Stranger Things Is the Most Accurate Gen X Show Ever | Original Geek | S1E15

Stranger Things isn’t just nostalgic — it’s accurate. And that’s why it hits Gen X differently than any other generation.

In this episode of Original Geek, we break down why Stranger Things feels less like a retro throwback and more like lived memory for anyone who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s. From riding bikes until dark and killing time in basements, to facing real fear without adults hovering nearby, the show captures the emotional reality of Gen X childhood in a way most nostalgia-driven projects completely miss.

We talk about what the series gets exactly right — friendships forged under pressure, kids solving problems adults can’t, and a world where independence wasn’t optional — and where it starts to strain credibility as the seasons go on. We also unpack the role of Dungeons & Dragons in the show, not as a gimmick, but as cultural shorthand for how Gen X kids understood danger, morality, and imagination.

From Eddie Munson’s impact to monsters viewed through a D&D lens, to the 80s soundtrack revival that spilled onto TikTok, we examine how Stranger Things became a cultural bridge between generations — and why some later story choices feel less authentic to the grounded world the show originally built.

We also get honest about the cracks: plot holes, the Russian lab storyline, and whether Season 5 can actually stick the landing without losing what made the show resonate in the first place.

If you’re Gen X, this episode will feel uncomfortably familiar.
 If you’re younger, it explains why this show means so much to the people who lived it.

Topics include: Stranger Things, Gen X nostalgia, 1980s culture, pop culture analysis, geek history.

Welcome to Original Geek—the podcast for anyone who rolled their first d20 on shag carpet, waited hours for a comic book JPEG to load on dial-up, and wore the label “geek” back when it got you mocked, not monetized.

Hosted by stand-up comic Steve Scarfo and Forever DM Jeff Shaw, we dive deep into what it meant to be a geek in the '70s and '80s—and how that underground culture became the mainstream multiverse we live in today.

🎙️ Subscribe for weekly episodes on Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, comic book chaos, geek court debates, and critical hits from your childhood basement.

👾 Follow us @OriginalGeekPodcast on socials and visit OriginalGeekPodcast.com for merch, extras, and to send us your own geeky tales.

 If you ever hid a Monster Manual like it was porn, you’re not alone. You’re an Original Geek. Welcome home.

Transcript

Steve Scarfo (00:00)
Are you trying to tell me that the fucking music from the rocking horse penetrated a secret Russian lab four fucking floors below ground? That somehow the sound carries so well. Like that to me is one of the big story inconsistencies. It's like, let's just throw it out there and see if people will buy it.

Jeff (00:02)
Ha ha ha.

It's so, it's so funny.

Steve Scarfo (00:40)
All right. Hey, welcome to Original Geek. This is the all geek culture podcast for anyone who grew up on Star Wars marathons, D &D in the basement, retro video games, and every pop culture obsession that built the fandom multiverse we live in today. We're gonna break down science fiction, fantasy, comics, horror, gaming, and every geeky moment that shaped us, serve with sarcasm, nostalgia, and zero gatekeeping. And whether you're a Gen X, millennial, or just geek curious, grab your dice, grab your snacks.

Welcome to the basement. I'm Steve Scarfo.

Jeff (01:12)
and I'm Jeff Shaw and we'll be your string of Christmas lights blinking across today's interdimensional barrier. What's our topic today, Steve?

Steve Scarfo (01:23)
Well, today we're going to talk about stranger things. The, the much anticipated season five is coming up that feels like it's taken forever. Um, I have the timelines. the first season came out in 2016, second, 2017, third was 2019, a little bit of a break. And then.

Jeff (01:26)
Stranger Things!

coming. This is it.

It has, actually.

Steve Scarfo (01:50)
⁓ Season four, May and then July of 2022.

It was, my math is math-ing, three years between seasons three and four, and now we're another three years between four and five.

Jeff (02:05)
So ridiculous.

But that's something for much later in the podcast.

Steve Scarfo (02:12)
just ⁓

Jeff (02:13)
giving you a glimpse of what I consider an epic fail.

Steve Scarfo (02:17)
there we go. ⁓ Yeah, it was. ⁓ I mean, it's got its pros and cons. think they've tried to roll with it, but we'll dig into that part of it later. ⁓ So just a quick recap, if you haven't rewatched just gone through one through four, I'm halfway through season three. I haven't gotten quite all the way through. I had seen them before. I'm just not on back my rewatch.

Jeff (02:45)
Yeah, you mean rewatch. I watched them. ⁓ I was behind, but I finished season four recently, even though it out years ago.

Steve Scarfo (02:57)
Well, it's one of those things too, and again, I don't wanna dig too deep, right, there's that much time, you know, it's like when we were reading ⁓ Robert Jordan's books, when he was still publishing them, the Wheel of Time books would come out and they're great and I'd rather have him take your time the way he did and they were phenomenal books, but it would sometimes be three, four years between books. So you'd have to go like, what the hell? And we'd read other books in between.

So you have to go back and re-read and same thing, like you sort of lose where you were. So you also lose that drive to jump back in. like, it's, you know, it's gonna take forever to finish. ⁓

Jeff (03:37)
Yeah.

Well, yeah, and

for me, as I was watching these recently, and I could not help but think, how has this not been one of our first things that we did on this podcast? Stranger Things is so Gen X. is Gen X to the core. It's us in a TV show.

Steve Scarfo (03:56)
Stranger Things.

yeah.

Jeff (04:07)
friends were like that. The Dungeons and Dragons. And then, or how do we not make references like season four. We talked about the satanic panic in episodes past and that was a big part of season four was that satanic panic.

Steve Scarfo (04:19)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff, it's even worse than that. We've talked about how I got the idea and I got the name from a bit that I do. In the bit that I do, I actually referenced the show and say that if you didn't know it was like to grow up a geek in the 80s, there's a show you can watch that's sort of a documentary of our life. And you might've seen some episodes on Netflix that's called Stranger Things.

Jeff (04:47)
you

So.

Steve Scarfo (04:51)
Literally

the basis for all of this is the idea that stranger things is a perfect illustration of who we are. So

Jeff (04:57)
I know. Yeah,

like this group of geeky friends get getting together. There's always ⁓ usually one spot they go to play D &D, right?

