It’s hard to feel sorry for the BBC when all their problems are self-inflicted. Civilisations: Rise And Fall felt closer to Philomena Cunk than Kenneth Clark, loaded as it was with modern liberal prejudices and laughable pretension. 22,000 BBC employees exist in a vast smug bubble of ‘progressive’ group-think that sours everything they produce. It’s why BBC Chairman Samir Shah didn’t think Tim Davie should have resigned over the fake-news edit of Donald Trump’s speech, and why no BBC Wales executives were shown the door when Disney+ withdrew their dosh from Doctor Who.

Disney shelled out around £7million an episode only to see their investment sabotaged by a showrunner more obsessed with preachy modern issues than the tougher business of crafting fresh, imaginative science fiction. Despite that huge outlay, the show never cracked Nielsen’s Top 10 list of original streaming series.

The BBC will never make a series as successful as Stranger Things now back for it’s fifth and final season on Netflix. The fourth was watched by a staggering 140million worldwide who collectively viewed for 1.8billion hours. Created by the Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things’ binge-worthy plots blend sci-fi and supernatural horror with buckets of 80s nostalgia and zero preaching. It came (and comes) with nods to Spielberg and James Cameron, not to mention a career-reviving dollop of Kate Bush and the odd blast of Metallica. At heart it was a teenage coming-of-age drama as a brave band of schoolmates faced up to evil forces unleashed by a secret government human-experimentation facility.

Based in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, the tale revolves around Millie Bobby Brown’s telekinetic Eleven (the 11th child subject), a young girl whose abilities open a gateway between earth and a hostile dimension known as the Upside Down ruled by the monstrous Vecna (who turned out to be child subject One). This final season, set in Autumn 1987, sees the gang shaping up to take on Vecna for one last battle – with the added problem of the US military hunting for Eleven. Three episodes in, and there’s already jeopardy and danger, tension, trauma, bloodshed and revelations. Flower-faced predator The Demogorgon delivered Will to Vecna, and moved on to young Holly Wheeler (who was targeted by a new unseen character nobody else could see whose sinister identity soon became clear). Holly’s tipsy mum brought new heights to wine bottle brawling.

Stranger Things has always blended well-defined characters with strong plots and nail-biting twists. Not only did the show fuel Netflix’s rapid growth, it also dragged the big Hollywood studios into the streaming game. Netflix might have lost their edge of late, but the Duffers are setting us up for the final confrontation on New Year’s Eve and I don’t think they’ll let us down.