Netflix has added new episodes of one of its best shows ever

Here's our spoiler-free verdict on the first episode of the new season.

It's been over three years since the fourth season of the acclaimed sci-fi series, meaning the new episodes have been hugely anticipated.

Season five consists of eight episodes, the first four of which are available to watch on Netflix now.

Three more will be added on Christmas Day, while the super-sized finale will arrive on New Year's Eve.

After a brief prologue, the fifth season kicks off 18 months after the season four finale, with the city of Hawkins under strict quarantine.

The show's lead characters - including the superpowered young girl Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), ex-cop Jim Hopper (David Harbour) and fiercely protective mother Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) - have come up with inventive ways to avoid the military in the area.

This is so that they can scour the Upside Down, the dark alternative dimension existing parallel to Hawkins, to locate and kill the villainous Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower).

In the course of this work, however, the gang fail to notice a threat lurking closer to home.

JOE has checked out the first episode of Stranger Things season five, which is titled 'The Crawl' and is 71 minutes long (many of this season's episodes have extended run-times).

We'd argue that, in some story aspects, the series is spinning its wheels in the S5 opener. Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Steve (Joe Keery) are still in a love triangle; yet again, there are multiple scenes of the young cast talking about D&D; Jim, once more, is shown being harsh to Eleven "for her own good".

That said, the performances and the production value are still outstanding. The show's mix of warm Spielbergian wonder with a darker Stephen King-esque tale still hits (there are a couple of spine-tinglingly creepy moments involving an "imaginary friend", which we won't spoil).

There's also a fantastic use of Diana Ross' pop classic 'Upside Down' in the S5 opener, a song that remarkably hasn't been deployed in the sci-fi yet, despite it sharing a title with the series' alternate dimension.

Plus, after much talk of the central characters' planning to embark on a "crawl", without it being explained exactly what that is, when the climax of the episode then depicts said crawl, it is genuinely exciting.

Also, it's great to see more of Amybeth McNulty as Vickie, the love interest for Robin (Maya Hawke), following her small role in S4.

We also get a brief glimpse of Terminator legend Linda Hamilton as an enigmatic new character.

All in all, there's enough that is great in 'The Crawl' that will keep us tuning into the Netflix series, ahead of its big finale.

Stranger Things Season 5 Vol 1 is streaming on Netflix now.