Steve Scarfo (05:07)
And it was the kids' basement. They were at Mike's house all the time in that

Jeff (05:08)
Yep.

too

funny.

Steve Scarfo (05:12)
⁓ So I'm excited because ⁓ and again, I haven't gotten back to season four, but I have watched some recap videos and read some synopsis because I want to make sure I was as prepped as I could be for today anyway, but You know season one and two were very much, you know D &D tied there was demo Gorgon. There was mind flayer ⁓ Season three is this building of a ⁓

of an ooze I guess and then Vecna of course in season four and apparently the big bad of season five so they keep the D &D tie in ⁓ but I think that's sort of core to the heart of the story and this is where the kids get all their knowledge ⁓ but there's a lot going on when they get back to the town at the end of season four there are big holes like they you know they contain it in one they contain it in two

Three and four or three, mostly contained at the mall gets destroyed to some degree, but ⁓ in five, at the end of four, guess into five, forget it, the word is out. So I'm interested to see how they're gonna handle what that's all about.

Jeff (06:28)
You know, I also don't like that they ripped off one of my campaigns I did with the Rudar party in D &D, with our party, because the gates open up in the town. And I did the same thing in Rudar ⁓ with the six-fingered hand. And you were trying to defeat it, and the gates opened up and...

Steve Scarfo (06:54)
That's right.

Jeff (06:58)
Hellspawn came out and you had to fight that off. So I mean, I'm just saying, I might have a case against the Duffer Brothers. I gotta dig that out.

Steve Scarfo (07:06)
I mean, I don't remember any

Duffers in high school, but it doesn't mean they didn't change their names to protect the innocent.

Jeff (07:12)
I know, how dare they? Now, of course, I freely ripped stuff off. I'm sure the six-fingered hand, now that I think of it, ⁓ was probably from, well, there was a Marvel comic series called The Defenders, which is nothing like the Netflix series. It's had like Doctor Strange, had a lot of mystical elements to it. And I remember being a bit influenced by that comic book. And it was like, ⁓

Steve Scarfo (07:22)
Princess Bride.

Jeff (07:42)
I think there was a six fingered hand thing in that, so yeah.

Steve Scarfo (07:46)
God, the

first thing I thought of of course was the Princess Bride, six-fingered man, the six-fingered hand. He said the six-fingered man. But yeah.

Jeff (07:51)
No, that was not the inspiration, promise you. Although I love, speaking

of Princess Bride, I love that how, you know, there's so many 80s tie-ins and I know that's gonna be part of our, you know, this episode is all the 80s stuff, but I loved how they used certain actors from the 80s, Carrie Elwes, who's the mayor, right? And then,

Steve Scarfo (08:15)
Yes. Yep.

Jeff (08:18)
You know, Paul Reiser, Sean Astin, Matthew Modine, Winona Ryder, Robert Unglund, and I saw Linda Hamilton is gonna be in season five. That's awesome. I love that.

Steve Scarfo (08:28)
It's gonna be in season five Terminator Sarah Connor Sarah Connor

It's gonna be I'm I'm actually and I think more in the rewatch I was already excited to see it because I'm like, goodness They're finally gonna finish this thing off ⁓ But yeah, I agree all of those I'm actually like I said, I just got into season three. I'm like episode two or three And Carrie, Elwes was as the mayor just popped in and I was like, yeah, I forgot

that he was in it, you know what I mean? ⁓

Jeff (08:58)
Yeah. And I have to admit that when Paul Reiser showed up, thought, because he just, maybe it's just his delivery is always the same. I was thinking his Carter Burke character from Aliens, like, no, he's not going to be a good guy. He's going to come across as a good guy. He's not going to be a good guy. But in the end, he's more of a good guy than a bad guy.

Steve Scarfo (09:18)
Yes.

yeah, yeah, I think they do a bait and switch by not doing a bait and switch, right? By not giving us what we expect. then it, no. And the.

Jeff (09:32)
Yeah, like, we know who this guy is. We're not going to trust him.

And then I love,

⁓ because we talked about Stephen King in the last podcast and how much this show reminded me of Stephen King as well. Like the titles, I think even the titles had a similar ⁓ font as early Stephen King novels. I think it was like this very deliberate tie in. Well, mean, what's his name? He's reading to Max. He's reading The Talisman in season four of this.

Steve Scarfo (09:50)
yeah.

Jeff (10:09)
at the bedside, Stephen King's book, which... ⁓

Steve Scarfo (10:11)
I haven't gotten

back to season four, it was in now, because I've watched them all jammed in. It was either in one or two, they're at the hospital, and they never show the front of the book, but they show somebody reading a Stephen King book, because you see his picture on the back, a hardcover.

Jeff (10:25)
No, they did

show it because I saw it was the talisman. And I thought that was interesting because the talisman, for those who might not know, came out in 84, had a fantasy, more fantasy than horror. So like I said in the Stephen King episode, that was what I was into. of the Dragon came out the same year. He wrote it with Peter Straub. And part of it is a character has to travel to a parallel universe. It's kind of, it's not exactly the upside down because the upside down is very dark and dismal.

Steve Scarfo (10:28)
in season two.

Jeff (10:55)
But that whole idea of going from our world into a mirror world, a parallel universe that operates differently called the territories, which I think gets kind of recycled. we talked about that too, the dark tower. So yeah, pretty cool.

Steve Scarfo (11:13)
Yeah, so the seasons are, and I didn't get a date on season four or five, but they're trying to keep the timeline pretty consistent. So even though there's been multiple years in real time, first season was 83, then 84, three was 85, four was 86, but.

Jeff (11:33)
And I

think this is 86 as well, right? Because it picks up right where.

Steve Scarfo (11:37)
It must be, yeah, because they do say it picks up right where four leaves off. So the hard part for me, and I guess we'll dig in later to that part, but I have some timing issues, which I think is what you were talking about too. ⁓

Jeff (11:40)
Mm-hmm. So it's gotta be 80 seconds.

Should we do a flashback?

