Stranger Things Questions to Ask

The questions

Open any question to see why it works.

1. 1

   Which season did you watch first, and how late to the show were you?

   People who arrived at the first season week by week and people who binged four seasons in a fortnight remember completely different shows. The bingers tend to have a much stronger opinion about pacing, because they felt every slow stretch back to back.

2. 2

   How old were you when you started it?

   Watching it at twelve makes it a story about your friends. Watching it at forty makes it a story about somebody's missing child. Ask which one they were, because it explains every answer that follows.

3. 3

   Which of the kids were you at that age?

   Almost nobody picks Mike, which is odd given he is the one at the centre. Most people land on Dustin or Will, and the reason they give is usually more revealing than the choice.

4. 4

   Who did you start out watching for, and who did you end up caring about?

   This is the Steve Harrington question without naming him. The gap between the character who hooked someone and the character they would now defend in an argument is where a show earns its long-term fans.

5. 5

   Where do you stand on Barb?

   A fan who says the reaction was overblown and a fan who still finds it a genuine failure of the story are telling you how much they expect a show to account for its minor characters. Nobody is neutral, and everyone enjoys being asked.

6. 6

   Which death still annoys you?

   Ask for annoyance rather than sadness and you get criticism instead of sentiment. The answer usually comes with a theory about why it happened, and the theory is the fun part.

7. 7

   How long would you last in the Upside Down, and what gets you first?

   Everyone overestimates themselves for about five seconds and then starts thinking about the cold, the dark and the fact that they have no torch. Push them to say what they would actually do in the first ten minutes.

8. 8

   Which adult in Hawkins would you go to for help?

   The list of competent adults in this town is famously short, which is the point of the show. Watch whether they pick someone who is capable, someone who would believe them, or someone who would simply turn up, since those are three different needs.

9. 9

   Is Hopper a good father figure or just a loud one?

   This splits a room faster than anything else in the set. People who have been parented by a Hopper answer it quite differently from people who have only watched one, and the conversation usually stops being about television.

10. 10

    If your worst memory came looking for you, what song would be playing?

    It sounds like a music question and it is not. Nobody names a song without naming the memory attached to it, so ask this only with people you would happily follow up with.

11. 11

    Which season would you edit, and what goes?

    Fans of this show are unusually willing to admit its baggy stretches, and the specific subplot they cut says what they watch it for: the friendships, the horror, or the town. Anyone who says they would change nothing has not rewatched it.

12. 12

    Do you rewatch from the start, or do you have one episode you just put on?

    The single comfort episode is rarely the most dramatic one. It is usually one where the kids are in a basement and nothing terrible has happened yet, which tells you what the show is doing for them.

13. 13

    What is your Dungeons and Dragons character, and be honest about the alignment?

    Half the people you ask have never played and will invent one on the spot, which is the better answer anyway. The alignment they claim and the alignment their friends assign them rarely match.

14. 14

    If you vanished in your town tomorrow, who is out searching and who assumes you ran off?

    The whole first season runs on this question, and it lands differently on an adult than on a teenager. Expect a pause, and expect the honest answer to be a shorter list than they were hoping.

15. 15

    Which bit of the eighties in this show did you actually live through, and which did you learn from it?

    Older viewers will pick apart the details they remember, and younger ones will admit their sense of the decade is largely secondhand. Both answers are good, and asking it this way lets nobody feel caught out.

16. 16

    Is this a show about monsters, or about adults not listening to children?

    The monsters mostly arrive because someone in authority ignored a warning, so this question has a defensible answer either way. It also quietly reveals whether the person watches horror for the creature or for the situation.

17. 17

    Which two characters never got enough time together on screen?

    This is where the real fan appears, because casual viewers think in terms of the main group and long-term viewers think in terms of odd pairings the show only tried once. Ask what a whole episode of those two would look like.

18. 18

    What is the scariest scene for you, and is it a monster or a person?

    A fair number of people name a scene with no creature in it at all: a lab, an interrogation, a parent not believing someone. Which side they land on tells you what actually frightens them.

19. 19

    Did Eleven ever get to have a childhood?

    This is the question that turns a fun conversation serious, so save it for late. Answers tend to divide between people who think the friendships repaired something and people who think the show keeps putting her back in a lab.

20. 20

    What will you miss about Hawkins when it is over?

    Ending on the town rather than the plot gets you nostalgia rather than theory. People usually name a texture: the bikes, the basement, the wall of lights, and then explain what that stands in for.