the powers of the galaxy have their ambassadors to prevent galactic-wide war from breaking out again. It’s focused on the “younger races/species” but includes some very ancient ones that are mysteries to the younger civilizations (which are more like what you see in Star Trek). On the station is an ambassador from a mysterious Empire known as the Vorlons - inspired by Tolkien’s Ainur (which includes the Valar and Maiar) - and on the opposing side are the Shadows (which are more the role of Tolkien’s shadow forces). In the context of a cold war, the younger races, including humans, are much like the third world, while the Vorlon and Shadows (species that are millions of years old) are the first and second world trying to control the third world. While Tolkien viewed the “War of Wrath” from the lens of the elves and the Valar, Babylon 5 takes a very different view of it, and the conclusion isn’t quite the same. Any way, I don’t want to spoil much by being too specific, and chances are you’ve never read The Silmarillion anyway, and do not know what I’m talking about. On a side note, Babylon 5 is cheap/goes on sale. So it’s an easy one to get ahold of - I believe the regular price for the season bundle including the pilot film is about 40 USD.

Actually, the show might be controversial if it came out today. One of the major themes is the authoritarian shift across all the civilizations of the galaxy - Earth’s shift is MAGA-like, and Babylon 5 is the staging point for the microcosm of most of these conflicts. There’s even a war which resembles the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, with shades of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine because the new Earth government pulled out of supporting the resisting alien civilization with weaponry - and stopped taking in refugees. There was also a pandemic episode where people affected refused to take it seriously.