Season 1 is also great because it did a great job having the kids be basically doing ET, the teens doing a camp horror and the parents doing a cold war conspiracy thriller.

Every season since of course needs to alter the group compositions, so we rarely get this again, although the elements are still there, they're now shaken up enough that the show is often more focused on riffing on its own formula then emulating the media that inspired it. And that's fine, it should probably be a good thing that it's not in the shadow of it's inspirations, but man do I miss that specific vibe.

Fun fact: season 4 was filmed in Lithuania, some Lithuanian actors played minor roles.