Steve Scarfo (11:53)
I mean, I was just looking to see, was there anything else we wanna talk about before we get there? The only other thing I wanted to talk about was the movies, but I think we'll get into that, the movie tie-ins a little bit later. So let's jump in, let's flash. ⁓

Jeff (11:56)
Let's flashback, then.

Steve Scarfo (12:14)
All right, so you said it a little

bit already, but this show, it was us. It was the Satanic Panic. was in season four. ⁓ my goodness. Highlights that to a T.

Jeff (12:26)
Yeah.

Oh yeah. That, and it's actually kind of funny because I did think about this and Satanic Panic, of course it's, it's, I referenced it, I think in one of our earliest episodes when there was a D &D club formed at the school that I was at and it was in 1999 and, um, we had to shut it down because

the assistant principal was worried about witchcraft and casting of spells. Satanic Panic, like, cause I thought, well, 86, I was a little bit late. seemed like the Satanic Panic. think the whole thing with the kid that, that, you know, died in the tunnels or whatever, you know, I think that some of that happened in early eighties, but it still kept going. And of course they're just looking for.

a convenient scapegoat because that Hellfire Club already existed. They're wearing their t-shirts in the school and they were more blatant about D &D than I ever would have been in school. I would not have been that upfront like, yeah, I'm proud of this. I would have been hiding that.

Steve Scarfo (13:34)
goodness, yeah.

No, but

I forget the character's name, the kid with the long hair. He could have been Jim or Bill or Eddie. He could have just been one of us.

Jeff (13:46)
⁓ Eddie. no,

that group, that was close. mean, the season one group of all the, the core group of all the geeks. Our group was far closer to the Hellfire Club group, which was more diverse. Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (14:04)
And again, I'm just in season three. And again, it's 1984 and the mall just opened in town. And so there they have this huge mall montage of the girls running through and going shopping. And it's all the borders books and like all the old stores in the background. But that's how like that was we talked about it in the video gaming episode.

Jeff (14:20)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (14:30)
Like that's where we live. That's where social life was. You know, especially in early teens, 13, 14, 15, maybe even a little later, because when we drove ourselves quite a bit, but it was us going to the mall to mostly go to the arcade and go to the hobby store and to buy comics and to buy D &D books and hit the bookstore. at the back of the day, the Fox Run Mall had what, three bookstores in the mall.

Jeff (14:34)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (15:00)
Like if one didn't have it, somebody else had it.

Jeff (15:02)
Yeah. Well, and getting CDs at the Sam Goody or whatever it was at the time. can't remember. Yeah, we, I thought the same thing. It's funny with that mall scene. like, this, you know, I see this and it's just so nostalgic. ⁓ And I love the soundtrack. And there was one song that came on and I don't know why I liked it so much.

Steve Scarfo (15:11)
goodness, yeah. And the Cassingles

Jeff (15:32)
The Pointer Sisters' Neutron Dance. It is not a great song, but I'm like...

Steve Scarfo (15:39)
That was the montage song, right? The shopping montage? Yeah.

Jeff (15:41)
Yes, I like the Neutron

dance. I love this song. And I think I actually do think it was in I think it was in Beverly Hills Cop as well, that song. But it was, you know, not a it doesn't stand the test of time necessarily. I enjoyed hearing it for that nostalgic feel and that whole idea of going to the mall just to go to the mall. Like, I don't think anyone does that now. I think you go to the mall because you need to shop someplace.

Steve Scarfo (15:46)
You

think you're right.

Jeff (16:12)
Maybe you need to shop a few places, but you don't go there just to hang out.

Steve Scarfo (16:12)
and usually it's cause... yeah.

No, in fact, ⁓ locally here in New Hampshire over in ⁓ Newington, the mall that we grew up with, the Fox Run Mall, is being demolished. They're gonna tear the whole thing down and they're gonna build up one of these live, work, play places. It'll probably be amazing when it's done, but they don't, it's so like fallen away that people don't even go when they need to.

Jeff (16:31)
How dare they?

Steve Scarfo (16:44)
Typically the only reason I see people at a mall is there's something else at the mall that's not retail related. Maybe it's a restaurant that they like. ⁓ I have noticed it is a few malls like in Salem, New Hampshire, closer to the mass border. Those are like consolidating retailing locations, but even the one in Nashua has got a casino now, right? The one in Salem's getting a casino. they're doing.

Jeff (17:10)
Yeah, you gotta give

another reason to go there. Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (17:12)
Yeah, it's like you can't just

go to the mall to go to the mall. And we goodness. Yeah. Just ran around like idiots and it was it was the whole day.

Jeff (17:21)
And it's so funny because it was they made Kate Bush's song running up that hill big again. And I think it was I don't think it was ever as big in the 80s as it became because of this show. Because I it's when I was in when I was in high school, I like to consider myself because it mostly of our friend, Kevin Adams, who'd listened to all this music that wasn't necessarily.

Steve Scarfo (17:35)
yeah.

Jeff (17:48)
Top 40, Willie Liston the Punk and all kinds of all kinds of different stuff.

Steve Scarfo (17:50)
⁓ no, Kev loved punk and indie rock. and Bill

are reason I know who the Violin Femmes are.

Jeff (17:55)
Yeah, exactly. So, ⁓ and not, I obviously wasn't that unique, but I like, you kind of trick yourself into thinking these things are like, Kate Bush, that's my thing. Not everyone's listening to Kate Bush. That's my thing. I'm so such an independent mind.

Steve Scarfo (18:08)
Yeah.

We talked about it before too, but like the D &D aspects of the show in the show they nailed. But I think the fact that this was in the show 10 years ago, we talked about it across a few different episodes, the DMing episode, the original Satanic Panic D &D episode we did. This show is the reason or one of the big reasons.

for sure that D &D has re-emerged. Because it felt to me, and hey, I might be wrong, this might just be a weird perspective of mine, but you know, when we were kids, was niche. To us, it was huge, because we did it all the time. And then it felt like in the 90s, in the early 2000s, it sort of just plateaued. It was a game that was out there, not a lot of people played, not a lot of people were into it. And... ⁓

Then after this show hit, you start seeing more and more popularizing of D &D. Like we talked about it on Big Bang. We've talked about Critical Role, Dimension 20, these live play D &D shows that are on the internet, mostly on YouTube. So I think obviously the technology helped to push that forward too. But I think the show can easily take credit for the spark that brought D &D back or

Jeff (19:33)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (19:40)
Maybe not brought it back, pushed it forward even further.

