#hell in this sequence I think the most we learn about any of these characters

[kurokoros]

One fundamental writing flaw with S4 is that it simply holds the viewers hand too much and overexplains things. Which is total normal for an early draft of a written project! In early drafts you tend to overwrite and give information that isn't needed simply because you're putting all of the pieces together in your head at the same time you're putting them into the story. The Duffers clearly had more time to revise S1 than they did S4, and it shows in the sloppy writing and too long runtime.

Take, for example, S1E08: The Upside Down in comparison to S4E06: The Dive and S4E07: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab. Specifically, take the scenes paralleling Steve going back into the house to save Nancy and Jonathan in comparison to Nancy, Robin, and Eddie going into the Upside Down to save Steve.

To be clear, I think this was a fantastic parallel made by the Duffers (Steve is being mauled by bats when a bat is what he used to save Nancy and Jonathan. It's clever, if a little on the nose). They're very good at paralleling previous events and calling back to their own plot points. In general, as the show has gone on, I think they're much better at over-arching ideas and thematic parallels than they are at crafting individual scenes, but that's a different post.

S1E08: The Upside Down is very snappy when it comes to Steve going back into the house. He runs outside. He fumbles with his keys. And then he turns back to the house and:

There's no dialogue here. We don't need anything more than this shot to know that Steve is going to go back into the house. Joe Keery's acting and prior setup do all of the heavy lifting here. The last we saw of Steve before he came to the Byers' to apologize to Jonathan is him arguing with Tommy H and Carol, which ends with Tommy H telling Steve to "run away like [he] always [does]." Steve has to go back into the house. The narrative tells us as much. This single shot tells us that it isn't up for debate. It isn't even really a choice. Steve is going back into the house.

And it's not a surprise when less than a minute later Steve saves Nancy and Jonathan . We don't need to actually see him run back towards the house, or pick up the bat. He doesn't need to say anything to announce his presence. The scene doesn't need to halt to dramatically reveal that Steve came back.

S4E06: The Dive and S4E07: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab have the same general premise of characters making a choice to put themselves in danger to save someone else. Unlike the scene in S1, this scene is overdramatic, played with an edge of comedy, and it gives us too much information.

Steve is dragged underwater and then--we get about almost a minute worth of clips showing Nancy, Robin, and Eddie all jumping into the water. And it's all filled with characters yelling about what just happened, and quippy dialogue ("She said wait!" "Yeah, I heard her." "She's in charge!" "Are you kidding me? I made that shit up." / "[indistinct swearing] This is so stupid!") as each character dramatically dives into the lake one by one.

We don't need this information. We already know that Nancy and Robin are going to jump into the lake. We know that Eddie is going to jump into the lake because they put him on the boat in the first place, and if he was really a coward he would have stayed on shore with the kids.

It's Chekhov's gun logic in both scenes. Steve is told to "run away like [he] always [does]" and we, the audience, know he won't run away despite being given the chance. Eddie gets on the boat to go towards the potential danger and we, the audience, know he isn't going to be the only one that doesn't jump into the water to save Steve. We don't need to be explicitly told this. This is almost a minute worth of scenes that we don't need. We don't need to see Nancy, Robin, and Eddie jumping into the lake, just like we didn't need to see Steve run back into the house and pick up the bat.

What's even more pointless to me is the dramatic entrance the Nancy, Robin, and Eddie make upon saving Steve:

One of the bats it hit and goes flying, and then the camera does a slow pan up Nancy, with Robin and Eddie standing behind her just waiting for the directing cue for them to do something, but first Nancy needs to drop a one liner ("Hey there."). I was going to try and gif Steve coming back to save Jonathan and Nancy for a comparison to this shot, but I couldn't. Because when Steve goes back into the house it's fast paced, there's no pointless dramatic pauses, and the scene is simply too chaotic to actually clip anything halfway decent. And that's good! That's how you make an action scene have weight and realism (and yes, you do need a degree of realism in shows, even if those shows are about sci-fi monsters).

And the problem with S4 is that every single scene is like this. The writing holds your hand through every shot. The directing is lacking. Every scene feels like it's 30 seconds to a minute too long. And the show feels like it's trying to be a Marvel movie, rather than Stranger Things.