And the reason for a higher rating is people actually like it. It's OK for people to like something you don't even if you don't understand why. That's actually OK. The rating apparently used to be higher and would be higher than it is if it weren't for all those killjoys whingeing and whining. If it doesn't meet your high expectations don't watch it.

I'm rating this 10 to bring the score back up as it rightfully deserves the high rating as one of the most unique celebrations of 80s nostalgia. So what if some people don't care for it, this isn't made for you. Sorry about that. I also enjoyed it as much, as I did Boardwalk Empire and Daredevil. Why do we watch TV shows? Because we enjoy the story. If you don't enjoy it where half to most other people do is that your fault or the creators? I'll leave readers to answer that themselves.

I've been revisiting a lot of 80s movies in 2016 and someone told me about Stranger Things - I held off watching it until December and held back from binging the short series to prolong the suspense, even watching a couple of the episodes twice in a row. Far from perfect but I'm very impressed with the ambiance and vibe and pacing. What an accomplishment. So what if it has mundane parts. So what if it has filler, it's stylish. Whatever flaws are present, and I'm sure there are tons (many of which have been articulated comprehensively by indignant IMDb haters), are more or less invisible to this viewer perhaps due to an 80s bias (I grew up in the 80s being born in 1979 - etch-a-sketch, chopper bikes, Garbage Pail kids etc despite being British of course I embraced the indulgent romanticism of 80s American coming-of-age movies) HOWEVER - I'm not a great fan of 80s horror and sci fi (with a few exceptions) and I can't really stand SPIELburg's overly-sentimental and crass contributions to cinema especially ET and Close Encounters. I do respect the work of Stephen King though prefer his dramas to the horror. Despite or maybe because of all this I instantly recognised and enjoyed the parallels between this TV show and 80s titles which the creators were very deliberately and conspicuously paying homage - Stand By Me, The Goonies, Alien, Scanners, the list goes on and on (there are several blogs and entertainment sites listing the titles as well as recommendations for other post-80s films and other more recent releases). Thus the intention of this series is not to be original, as expressed in the polemic of some of the haters, but the intention is specifically NOT TO BE original. In this way the Duffer brothers have tapped into a whole generation with fond memories of retro technology and a time when such technology was in its infancy and entertainment was less cynical and the world in general seemed simpler as we were less connected and consequently more ignorant than we are post-millennium. After all ignorance is bliss.

You'll notice I've not really mentioned anything about the content of the show. I'm assuming you've seen it already but if not - check it out and make your own decision. I noticed that the majority of 1 and 2 star reviews (some of them admitting that they would review it 6/10 but they deliberately rated it down to lower the mean rating - which is a cretinous thing to do) the majority of those reviewers it appears had seen the rating, or heard people saying how great it was and so then had the highest expectations - but for some reason these expectations weren't met. Personally I didn't know anything about it at all before I watched it except that it had something to do with the 80s, didn't read any reviews and wasn't aware of IMDb or any other ratings - and I enjoyed it. As a fan of comedy and fantasy but not so much of scifi horror, this show perfectly filtered and watered down vintage horror and added a watertight cast, 80s kids movies nostalgia and topped it off with a lovely ambient synth soundtrack.

So this review is for the haters. This show is not perfect but it is entirely comprised of elements that some audiences, myself included, have wanted to see for a very long time. Keep on hating, I'm waiting keenly for season 2 and if it disappoints, so what? It's not even that important! The important thing is that for whatever reasons for the Duffer Brothers, whether they wrote it or not (whereby as they didn't write it according to IMDb reviewer bradcheng; "their auteur status goes down the drain"), this is a labour of love - demonstrated by it being rejected fifteen times before Netflix - and their love for the material shows in the work, whether it makes sense to some viewers or not, if viewers have the imagination to enact, in the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, willing suspension of disbelief (a term which was coined in the discussion of texts like this, involving the supernatural). Like Peter Jackson the Duffers are unabashedly invested in their subject matter and though might not be pioneers of horror/fantasy/scifi they worked hard to realise their vision regardless of whether audiences think they were successful or not. Some audiences like these works - some don't. If you don't, I'm sorry for you, that you don't get it, that you didn't enjoy it. At he end of the day this TV show will quickly and quite rightfully become an instant cult classic, in the words of another historical Englishman "warts and all".

EDIT It got worse as it went along so I changed my rating from 10 to 6 but the characters are still interesting, some of the acting became a bit hammy but kinds works of course.

I won't get into the esoteric or occult aspects of the show for there are many.