Jeff (19:43)
I could take the opposing viewpoint on that, but I'd rather take it on something else. So I'm gonna take you to court, Mr. Scarfo

Steve Scarfo (19:48)
Well, you know, I'll

always try and approve me wrong

Jeff (19:53)
Yes I am.

Steve Scarfo (20:03)
All right, so I jumped the gun a little bit, but here's the situation. Did Stranger Things save this nostalgia or is it exploiting it just to make money? You know, ⁓ I'm gonna keep on with what I was just talking about. This is the show that brought D &D back into the mainstream. I keep saying back. I feel like it went away. Maybe it didn't, but it definitely brought it forward. Millie Bobby Brown, obviously the...

the biggest star jump of all of those kids. Obviously her performances. I was actually rewatching in season one and two how powerful she was as a 11, 12 year old kid. Like her scenes were phenomenal. Do you know mean? And so you can see why she does well. And now she's, you know, pretty kind of average kid out there and you know, young twenties and making great, she does make a lot of great content, but.

She's probably the one that got the biggest boost out of the show. ⁓ But yeah, everything that we just talked about from the malls to the D &D, but D &D I think has benefited the most from Stranger Things other than the Duffer Brothers. D &D has had the biggest, I just think it saved a lot of this stuff. What say you, Mr. Shaw?

Jeff (21:17)
Yeah. So, all

right. So argument that it is exploiting. So I feel like what can happen or has happened with stranger things is the only explanation I can think of that this has taken so damn long. mean, this shouldn't be taking this long is exploitation. They're trying to milk every dollar out of this property.

And this was not supposed to be a big hit. They shopped this thing around, network after network turned them down. Netflix said, yes, they took a chance. And it was a home run. I ⁓ think the next season came out right the next, right? One season's one year, next season's the next year. And that's the way it should have kept going. they, so my argument is that they are trying to exploit this.

And the nostalgia factor, I think, at times can be maybe a part of that exploitation that they're, you know, just trying to, know, because as much as I love these songs, sometimes it's just like, oh, let me let me get another 80s hit in there. Let's let's. Oh, wait, what about? Oh, we need we need a mall. Let's put a mall in. We need a mall scene. We need this. We need.

Like it almost seems like they're doing a checklist of 80s things that they want to make sure they cover and get in there. so yeah, so I think my only evidence is how long this thing is taking, because I can't think of any other reason the pandemic is only an excuse for one year. Otherwise, this doesn't make sense.

Steve Scarfo (23:12)
Yes, so I still stand by, I think this show did those amazing things, but I will say, I feel like it did start to suffer from sequel, sequelitis ⁓ in the 70s, or not 70s so much, 80s, 90s. There was a number of movies, mostly superhero properties that would come out, but there was like an amazing first one, and the second one was kind of junk.

You know what you mean? Like and I feel like season 3 really is suffering from Sequelitis, I think season 1 completely unexpected. I agree knocked out of the park season 2 came fast So like crap. We got a good we had a good formula. Let's redo this formula season 3 It really started to become so I think I referenced this movie for Adam Sandler made a Christmas movie called eight crazy and I guess it's technically a Hanukkah movie

called Eight Crazy Nights. And there's one scene in this movie. I've never walked out of a movie in my life in the theater. I left because it was so bad. ⁓ I don't even know if he still claims this movie. But there's a scene in a mall, which is literally an advertisement for every store in the mall. They're singing about JCPenney and Radio Shack and the Cookie Place and these like it was literally just songs with names of stores in it. And I kind of feel like season three is falling.

Jeff (24:34)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (24:37)
victim to that. ⁓ So I might have to split my argument into two halves. Seasons one and two, solid, kicked everything off. Three and four. Here we were thinking you were going to have to say I was right, but now I'm like, wait, I'm turning the tide here. I'm going to call this one a tie because I do think it had all of those positives. But I'm anxious to see season five. I do wonder

Jeff (24:40)
Nice.

I know I can't believe I'm winning again. How is this possible?

Steve Scarfo (25:07)
Season one and two were so good and so powerful and people did well off of that. And I know Millie Bobby Brown did a bunch of movies. So I start to wonder, season three, four, and now five, have those fallen victim to Hollywood? Not so much for the tie-ins and ⁓ the money making, which of course, it's still a money, it's still a business. is it more about she's got other, they all have other shit to do?

Jeff (25:30)
Yeah. Well, I went to...

There's a Netflix

themed restaurant at MGM Grand in Vegas and I was there the other week and a lot of the theming in there is Stranger Things. They had a drink called the Mind Flayer, which I almost ordered, but it had cotton candy on it and I just didn't feel like having cotton candy. And they had a Demi Gorgon statue. didn't have, like the theming was, I was really hoping it'd be more like a Planet Hollywood, but for...

Steve Scarfo (25:55)
How dare you!

Jeff (26:05)
Netflix with a lot of artifacts and now they just had a this had themed drinks and food and then ⁓ and then some statues and is mostly Stranger things and so that's why I think like I know they're trying to this they see this as this cash cow They don't want to just up you only had a five season arc. Well, we're gonna make those five seasons last ten years. So Like I'm sorry, that's not great. I mean

they filmed Lord of the Rings back to back to back, right? And then they released it at a pace. So they could have done all their filming in a tight ⁓ window and then left a lot of the editing or maybe reshoots as needed, but they could have filmed this faster.

Steve Scarfo (26:52)
I wonder if that had to do with the kids though, cause that's gonna be one of my problems. That's my point. That's where I'm heading. Like when we started, Millie Bobby Brown was literally 11 or 12 years old when she had that first. So in 85.

Jeff (26:54)
Well, they're not kids anymore. That's the problem.

you mean so they

couldn't do an escalated shooting schedule because of school? How dare they.

