I was first aware of "Stranger Things" after the buzz surrounding the clip of the kids reacting to the Golden Globe nominations in 2016, it was a cute moment that (retrospectively) captured the charm of the show.

Then there was David Harbour's speech at the SAG ceremony with Winona Ryder (still in character?) making the weirdest faces. Winning the ensemble award was a signal confirmed by the show progressively becoming the phenomenon of the year before being temporarily dethroned by Netflix' other youth-oriented but more socially-loaded "13 Reasons Why". Still, despite all these encouragements to curiosity, if it was up to me, I'm not sure I would have watched the series. I'm not the series' buff.

But my wife is... and I registered to Netflix, her attention span is a better match for the series' format and thankfully, I never had to complain about her choices. And yesterday, we had just finished our nine-hours of "Stranger" binge-watching, over a span of ten days. And well, the show is good, quite good, Actually, it's "2010's" good and "1980's" good.

You can't ignore the 80's thing, the series surfs across all the canvas of its flashy Pop Culture but with such a gusto and brilliance you could really believe this is a 80's classic. The only thing that slightly betrays the series is how the kaleidoscope of 80's is so persistent at times you can't dodge the feeling of a certain self-awareness from the authors, the Duffer brothers, there are at times an 'overuse' of reminders that we're not in the 2010's, but I guess this isn't an artistic license, it is a necessity.

In fact, it's just as if the Duffer brothers didn't draw their inspiration upon the well of the decade nostalgia, the series would've been another soul-less rip-off of "Lost" or "American Horror Story". And let's not forget that the show wouldn't have worked the same if the kids had cell-phones or behaved like today's generation Z. Maybe there's a generational commentary after all, reminding me of Marge Simpson's question "do kids still go on bike rides?" a time where dungeons and dragons were played with cards, where a kid wanted to be a Ghostbuster and not having the most likes on Facebook.

Netflix came up with two shows that said a lot about how kids have changed in three decades, but "Stranger Things" doesn't go for social relevance, not directly anyway, the real deal is within the story and never ceases to amaze you by the level of creativity and inventiveness injected into each episode. Sure, there are many archetypes that don't just belong to the 80's, you have the mysterious girl, a chosen one with hidden powers, you have the supernatural occurrences for starters, a group of kids with various personalities. But just when you're thinking "oh, I've seen that before", there's a new twist popping out on the screen or something that either thickens the plots or deepens the relationships, stuff which, while looking vaguely familiar, feels weirdly new and fresh with that 2010's/1980's feeling?

Take the group of kids, you have the straight one (Finn Wolfhard), the goofy one (Gaten Matarazzo), the seemingly token black kid (Caleb McLaughlin) but there's never a moment where you feel they're here to play archetypes. The presence of Sean Astin reminded me that even in "The Goonies", you could feel the Spielbergian over-the-top touch, too many gadgets, too much cockiness, these kids in "Stranger Kids" feel closer to a certain reality, we would believe kids would act that way in the 80's, just like we would believe in the everyday and homely realism of the folks leaving in the neighborhood.

For such a fantasy and sci-fi driven series, to feel that real is quite an achievement, but the soul of its success relied on one hit-or-miss character: Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven. You see, I've never been a fan of all these girl power tropes, but Brown plays such a nuanced character that she practically defines the perfect sense of balance in the Duffer brothers' vision, at times, she's bad ass, other times, vulnerable but never in a "Hit Girl" way. You really feel for her and the chemistry with every other character makes the whole thing work.

"Lost" was a bit like that before it drowned itself in a maze of intricacies. I wish "Strangers Things" will keep on this trajectory, after two seasons and so many thrills, I wish it won't just get too wrapped up in its obsession to duplicate every element of the 80's. And while served by a good cast of known faces like Wynona Ryder, Harbour and Astin, the series is a vehicle for great emerging talents and I guess I wouldn't be wrong in assuming that Brown will be Oscar nominated before reaching her 20's. She's that good.

So "Stranger Things" is the typical case of a new and original recipe made of traditional ingredients, it's a salad of familiar elements, but it's digestible, and at times delicious... and it makes you realize how fast time flies, remember in the 80's, there was a wave of nostalgia over the 60's ("Dirty Dancing", "Stand By Me"...) when baby boomers were looking at the good old times. Imagine that in "Stranger Things", the oldest main actors were born in the 70's and now we're looking at the 80's as the good old days, and watching the show, I remembered the TV of my childhood. Even the theme has that ominous V-like tempo and the series that crappy VHS look.

Still, the special effects that had the wisdom not to be too 80's. Again, that sense of balance... the Duffer brothers know how to play it like in the 80's, and when not to... and the mark of the best directors is to make the strangest things out of familiar elements. And the best.