A Time Jump Could Have Saved Stranger Things

"It actually comes as a visceral shock when you rewatch the first episode and remember that once upon a time, the kids were played by real kids. Assembling the core cast of Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, and Millie Bobby Brown was a testament to the talents of casting director Carmen Cuba, who found a young cast of fresh faces who gelled well together."

""There was a scene in Season 4 in Episode 4, the 'Dear Billy' episode. Sadie [Sink] is in the basement, writing her letters, and then she walks out of the basement outside, and a year has passed for her, because we shot the two scenes at the beginning and the end of production. And you can't tell. No one's ever, ever noticed that. That's a full year.""

The final episode avoided being among the worst series finales, but later seasons were hampered by overlong runtimes and awkward issues. The original young core cast—Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, and Millie Bobby Brown—brought chemistry and charisma that helped sustain interest even when plotting faltered. A pandemic-era production shutdown before Season 4 triggered growth spurts among many cast members, producing visible age discrepancies by Season 5. Continuity efforts, including time-jump scene staging, attempted to mask aging, but the gap between actor ages and teenage characters became increasingly noticeable and strained believability.

Read at Consequence