Breaking Up

The third season of Netflix hit stranger things turns a summer holiday upside down…

- Richard Edwards

Give it a Cameron. That’s the usual formula for making a sequel to a sci-fi hit – up to the scale, expand the mythology and introduce a new threat we haven’t seen before. When it comes to third installments, however, you can play a little more fast and loose with the rules. The upcoming Stranger Things 3, for example, is going down the route of being lighter than its predecessors – both figuratively and literally.

“We always knew this season was going to be summer-based,” executive producer and director Shawn Levy tells Small Screen. “I’ve always thought that the special aspect of Stranger Things is the combination of light and dark. It’s the lightness of childhood and the innocence of early adolescence, and it’s the darkness of forces that we don’t fully understand. I’ve always felt that our unique identity is that blend, so a summer-set Season 3 allows us to lean into that lightness, and that makes the darkness feel that much more threatening.”

Season 3’s story kicks off in July 1985, eight months or so after the residents of Hawkins, Indiana, last encountered the Demogorgon's and Mind Flayers who call the creepy parallel world of the Upside Downhome. The kids are on their summer holidays and all is well with the world – for now, at least…