After a decade, the Netflix hit is bowing out. Ahead of its last episodes, the show’s creators and cast talk about big 80s hair, recruiting a Terminator killer – and the birds Kate Bush sent them

How do you finish one of the biggest and most popular TV series of the last decade? Three years after season four came out, the fifth and final season of Stranger Things is about to make its way into the world. Millions of viewers are getting ready to find out what happens to the Upside Down and whether the plucky teens of Hawkins, Indiana can fight off Vecna for good, but it is early November 2025, and its creators Matt and Ross Duffer are finding it difficult to talk about. It’s not just because they’re feeling the pressure, or because the risk of spoilers and leaks is so dangerously high. It’s because the identical twin brothers from North Carolina are just not ready. “It makes me sad,” says Ross. “Because it’s easier to not think about the show actually ending.”

A decade ago, hardly anyone knew what the Upside Down was. Few had heard of Vecna, Mind Flayers or Demogorgons. In 2015, the brothers – self-professed nerds and movie obsessives – were about to begin shooting their first ever TV series. Stranger Things was to be a supernatural adventure steeped in 80s nostalgia, paying tribute to Steven Spielberg and Stephen King. Part of their pitch to Netflix was that it would be “John Carpenter mashed up with ET”. Winona Ryder and Matthew Modine were in it, so it wasn’t exactly low-key, but it was by no means a dead-cert for success, not least because it was led by a cast of young unknowns. The first season came out in the summer of 2016, smashed Netflix viewing records, and almost immediately established itself as a bona fide TV phenomenon.

The health secretary has embarked on a high-stakes reorganisation. It could be a model for rebuilding public services – or a nail in his and Labour’s coffin

Everybody has a horror story about NHS waiting lists. If it isn’t you, then it’s probably your neighbour, your friend, your elderly parent; trapped in an anxious, miserable limbo for months longer than they should have been, getting passed from pillar to post. The only thing we don’t all know about waiting lists, it turns out, is that actually they’re coming down.

Barely a quarter of Britons knew waiting lists had fallen in Labour’s first year in power, according to recent polling for the Health Foundation thinktank in September: more than a third thought they had just kept going up, presumably because that’s what we have become gloomily resigned to. Since waiting lists are one of those emotional yardsticks by which people judge whether the country is falling apart or not, you would think the government might like to mention this, and indeed this week it planned to. But then someone close to Keir Starmer chose to accuse the health secretary of plotting a coup two days before a planned speech on NHS reform, accidentally ensuring that Wes Streeting’s pre-booked stint on breakfast telly was mostly spent debating whether the prime minister is toast or not. Streeting emerged a picture of injured innocence, while reminding everyone how much better he is at this stuff than the boss. Well done, everyone, and now back to the bit that actually affects anyone hoping to see a GP this side of Christmas.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

Quizmasters are banning smart devices, using dedicated apps and finding plain old honesty can combat trivial offences

Who is older, Gary Numan or Gary Oldman? If you know the answer to this question (see below), you are probably one of hundreds of thousands of Brits who attend a pub quiz every week.

As a nation of committed trivia buffs, it was unsurprising that news of a quizmaster in Manchester outing a team for cheating was leapt on. Just where, we asked, is the special place in hell reserved for those quizzers who take a sneaky look at their phones under the table?

Max Rushden and Geoff Lemon are joined by Emma John and Ali Martin to discuss the Guardian’s top 100 Ashes cricketers and debate the merits of the top 10

• Find the full top 100 list here

What is the effervescent new boss at Pitlochry theatre planning for his first season? Huge names, undersung stars – and a King Lear played by ‘the woman who changed my life’

‘Holy shit!” This was the instant response of one venerable theatre critic when Pitlochry Festival theatre sent round embargoed copies of the plan for Alan Cumming’s inaugural season. The man himself sits back in the cavernous workshop behind the theatre building, dapper in a grey plaid suit. “I loved that,” he says gleefully.

When the Hollywood star was announced as the new artistic director of Scotland’s only major rural theatre last September, there was widespread shock – not least that Cumming answered an open recruitment call – followed by feverish speculation over which A-list pals he might charm away from London or New York to perform in Highland Perthshire.

The X-Files star is at his charismatic best as a ruthless multimillionaire who hires Jack Whitehall as a sinister nanny. It’s like The White Lotus meets The Talented Mr Ripley

I can’t say I had “Jack Whitehall stars with David ‘The X Files/ Californication’ Duchovny in glossy TV thriller” on my 2025 bingo card, but here we are, and a good time with it can be had by all. Alongside, perhaps, a smidge of national pride to see the daft lad from Fresh Meat, Bad Education and Travels With My Father all grown up and holding his own.

The glossy thriller in question is Malice, in which Whitehall plays Adam, a tutor promoted to manny (male nanny, for those not au fait with rich people’s terms), who is bent – for reasons as yet unknown – on ruining high-rolling businessman Jamie Tanner (Duchovny). Whether he has it in for the rest of the Tanner family and friends, or they are just doomed to be collateral damage, is not clear, but that doesn’t spoil the machiavellian fun.

Fallout continues over budget income tax U-turn, with Treasury saying expected fiscal gap has dropped to £20bn

This is from Helen Miller, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank, on the market reaction to the chancellor’s reported budget U-turn.

Investors will have 2 broad concerns about news that Chancellor won’t increase income tax rates

1. Does it signal less willingness to do politically difficult things

Britain’s long-term borrowing costs were sent soaring as reports suggested the latest U-turn would leave Rachel Reeves scrambling to fill a gaping black hole in the nation’s finances just two weeks before the 26 November budget.

Yields on 30-year UK government bonds, also known as gilts, jumped as much as 14 basis points in early trading, and the yield on 10-year gilts also shot up 12 basis points – rising the most since July.

As the climate conference goes into its fifth day, with huge amounts still unresolved, there were reports that activists had blockaded the entrance to the centre

Norway and the United Arab Emirates - both significant fossil fuel producers - are among the ministerial pairings announced by the Brazilian Cop30 Presidency. The task of the pairings is to consult with countries on specific issues and report their views back to the presidency, to help the negotiations progress.

The ministers from Norway and the UAE will work on the “global stocktake”, the strand of the talks about the big gap between the carbon emissions cuts needed and the real world. At its heart is cutting fossil fuel emissions, which makes it a target for obstruction by petrostates. The UAE hosted Cop28 in 2023, which delivered the first ever mention of fossil fuels in a Cop outcome.

Gambia and Germany, working on adaptation

Egypt and Spain, working on mitigation, i.e. cutting emissions

Mexico and Poland, working on just transition, i.e. making the switch to a clean economy fair

Australia and India, working on clean technology transfer from rich to poor countries

Chile and Sweden, working on gender, i.e. ensuring climate action addresses gender inequality and empowers women

US private equity group’s deal collapses amid newsroom criticism and threat of regulator intervention

• Business live – latest updates

RedBird Capital has dropped its £500m bid for the Telegraph Media Group, throwing the future of its daily and Sunday titles into further uncertainty.

The private equity group founded by Gerry Cardinale has been under intense attack in recent weeks with the Telegraph newsroom – and allies including the former editor Charles Moore and the ex-Spectator chief Fraser Nelson – publishing a string of pieces calling for its links to China to be investigated.

Drones and missiles used to target Kyiv with at least four people killed and ‘dozens’ wounded

• Russia attacks every district of Kyiv

We have just had an update on the death toll from the overnight attack on Kyiv, via AFP, with authorities now reporting six people dead.

in Brussels