Stranger Things is a Netflix original show created by the Duffer Brothers and it markets itself as a tribute to the classic1980's sci fi and horror culture.

I saw the first season after having heard over and over again how great this show is, and immediately a few things stuck out for me, in regards to the show's originality.

There is a fine line between paying homage to a book or a movie, and making a blatant rip off. And oftentimes, Stranger Things crosses this line. Some fans and critics have already said, that the writers of this show rely too heavily on nostalgia and on the source material they're supposed to be paying homage to.

While recognizing most of the 80's sci fi references, and the plot elements that Stranger Things borrows (E.T., Alien, The Gonies, Stand by Me etc, etc), I also recognize references and entire plot lines that the writers of this show have taken from the 1990's TV-shows, like The X-files, Twin Peaks and even a lesser known sci fi thriller, The Pretender. There are entire scenes and story lines that look like they have been copied off of the X-files (even season 10, which came out last last year).

It's difficult to find a modern show about the paranormal and supernatural that hasn't been inspired by The Twilight Zone, The X- files or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I don't have a problem with that. The X-files was in turn inspired by Kolchak: the Night Stalker, from 1970's, and both the X-files and Stranger Things build their narratives on that "80's paranoia and government mistrust", as Chris Carter calls it.

The problem is that when you borrow too much from older source material, and when you rely too heavily on the homages and nostalgia, you run the risk of compromising your own originality. And the lack of originality is Stranger Things' greatest weakness. This show doesn't break new ground; it doesn't surprise its audience that already knows their science fiction. Instead, it rehashes the plot elements that are over thirty years old and tells the same story that Chris Carter was telling us twenty years ago.

The main antagonist in Stranger Things might as well be The Cigarette Smoking Man, sans the cigarette. The police chief who's drawn into this case, thinking that finding the boy will somehow help him deal with his own tragedies might as well be Fox Mulder or Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks. Or any other noir cop who drinks too much. And the mysterious science lab might as well be the secretive Centre from The Pretender.

When critics and reviewers describe Stranger Things as "Stephen King meets E.T. meets the Goonies, and with a pinch of X-files" you know what you're dealing with - a potpourri of pop culture references. Well, I got most of those references. Do I get points for that now?

Instead of coming up with something new, the writers repackage same old tropes and stories. It's the most shameless way to profit off of nostalgia and the audience's sentimentality. The creators sell us a poorly written story and underdeveloped characters wrapped in a neat bring-your-childhood- back package, hoping that we won't notice the bad product because of all the "feels".

But it doesn't work for me. Because everything that Stranger Things has to show for - I have seen it before. I love old science fiction (it's basically all I read/watch); I love creepypastas and stories about shady government cover-ups, and this show seems to be made for people like me. But while I'm watching that very first scene, I know that I've seen this before. And I can make a qualified guess about what's going to happen in the next scene. And in the next episode (and I'm right on the money). Every plot twist, every development is recognizable and traceable back to the 80's and 90's source material this show borrows from, which only makes the next twist all the more predictable.

Nostalgia baiting and lazy writing, that's basically hat Stranger Things is. That, and hype. Lots and lots of hype.