Steve Scarfo (27:09)
They might not have been able to, well, I don't

even know if it was because of school, but like they might not have been able to, because kids have different work requirements and restrictions, like they might not have been able to do it back to back. But also, ⁓ again, I don't know, you know, who knows how their structure was when they got this deal at Netflix. Seasons one and two might've been locked in, but three, four and five took some negotiating.

Jeff (27:18)
Yeah, true.

Steve Scarfo (27:36)
and now they know they have a hit, so you know how that goes. Everybody wants more money, everybody wants, so, but with the kids, you know, yeah, it's for hits and misses, but in a little while, we're gonna talk about some of the really big swings that may not have connected. So stay tuned, we're gonna keep moving on that. ⁓ But yeah, so I think we've, ⁓ I think the.

Jeff (27:56)
Next.

Steve Scarfo (28:02)
court might have to be a tie slightly against. I didn't think I would acquiesce that way, but I did. unfortunately, still did all the good stuff, but some of the bad stuff too. But I think it's time to talk some some stuff we might have hanging around.

Jeff (28:11)
Nice, love it.

it.

Yeah. So my basement treasure, have little artifacts this time. So I was thinking it was season three when, ⁓ the, the science teacher is painting miniatures very carefully and maybe think of like the various miniatures that show up. I thought of our miniatures that we've had over the years. ⁓ this is a ogre Magi missing a hand because these are pewter. And when they come in.

Steve Scarfo (28:27)
All right.

Jeff (28:56)
This one's only partially painted because I never got around to it. They're this silvery color and then you've got to paint them. And that one I didn't finish. Now you can get plastic ones that are all painted. so, you know, this is my, you know, my, my, could do about my rant there. You don't have to waste hours of your life painting figurines. can buy them painted. But the

Steve Scarfo (29:25)
We're going to rant a little later.

Jeff (29:27)
But, um, and I, you know, I think back on the time that we spent playing D and D, all the prep, painting these figurines and I'm like, and we've been trying to record this episode, coordinating our schedules for a week now. Like we can't even get an hour to record a podcast. Uh, but man, we, I miss those, that timeframe, that time we had as teenagers back in the eighties where we could.

Steve Scarfo (29:44)
goodness, yeah.

Jeff (29:56)
just do this fun stuff and paint figurines and play D &D.

Steve Scarfo (30:01)
Yeah, I agree. I don't know that I still have them. had at one point, I had painted once a frost giant figurine and it was my favorite paint that I had done. I don't remember if it was Jim or Bill had brought in the whole idea of a dry brushing technique. This was again, people pre-internet week. If someone you knew didn't know how to do these techniques, you just didn't see them. Like it would be just red.

and now you can texture it and under paint and I don't know if I still have any. Mine is gonna be back to the old D &D. ⁓ found my, I'm gonna call it my original player's handbook.

Jeff (30:45)
That

cannot possibly be the original one. That's three.

Steve Scarfo (30:50)
All right, I don't know if I'll have to edit that.

This is three, this is my third edition, not even 3.5, this is three flat. And it's considered a core rule book. But I realize as I was looking for that earlier, the lack of basement treasures that I have. Surprisingly enough for something that dominated so much of our time, I realized that my...

Jeff (30:56)
That's your third edition.

Steve Scarfo (31:21)
Artifacts have slowly dissipated into probably boxes in the back room or somewhere, but you know, I'm gonna go dig in when we're done They're digging in the wrong place but yeah, it was Yeah, I don't have a ton for this particular basement treasure other than I agree Spending all that time For me though was part of the fun because we often got together

Jeff (31:28)
Gotta dig him out, Indy.

Steve Scarfo (31:49)
while we were playing, people would be painting or sometimes we would get together and just hang out and paint. Like it wasn't always just D &D So it was another way for us to be hang out together, you know, without video calling available to us in 84 or five, whatever it was.

Jeff (32:09)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (32:17)
So talk to me, we can talk a little bit about how the show has changed. We started to talk a little bit about it.

Jeff (32:25)
Yeah, funny because I think about, you know, I always wonder, you know, I said, you know, all the they knew it was going to be a five season arc, but I don't know if they did because one thing that didn't work in season two, at least they got crap for it is the character eight. Trying to think what her right. That was she was number eight.

⁓

Steve Scarfo (32:54)
I forgot what I just yeah, though. It's that one off episode.

Jeff (32:56)
So she.

Well, it was a bit of a storyline, so she meets her sister, right, in Chicago and she gets this kind of goth look, right. And they're there, you know, semi criminals, kind of Robin Hood type criminals that they see themselves. But and. So.

Steve Scarfo (33:19)
little darker than that but yeah because They're out there killing people

Jeff (33:25)
With their ⁓

Steve Scarfo (33:26)
There are no

spoilers at this point. If you haven't seen Stranger Things Season 2, sorry, that's on you.

Jeff (33:31)
Yeah.

So, um, so I think, you know, in some, in some ways, maybe it's good. Cause I, I agree that wasn't the best subplot, um, that they've had. Um, and I've loved some of the other things that have come up and like, heard that and I don't, and you know, I haven't done as deep a dive as maybe some people who devote a lot of their energy to stranger things.

But ⁓ the Steve Harrington character ⁓ being as strong of kind of almost a father figure to those kids, I knew he was the babysitter. ⁓ I think that kind of evolved. ⁓ The Murray character, I don't know he was always planned to be as strong. He had that appearance in season two, right? And then he's...

played by ⁓ Brett Gellman. my God. He is so good. I love him, that actor.

Steve Scarfo (34:29)
He's funny.

Jeff (34:31)
the movie with Will Ferrell and he's a cop. ⁓ The other guys, my God, classic. So anyway, so Brett Gellman, awesome comedic actor. He's always playing these bit parts and I love that he brought him back. He's so good in that scene. And once again, and because it's been out for a long time, even season four, we can spoil it. But as he says, he's learned karate.

Steve Scarfo (34:37)
the other guys.

he's central to season four.

