Ah, Stranger Things. How is it so damn good? There are so many ways in which this show could've gone wrong, but somehow it just keeps on delivering. It's a gigantic homage to the cultural mileu of the 80's, made with a huge amount of genuine affection for the period and everything that came with it, but others have tried and failed when the love just wasn't enough. Think John Carter, for example. I happen to quite like it, but it's certainly flawed, despite the fanboy enthusiasm of its director. The amusingly named Duffer Brothers have tapped effortlessly into the zeitgeist of what it meant to be a teenager in the 80's. The music, the clothes, the entertainment, and more pop culture references woven into the fabric of the plot than you can shake a stick at. It could (perhaps ought) to have fallen flat on its face, but I find it impossible to fault.

The cast are great, from young to adult. I don't know where Winona Ryder has been, but her performance in this as a distraught mother driven to the edge of sanity reminds me what we've been missing from her for too long. Millie Bobby Brown has used her role in ST to propel herself to pretty much global stardom at a very young age. She is so good, she could probably carry the show on her own if she had to.

Some people might say the plot is massively derivative of so many films and perhaps a few TV shows from the period, and of course it is - that's the whole point. It wouldn't be much of an homage to the 80's if it wasn't. It's the carefully considered blending of those elements into a vaguely cohesive whole which is critical to its success. So really I suppose what they have done is transport us back to a certain kind of American 80's, with specific antennae for the things that interested them, and if you're not on board I suppose you might not really recognize it as your 80's at all. But hey, it's certainly familiar to me, despite the fact I'm not American, and I like it A LOT!

Oh, and by the way, it does not lose the plot and become all 'woke' and whatever after season 1. What a load of ordure. If you're invested in the characters, rather than just skimming along the surface with the basic storyline, I fail to see why you would lose interest along the way.