Netflix's hit original series Stranger Things has a very clear aesthetic. It takes place in the eighties, which defines all of the show's visuals: the neon logo, the synthesized score, the Goonies-esque relationship between the young characters…the list goes on and on. It's all designed to give off a very specific vibe, as is the seasonal setting for the first two seasons: fall. The crisp spookiness of autumn lends itself nicely to Stranger Things' supernatural narratives. What can we say? The Upside Down just seems scarier when you're watching it as the temperature drops. This certainly explains why the Duffer Brothers chose to open season two just three days before Halloween. A freaky show is even freakier if it takes place on October 31.

But Stranger Things is changing things up for season three. There was a one-year time jump between the first two seasons (November 1983 and October 1984), but that's not happening for chapter three. Instead, things are kicking off in the summer of 1985: just six months after Eleven closed the Upside Down and finally kissed Mike at the Snow Ball.

The reason for this, according to Stranger Things executive producer Shawn Levy, is threefold. For one, the show needs to illustrate how the child actors are growing up. "We have told autumnal, fall, school-based stories, but we also want to keep acknowledging that the kids are growing up, so if we picked up the action a month later, but the kids looked a year plus older, that would feel like a lie," Levy told us at PaleyFest over the weekend. "So the Harry Potter model of letting the show age with the kids is what we’re adopting."

Stranger Things also wants to play with the contrast between summer froth and eerie visuals. "I think the Duffers have such a good nose for the combination of fun and scary, so what is a better setting for that dialectic more than summer?" Levy said. "It’s parades and the local swimming pool and maybe Billy without a shirt and bonfires and Fourth of July fireworks, so I can tell you that season three makes the most of that summer setting." Um, did he just tease shirtless Dacre Montgomery? Season three already sounds like a winner.

Stranger Things Courtesy Netflix

"It’s also a season of change, and changing the season, changing the vibe of that town, which summer does, right?" Levy added. "That place feels different in summer, so that was a big part of our theme, which is change has come."