My review here is broken down into two seasons.

Firstly, the first season blew me away. Within mere minutes the backing music kicks in warming my anticipation for what I imagine will be a wonderful homage to some of the greatest movies of the 80's. And that's exactly what it does, it takes us on a journey, much like it's theme tune, to places so familiar yet so fresh at the same time. It's as if it was a classic I forgot to watch, oozing influences from King, Spielberg and Carpenter and concepts from varied corners of cult movies, TV shows and video games. Once more to it's deserved merit, we leave season one with the story nicely rounded off but with enough of a door left wedged open to feel satisfied buy not mis-sold to. The performances were superb and felt genuine and hats off to the young cast that knock it out of the park.

9/10 - one of the best shows ever...

Now season two. Had season one not been so damned near perfect I'd have not been so critical with my perception of it's follow up. That said it still delivers what we showed up for. It carries on from the first filling in on plot elements that you'd perhaps question somewhat. However, what it falls down on is obvious references. Whilst the first touched familiar memories for me the second season seemed too blatant thus no longer did it feel organic. Kind of like when a kid does a funny dance and everyone cracks up then someone says "do it again" but the kid knows he's being funny and people smile and say "oh yeh..." less enthusiastically. I guess it became self aware, like Cyberdyne if we wanted to ironically throw a reference about it's use of references. Sure being such a fan of the 80s movies it referenced it was a guilty pleasure but we now lose how honest the first season felt and almost like the idea being 'reference-hard' was in hope to net viral stories to captivate fans of the cult movies that it 'references hard with a vengeance'. If I were to see Louis CK and he starting doing Bill Hicks routines I'd still laugh because I love Hicks but I turned up to see fresh material from CK. Obviously this is the main issue I had with the second series, each time it happened it broke the 4th wall a little, disengaging me from the plot. The second season starts strong but weakens in it's final few episodes. In parts becoming obvious and corny, the young kids making decisions for some of the adults lessened the integrity of those characters. The kids essentially muscling their way to being the main protagonists. Either way it was still a good watch and I am still in anticipation for a third instalment only this time with slightly lower expectations.

6.5/10 – still a treat even though I felt a little tricked