...So, now that the second season's already out, and everyone's already watched it, and everyone and their dog has already weighed in on how good it was, I think I'll add my objectively-pointless opinion to the pile before starting on season two.
So, Season 1 of Stranger Things is a really good show, and you should watch it. It's not super-long, so there's no commitment anxiety, the 80's nostalgia's not replacing actual quality, and the child acting's really, really good. Those're the things that initially scared me away, so don't let 'em scare you if they have up til now.
First, elephant in the room here. I tore up Gone Home for leaning too heavily on nostalgia bait, and I'm about to heap praise on a show that features a lot of it. Is this base hypocrisy? ...No.
Bluntly, the weakest part of this show is also the nostalgia-bait-iest: the teen plot. It never fails to feel like a lame intrusion onto the other stories for at least the first half of the show, and it supplies insufficient pay-off for the finale. It's the only plot whose characters could be convincingly snipped out of the show entire without affecting the overall story, and the only one whose characters feel like they've come out of a period film rather than, you know, just living in the period. It does improve in the second half of the show, when a particularly poorly-written character experiences a moment of surprising redemption, but that doesn't excuse the fact that it's also the only part of the show that feels like it's only there because, hey, 80's movies did this, right?
And Winona Ryder. I don't necessarily blame her for the way her character often comes across; she's definitely likable and sympathetic. Joyce is not an unwelcome intrusion the way the teen characters are. But she is also not particularly well-written, and plays the whole Hysterical Woman thing a bit too pat. How much of this is the writing and how much the actress is beyond my skill to tell.
Beyond that, everything else works very, very well, and does so for reasons beyond "80's nostalgia's big now, right?" The synth score is just the right kind of pulse-pounding mood music to enhance the show. The other three major storylines, besides the teen plot, are well-handled and converge perfectly. The story, while obviously inspired by other works of 80's fiction, goes out of its way to try to forge its own identity, instead of just copying off previous works' homework. All the acting is top-tier, again, including all the child actors. And it's paced juuuust right, especially the second half, with no "filler" episodes. If you have a Netflix account, don't miss this one.
...Okay, fine, one last nitpick. Shouldn't the faceless monster that drags you into its home dimension to play a deadly game of cat-and-mouse be the "crypt thing" rather than the "Demogorgon?" It doesn't even have two heads!
Imperfect nostalgia bait, but succeeds wildly anyway through simply being good television.
...So, now that the second season's already out, and everyone's already watched it, and everyone and their dog has already weighed in on how good it was, I think I'll add my objectively-pointless opinion to the pile before starting on season two.
So, Season 1 of Stranger Things is a really good show, and you should watch it. It's not super-long, so there's no commitment anxiety, the 80's nostalgia's not replacing actual quality, and the child acting's really, really good. Those're the things that initially scared me away, so don't let 'em scare you if they have up til now.
First, elephant in the room here. I tore up Gone Home for leaning too heavily on nostalgia bait, and I'm about to heap praise on a show that features a lot of it. Is this base hypocrisy? ...No.
Bluntly, the weakest part of this show is also the nostalgia-bait-iest: the teen plot. It never fails to feel like a lame intrusion onto the other stories for at least the first half of the show, and it supplies insufficient pay-off for the finale. It's the only plot whose characters could be convincingly snipped out of the show entire without affecting the overall story, and the only one whose characters feel like they've come out of a period film rather than, you know, just living in the period. It does improve in the second half of the show, when a particularly poorly-written character experiences a moment of surprising redemption, but that doesn't excuse the fact that it's also the only part of the show that feels like it's only there because, hey, 80's movies did this, right?
And Winona Ryder. I don't necessarily blame her for the way her character often comes across; she's definitely likable and sympathetic. Joyce is not an unwelcome intrusion the way the teen characters are. But she is also not particularly well-written, and plays the whole Hysterical Woman thing a bit too pat. How much of this is the writing and how much the actress is beyond my skill to tell.
Beyond that, everything else works very, very well, and does so for reasons beyond "80's nostalgia's big now, right?" The synth score is just the right kind of pulse-pounding mood music to enhance the show. The other three major storylines, besides the teen plot, are well-handled and converge perfectly. The story, while obviously inspired by other works of 80's fiction, goes out of its way to try to forge its own identity, instead of just copying off previous works' homework. All the acting is top-tier, again, including all the child actors. And it's paced juuuust right, especially the second half, with no "filler" episodes. If you have a Netflix account, don't miss this one.
...Okay, fine, one last nitpick. Shouldn't the faceless monster that drags you into its home dimension to play a deadly game of cat-and-mouse be the "crypt thing" rather than the "Demogorgon?" It doesn't even have two heads!