An essential part of the explosive popularity of Stranger Things was the awkward, adorable charisma of its young leads. Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, and Caleb McLaughlin were the most lovable little child gang this side of The Goonies. Shannon Purser became an instant normcore icon as Barb, and Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, and Joe Keery were a perfect picture of an ’80s teen love triangle. Netflix knows this, which is why they tried to get the show’s creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, to shoot the third and fourth seasons back-to-back so they could keep cashing in on that tween magic. According to sources who spoke with The Hollywood Reporter, the streamer was aiming to “get ahead of any potentially awkward adolescent transitions for its young actors,” but the Duffers and two of their producers refused to try and churn out two seasons worth of material so quickly. The anonymous source told THR that “the plan is to create stories that feel true to where the actors are, in terms of age, at the time the episodes are shot.” That goes along with what the Duffers told Vulture in an interview from August, in which they talked about wanting to cap the show at four seasons and working through the high-school years of the main characters. On addressing that possible preteen-to-college transition, Matt said, “We just have to keep adjusting the story.”
