Stranger Things
If there’s one show I was deliberately
trying to avoid for a while, it was Stranger
Things. You know how when everyone is telling you how great something is
you become sorta wary of it because it couldn’t possibly live up to expectations?
That’s what happened to me. Add in the fact that it’s very, very hard for
something in the horror genre to impress me and I wasn’t exactly eager to jump
in.
But I finally decided it was worth a
try just to make the people who were recommended it to me happy, so I sat down
and binged the first half of the first season. And then the second half of the
first season. And then the second season over the next few days.
And then I went out and bought a box
of Eggos to help cope with the fact the show isn’t coming back for over a year.
Yeah, I liked it a lot.
If you’ve missed it, Stranger Things is Netflix’s biggest
name original series. Inspired by all things 80’s, the first season tells the
story of a young boy whoosed away by supernatural forces and a small town’s
efforts to find him. Along the way they discover secret government experiments,
alternate dimensions, and a weird girl with telekinetic powers.
The show feels a lot like the creators
sat down and asked themselves “What if E.T.
met Alien?” There are several
callbacks to Spielberg’s extra-terrestrial blockbuster sprinkled throughout,
from Reese’s Pieces to the iconic bike chase. But thankfully the show doesn’t
become a pop culture-fest where every second you’re being bombarded with a
reference to something or other. Stranger
Things wears it’s inspirations like a badge of honour, using them to create
something brand new and excellent instead of copying what was done before.
While all the actors are excellent
(with major props going to both Winona Rider and David Harbour), the real
breakout stars here are the kids. There’s a reason why you don’t see a lot of
awesome kid characters in movies, TV or otherwise: firstly, a lot of writers
don’t know how to do kids. They either make them sound too much like adults (M.
Night Shyamalan is especially guilty of this) or they end up way too annoying
and you want them to just go away. And secondly, even if the writer and
director know how to handle kids, there’s no guarantee that the kid actor will
be any good. For every one Haley Joel Osment there’s usually about ten Jake
Lloyds.
This isn’t the case here. Out of all
the kids on the show, not a single one makes you cringe and go “Yep, they
should’ve used someone else”. They’re all stunningly good, especially when you
consider their age. Best of all, they feel like real kids. They do things that
kids their age would do, even if it doesn’t seem like the brightest idea
considering the current plot situation. They get into fights, they ride their
bikes everywhere, they eat way too much junk food, all that good stuff. It
propels you right back to what it was like when you were a kid, and it’s great.
And yes, it must be said that Millie
Bobby Brown as Eleven is amazing. She conveys so much while saying so little
that she quickly becomes your favourite before the first episode is even over,
and she holds onto that title throughout the rest of the show. She’s a super
talented actress and I can’t wait to see more of her.
Speaking of Eleven, the most fun part
of the show is the mythos and all the big surprises that are unravelled over
the course of each season. While I don’t want to spoil any of them for anyone
who hasn’t seen the show yet, I’ll just say that Stranger Things is one of those shows that leaves you constantly on
the edge of your seat even when it seems like nothing is happening. Danger is
around every turn, and you very quickly become attached to the characters and
want them to make it out safely. I’ve always said that the sign of a great show
is when you know the names of all the characters right after it finishes, and
this is no exception. I lost track of how often me and the people I watched
with were going “DUSTIN!” “MIKE!” “WILL!” and so on throughout the show.
If I did have one gripe with the show
overall, it’d be that Season 2 isn’t quite as good as Season 1 was. It’s still
incredibly stellar (a solid 8/10 if I were to rate it), but it does have quite
a few problems. The biggest issue is the one everyone’s said already: there’s
an episode towards the end of the season that completely grinds the storyline
to a halt, losing a lot of the momentum the season had up to that point. I don’t
hate filler episodes as long as they’re well paced with the good stuff and they’re
not a complete chore to watch, but as this episode was poorly timed to come
just before the season’s climactic episodes, didn’t have much to do with
anything else going on and overall just felt like wasted time so the
showrunners could have nine episodes instead of eight, I wasn’t exactly a fan. The
good news is that mistakes are necessary on the road to making something great,
and with every show bad episodes are inevitable. They’re great learning
experiences for the crew and writing team as they can figure out what went
wrong there.
Overall I loved both seasons of Stranger Things. This is the rare show
that even after hearing everybody and your brother tell you how great it is and
raising your expectations as high as the sky, it pretty much lives up to
everything you hoped it would be. The cast and characters are great, the sci-fi
elements are awesome and are balanced well with the more realistic side of the
show, and the story never gets carried away into becomes a reference-a-thon and
instead uses the in-jokes and homages to 80’s pop culture to create something
new and great. If you haven’t checked it out yet, definitely give the first few
episodes a shot. You won’t be disappointed.
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