Jeff (35:01)
And he's has this fight on the plane. My fingers are like arrows. My arms like iron. My feet like spears. Resist and I will end you. It's so good. It's so good. And that his karate is black belt like it actually works. I mean, Steve, your daughter is a black belt and I want, please, a Christmas gift to me.

would be when we see you in December and your family, please. I need, I need Livy to say my fingers are like arrows, my arms like iron, my feet like spears. Resist, and I'll end you. And then also record that being said at the dojo or studio, whatever. Please. So I love, I overall, know, like I think when they miss on something, the good thing about this taking so long is they're able to course correct.

Steve Scarfo (35:35)
You want her to say those lines?

my goodness, that would be funny.

Jeff (36:00)
You know, the bad part is the kids are adults.

Steve Scarfo (36:04)
Right,

yeah, so they started at 11 and 84 and it's, 82, right? So 82 or 83, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, or 86, right? Four years should have passed. And now those actors were 11 or 12, are now 22. So I'm interested to see how they're gonna play the look change.

Jeff (36:17)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

I know, in season four, they're supposed to be freshmen, right?

Steve Scarfo (36:31)
I believe so, yeah, because they were middle school when we started. So yeah, they are college graduates in real life, not just high school freshmen.

Jeff (36:41)
And they were like rolling the

dice on these characters. The only one who kind of can get away with it is Dustin. I feel like that actor looks young. Yeah, his baby face, yeah. Will, he looks ridiculous.

Steve Scarfo (36:48)
Yeah, he's got a very baby face look. Gatton Matasos, I never say his last name correct. No, he's like a,

it's like the kid who played Neville in Harry Potter. He went from this pudgy little kid to like a damn near supermodel looking dude.

Jeff (37:05)
Yeah,

yeah, because Will is like this little thing and now he's a...

Steve Scarfo (37:10)
So

just to go back to that episode in season two you were talking about, now I did read some stuff about that one as well because they think they were trying to set up a spinoff that just never happened. So they think half of the reason for that episode in those characters was, here's another character like Eleven and it's a grittier, darker view of stuff. So.

Jeff (37:31)
⁓

Steve Scarfo (37:36)
They thought they might give her a show and I don't know if that was real or if that's just speculation, but it does make sense the way they did it. The only thing I really liked with the way they did it is it was her Luke goes to Yoda moment, right? She goes to see someone who has the same kind of ability, who's more skilled, who's more powerful and she, her power in her person grow in that episode from

Jeff (37:44)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (38:04)
kind of mousy to a little, not superhero, but she does learn to channel that inner anger, her dark side almost, and move that train when, before she could barely get it to shudder, and so she had her Obi-Wan or her Yoda moment in that episode. ⁓ I don't know if it needed to be a whole episode. I don't know how else she would've steered her there without that, but. ⁓

Jeff (38:32)
Hmm.

Steve Scarfo (38:33)
But I do agree, I think.

Jeff (38:33)
It wasn't just one episode,

was it? Wasn't it at least two that they had? What?

Steve Scarfo (38:37)
It was just one episode.

One, cause I was surprised too. I remembered it cause I just, I have done a very condensed rewatch of the first two and a half seasons. It's like season two, episode three or something like that. It's early and she, yeah. Eleven takes off and does her own little journey. So she's gone from Hawkins for the whole season almost. But the episode with the sister,

Jeff (38:54)
Oh, I thought it was kind of spread out.

Steve Scarfo (39:04)
is only one episode because she goes to her she finds her mother her birth mother that's a whole episode and then she goes to Chicago and is with them in another episode and then after that she goes back at the end because she realizes she needs to help them because she hears will

Jeff (39:07)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep.

just

sorry, I I should have been watching that too. Sorry, I made some assumptions. ⁓ But one thing, one evolution that I was hoping for and we did not get is when four, 11 gets her powers back in season four. I was hoping they'd be a little more, like she wouldn't have to have a nosebleed every time she used her power. Like I was really hoping we'd get past that. And I know,

Steve Scarfo (39:24)
Hehehehe

Right.

Jeff (39:50)
Like, and this is obviously a nod to Stephen King, because Carrie, that was the big indicator, right? That anyone that used their powers, their mental strain, and the strain was symbolized through a nosebleed. But ⁓ we get it. But let's show her evolving. Let's have this geek evolution and have her get stronger so that only in the most extreme...

Steve Scarfo (40:10)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff (40:18)
And I know maybe bringing down a helicopter is extreme. Maybe it is. But I'm just like, let's stop with the nosebleeds for every use of her power.

Steve Scarfo (40:29)
You know, I will say, ⁓ the train that she moved in season two had to be heavier than that helicopter.

Jeff (40:38)
Right,

that's what I was thinking. Like, the helicopter.

Steve Scarfo (40:42)
The helicopter and she didn't have to like it like it she was bringing it down. She had gravity on her side. ⁓ So yeah, I agree the nosebleed and actually in that episode with eight eight was still getting the nosebleeds too ⁓ whenever she used her power for the mind. She could make people see stuff. ⁓ She would mess with people's view of reality. But every time she used her as her nose blood to so. ⁓

Jeff (40:49)
Right.

Yeah,

because part of it in Carrie was, that's bad. Like you're overusing your power. Like you've gone too far and you are going to burn out. ⁓

Steve Scarfo (41:20)
Well, and maybe they'll

do it in five, but it would be nice to have seen, like you said, the evolution of her power. She gets stronger in her mental strength is that my brain is strong enough now I won't get a nosebleed.

And I think we are familiar enough with the character that we don't need a visual representation of when Eleven does her thing. Right, we know. ⁓ It's funny too because in season two we find out her real name is Jane. And I don't think they ever usually, I don't think they call her Jane. They always just call her Elle. She's just Elle to them, even though her real name apparently was Jane. ⁓ Again, so just to keep on the evolution part of it, think season, episode, season three rather.

That might've been the weakest one for me. only, again, a few episodes into it, but it seemed to be the one where they, I think they had a solid season one thought and thought they were gonna be done. When it went, they mirrored with season two and they like, ooh, let's branch this shit out. And then when they got three, they're like, what do we do now? So they went to the mall and they had Russians. It was all pretty.

