Stranger Things

I'm always slow to pick up on new things these days. A combination of hopeless nostalgia and skepticism of anything modern sometimes leaves me blind to genuinely good things that occasionally crop up. But that's what I've got my family and friends for! To help me sift through this stuff. So if more than half of the family zoo recommends something, I give it a shot.

Boy howdy, this is the best show I've seen in awhile. I know this isn't news to some of you, but it was to me. Stranger Things is the best movie Steven Spielberg never made. The show is set in the 80's and it feels like it. Heck, the show makes quite a few references to it's influences such as Stephen King, Poltergeist, Ghostbusters, John Carpenter's The Thing, Jaws, and I'm sure there are more that slipped past my radar.

However the show isn't a hopeless copycat. On the contrary, while it notes the influences, it is wholly its own thing and waves that flag proudly. It does absolutely everything correct. It's frigging weird and I love it. It's almost like a new season of the X Files except without the stupid aliens. Instead we have awesome inter-dimensional shenanigans. I confess, I'm a sucker for weird alternate dimension stuff. 

The characters are all awesome. Many shows rub me the wrong way with having characters that are annoying, unrelatable, or just plain whiny arses that I want to boot to the curb. This series is kind of unique in that not one character annoys me. And that's shocking considering that they have a gigantic cast. Seriously, they have about six main characters. How they can juggle all the plot threads, characters and story are beyond me. It's supernatural. The only characters you don't like are the ones you're meant to dislike. 

I've noticed a trend in modern times to lean towards things being dark and needlessly harsh. It really seemed to crop up after The Dark Night came out. Everyone loved it and made a ton of money. But the darkness in that movie was supported by themes and story material. The darkness in and of itself wasn't what made it good. So it's very tempting these days to make the hero ride the line of being the villain himself, have the villain more sympathetic than anyone else, and have at least one character who is needlessly callous and cruel. 

Stranger Things not only evades that pitfall completely, but fills that pit with cement and builds a bridge over it. The adult characters are flawed, certainly, but all are sympathetic and have the good points that make you root for them. The Sheriff, Jim Hopper, starts off rubbing me the wrong way, but swiftly wins me over. Although I wonder, is his name a reference to Jim Hopper in the movie Predator? The green beret that was skinned in the first act? Hmm...

I could go on for hours about the characters, but then I'd be depriving you of finding out for yourselves. Seriously, I'm only touching the tip of the iceberg. Or if you need further convincing, this show has teenage high school drama, but it actually engaged me instead of making me throw something blunt at the TV. I can count the number of times that's happened on one hand. Maybe because I never really was a teenager and I can't relate, but I almost always despise teen drama regardless of the format. But somehow Stranger Things makes it work. 

And this isn't even touching on the fantastic alternate dimension stuff, the monsters or plot. The atmosphere is thick enough to cut with a knife, the concepts are fascinating and executed flawlessly, and it wastes absolutely no time at all. Seriously, this is perhaps the tightest storytelling I've ever seen. Not one second is put to waste. I recall watching an episode and was surprised when it ended. It had gone so fast and so smoothly that I wasn't even aware that time was passing.

This show is literally as close to perfection as you can get. I blitzed through the first two seasons in a few days, and I want more. This is actually kind of on the border of shows or books that I'm afraid of. Not because they scare me, but because they are so good that I can't tear myself away from them and it begins to impact my life. I mean, do I really have to go to sleep before 1 a.m.? Can't I watch just one more episode before work? Do I really need to go cook dinner? Things like that. Or my mind becomes so fixated on analyzing the subject that I literally can't focus on what else is going on around me and affects my ability to watch out for traffic.

So far I haven't gone quite that far, but if they keep up with the good writing and ideas they just might end up sucking up more of my life. Consider that an endorsement!