Just A Thought: A Look Back at STRANGER THINGS

I just finished the 3rd episode of Stranger Things, the beloved "blockbuster" hit Netflix show that filled the void that was the 2016 summer movie season. What little I saw of the show upon its initial release didn't really make that much of an impression. It seemed to me to be an '80s nostalgia trip, albeit a clumsily cobbled together one, relying heavily on its synth soundtrack and shimmering light title word intro, a la Terminator, in order to evoke a mood that the story itself couldn't really provide. Sure, the psychically powerful El and her three amigos searching for their lost friend Will is the compelling heart of the narrative, but what surrounds that main story thread is a jumbled mess. Winona Ryder as the high-strung Joyce, pining for her missing son, is so manically over the top from scene one, it feels hard to catch your breath whenever she's on screen. Jonathan, the creepy photographer loner pining after his popular co-ed Nancy, plays into typically high school movie stereotypes so blatantly you feel like you're watching outtakes from The Breakfast Club.

And there lies the real problem I'm having with the show so far: It's way too apparent how self-aware the showmakers were in playing into these tropes, and how aware we as the audience are supposed to be of said tropes. Even if these stereotypical plot lines are going to be subverted down the line, they've set a template that says, "Look at this throwback '80s-style show. Hear the soundtrack. Look at the goofy special effects. Feel the nostalgia." I think it was Don Draper who said nostalgia is a potent but tricky thing, and I for one don't like being browbeaten by a bunch of stylistic choices that I'm supposed to like because supposedly I'm a millennial pining for an era I didn't even live through. Or if something like this is going to work, it needs to be done with a far greater degree of skill and subtlety. (Think Drive). 


I've aired my grievances, and I'll continue on with Stranger Things, but I have my doubts as to what its all going to add up to. Maybe that's all you need to have a hit show these days: Something that acts like a time machine, taking you back to a place that wasn't really all that great to begin with.