I don't want to call the Duffer Brothers hacky, but it was a little bit hacky. You know what mean? was stuff that it was fun. It's fun to watch. We bring in new characters. ⁓ but.

Jeff (42:39)
Well, I think what happened in This Can Happen too is there's always a willing suspension of disbelief. But I feel like in season three and four, they took for granted that we were going to jump with them. And sometimes it just did not

⁓ that the extent of the Russian operation in Hawkins is ridiculous. It's ridiculous. It's so, it's so, so much. like I don't, I do not like it when you're asking a little too much of us to put our brains on pause. I still entertained and I still want the show, but yeah, I agree. Cause it wasn't so in seasons one and two that we didn't have to put our like,

Steve Scarfo (43:10)
this whole underground layer that you expect is somewhere else.

Jeff (43:32)
we could accept the reality that they were constructing. It got harder in season three, and even in season four there were some moments I'm like, this is hard to look past as something that makes any sense.

Steve Scarfo (43:45)
It's that sequel-itis. It's when you go from the Batman with ⁓ Penguin, the old Michael Keaton one, and then the next Batman has like five villains because they felt like they had to keep up in the ante. And I love Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he should not have been Mr. Freeze, right? It was just...

It was just to have Arnold say weird one-liners like chill out. Why don't you chill out?

Jeff (44:19)
For me in season four, was Eleven's regression. ⁓ She in season three, she's all like neon and 80s and fun and Max has kind of helped her come along out of her shell. And then she goes to California and she's she's dressed in all hand-me-downs that don't match. Her language skills seem to have devolved. She creates the

a diorama, she doesn't know how to say it, she doesn't even pronounce it properly, and she sounds like a child. And instead of, you know, her age, which I know she's supposed to be like a freshman in high school, but still, like.

Steve Scarfo (45:04)
14

or 15, yeah. But I mean, they're 14 or 15. You don't usually lose language. I mean, granted, she's been through some trauma, so I don't wanna take away from their storytelling, but I agree. That was a...

Jeff (45:08)
Sheet.

No.

Yeah.

But I thought

they're like, it's been a few years. Don't remember that 11 had more advanced skills or dressed not like a freak.

Steve Scarfo (45:28)
and there were a couple, again, the mall montage episode, again, it's one I'm currently watching, so it's so fresh on my brain, but when she and Max are running through the mall, it looks like any other 80s teen movie, right? She doesn't look, there's no affect in the performance of stilted, stunted, outcast. She looks just like a regular teenage kid, and I think that's good evolution at that point for her.

Jeff (45:55)
Yeah. Yes.

Right. Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (45:57)
Right, that's what you want. Hey, she's

growing, she's learning, she's becoming. So to send her backward.

Jeff (46:04)
And I know the argument is, well, they're on tough times. She's getting bullied. Let's put her back. But I don't know. It seemed I understand the explanation. just don't agree.

Steve Scarfo (46:19)
Yeah, so what I'm hearing from our conversation, and I want you guys, if you're listening or watching, to weigh in, send us emails, originalgeekpodcastgmail.com, jump on our socials, Facebook everywhere, and let us know. We both feel seasons one and two were stronger than three and four, ⁓ and some of the story points in three and four make it hard to suspend your disbelief. A ⁓ fully-fledged multi-

level Russian base under our newly built mall. I don't know how someone misses that getting built. I'm being honest with you. But let us know what you think. Jump in and give us your thoughts.

All right. ⁓ I think I know where you're heading because you talked about a little bit already, but ⁓ I think the fact that a show like this exists ⁓ using topics from our life and I say it as a joke, we've talked about it, we make fun about it, but this was who we were growing up and we never saw representations of ourselves anywhere in any media. Like the closest I think

And it was in comedy terms, so it was always like still kind of making fun of us was Big Bang Theory, right? This is the first time where you see these kids just being themselves. And even deep into season three, Will, who has been through the worst of it is still like, can we just play D &D?

Jeff (47:51)
⁓ Yes

Steve Scarfo (47:52)
Do know what I mean? Like we didn't have that.

So I think just enjoy it, love it or hate it, seasons one through four, whatever. But just, I say this is a show that represents a time, pretty accurately, as cheesy as season three seems to be, it pretty accurately depicts how the 80s went.

Jeff (48:01)
That's good.

⁓

yeah, mean, we make fun of this huge Russian operation, but Russia was, the Soviet Union was our number one fear. It really does, this show captures Gen X, 80s experience, totally. And so that would be my message. You wanna know what it was like? Watch this. ⁓ the fact that they didn't know what the internet was. We didn't know what that was.

Steve Scarfo (48:23)
god yeah.

Jeff (48:42)
We watched, there was a movie called War Games, someday we'll do that one. But ⁓ most of us just didn't really know what it was. And so it was an episode and they were mystified about the internet. You watch this, it's practically an 80s documentary. It really is.

Steve Scarfo (48:59)
In season two, ⁓ Sean Astin's character, ⁓ Bob, ⁓ at the end of the movie, he's the only one that could go restart the power because he knew basic.

Jeff (49:12)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (49:13)
It's a silly little twist, like that's how disconnected

it. And he had to go to the terminal, which ultimately is what gets him killed. Sorry. Again, no spoilers, but, or all spoilers. Oddly, sorry, sad little, funny little side twist. ⁓ Giana does classes a couple of times a week. So there's one night a week, it's just me and Liv. And we watched Goonies the other night. So from old Sean Austin to new Sean Austin.

Jeff (49:25)
dare you.

There we go. Nice.

Steve Scarfo (49:43)
⁓ My own little

personal evolution But

Jeff (49:47)
Alright, let's go to

Steve Scarfo (49:55)
let's do it now we can finally talk

Jeff (49:54)
hits. Epic fails.

Steve Scarfo (49:58)
All right, I think. ⁓

think one of the hits for me, mean, it's not really a stretch after everything we've been talking about, right, is the fact that this show did so much for a game that we love and brought it to a point where people have sort of mainstreamed it. You know, I have a bunch of notes here. There's a bunch of other ways to go. You talked about Kate Bush earlier, but the character, Eddie Munson, there it was, it was in my notes. So that character,

He was the epitome of one of our friends in high school. ⁓ I think they just do a great job. ⁓ I think I think the the the tone is even enough throughout all four seasons that you get that horror. We keep referencing Stephen King and he it has that or there there is some some gore but it's not like. ⁓

some of the 80s movies really were where it was just like gratuitous stuff, right? But I think the horror tension levels were great. I think the whole show, but what it did for D &D and characterizing that part of life obviously sits warm in my heart.

Jeff (51:14)
Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ so I'll, I'll keep, I'll keep my critical hit fast and actually even my epic fail fast. Cause we've kind of explored it a bit and I know we're, running at time here, but, ⁓ my, soundtrack, I just love, ⁓ all these songs. And there's a few that I'm like, I got to add that into my, to my list. Cause like I said, the pointer sisters, they didn't survive. Cause I listened to cassette tapes then.

And then we had CDs and I didn't buy the Pointer Sisters when we moved to CDs. And when it went to the MP3s, I didn't buy a Pointer Sisters song. I don't have that in my library, but man, I'm tempted to get that neutron dance back. So we'll see. And then my epic fail we have talked about, I feel like the amount of time they have taken to film this is an epic fail. And...

Steve Scarfo (52:08)
Hmm.

Jeff (52:09)
The only explanation I can think is they want to milk this thing for all it's worth and make as much money as they possibly can because they're, they cannot get away with the look, they don't look like their age, the age of their characters. It's just, it's that the willing suspension of disbelief in season three, season four, and season five.

Part of it, the challenge is these actors, season three not as bad, but man, season four, they just don't look like they're freshmen in high school.

Steve Scarfo (52:49)
No. All right, hold on one second. I gotta put a marker. What's up, kiddo?

We're almost done. Why don't you give me 10 minutes?

Okay. Good night. Love you.

Baby, I'm in the middle of recording. What do mean?

Yeah, we gotta clean up all that shit first. Alright, get outta here. We'll talk later.

I thought I'd get through a whole hour.

Jeff (53:07)
You're dead.

Steve Scarfo (53:08)
She's in on the elf this year. So our elf on the shelf moves. She's been helping me with.

All right. Were you done? I apologize.

Jeff (53:19)
Yeah, it was done. Yeah, we've kind of, we've already talked through this one.

Steve Scarfo (53:26)
Yeah, ⁓ because you just did a hit and a fail, right?

Jeff (53:30)
Yeah, my hit was the soundtrack and then I went into my fail. The amount of time it took them to film this, it's just not working. And the last thing I ended on was ⁓ that the willing suspension of disbelief in season three, season four, and season five is that they just can't get away with looking like freshmen in high school. That was it.

Steve Scarfo (53:38)
the time.

I mean, yeah, absolutely. ⁓ I agree.

I mean, my fails really would be the Russian thing as much as it's germane to the rest of the story. And it does move certain plot points along. If it had been a sub-basement. That was sort of Jerry, you know, if it was like an older, like the fact that it was a state of the art lab with these huge machines, basically mimicking what they did at Hawkins lab, but as Russians under the mall. ⁓

And it's funny because they do a translation. And now this, this lab is supposed to be many floors below ground. Right. And so Dustin records this Russian transmission because he's supposed to be talking to his girlfriend over the ham radio. And then all of sudden they hear this music. what is, what is that music? That's so weird. And it's the rocking horse in the hallway. And I'm like,

Jeff (54:40)
Yes.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (54:57)
Are you trying to tell me that the fucking music from the rocking horse penetrated a secret Russian lab four fucking floors below ground? That somehow the sound carries so well. Like that to me is one of the big story inconsistencies. It's like, let's just throw it out there and see if people will buy it.

Jeff (54:59)
Ha ha ha.

It's so, it's so funny.

Steve Scarfo (55:18)
So again, willing suspension display for a different reason, but it's like, there are so many other things they could have done, right?

Jeff (55:21)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (55:27)
There were other ways to tie a sound in to the recording, ⁓ but to make it the rocking horse music, which wouldn't have been that loud. Like, and the funny part is you don't hear people talking. You don't hear other music playing from the mall having music on. There's no people walking sounds. It's just the horse. Do you know what I mean? So like, it just was a really weird way to tie them in.

Jeff (55:52)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (55:55)
and to give

them the clue is that it was there and it seemed kind of like a weak way to do it. I don't know who wrote that episode, but they should be ashamed of themselves. That was a horrible tie-in. ⁓ All that said, I can't wait for season five. Now, in real time, ⁓ it is Monday night, November 24th, and season five drops in two days. ⁓ Hopefully this will hit your ears.

Jeff (55:58)
Yeah.

That's funny. That's Nice.

yeah.

Steve Scarfo (56:23)
either shortly thereafter, maybe right before, depending on what my night looks like or tomorrow looks like. yeah, ⁓ Stranger Things has been a cultural phenomenon no matter which way you pull it apart. ⁓ And I'm glad we got a chance to chat about it.

Jeff (56:28)
You

Yeah, absolutely.

Steve Scarfo (56:45)
So once again, originalgeekpodcast.com. We have some great merch. ⁓ I've started to throw out some merch from ⁓ trying to tie in episode type information. we have a Tron shirt, we have a Creature Double Feature shirt, we have the Stephen King shirt, and I think one of our new tags has to be BoralGeek down here always. And I will come up with a, I gotta order one myself, I love it. ⁓

Jeff (57:07)
I know. I got to buy that. I got to order that.

Steve Scarfo (57:13)
and I'm gonna come up with a Stranger Things inspired shirt. I can't do no IP copying here, but we'll come up with something Stranger Things inspired. ⁓ But thanks for joining us and ⁓ we'll see you on the other side.

Jeff (57:29)
We'll see you on the upside down OGs.


00:00 Welcome to Original Geek Podcast
00:40 Stranger Things: A Cultural Phenomenon
12:07 Geek Flashback
19:54 Geek Court
28:11 Basement Treasures: D&D Memories
32:03 Geek Evolution
49:43 Critical Hits and Epic Fails
57:32 Full Video End.mp4