For the first time in a long time, I’ve watched a show from
start to finish and not felt to bad about it. Based on a review found at somebody’s blog, I
took the Netflix Original series, “Stranger Things”, for a test drive and just
kept right on watching. It’s an old
school thriller set in small town Indiana during the 1980s. A young boy and a teen girl go missing and
three different teams of investigators slowly uncover the truth of the matter. Their stories weave in and out as each
discovers their own trail of clues leading up to the final confrontation.
It’s not great, but it’s pretty darn good. The acting ranges from stiff to overblown –
Winona Ryder plays a mother with only two emotions, raving hysterics and
mumbling sorrow. We’re given no real
reason at the outset to particularly like any of the characters, other than
because they are the ones whose stories we are following. My favorite characters in the show are all supporting
roles – they often show more character than the stars, who take a lot more effort to like than they should given that we are supposed to be rooting for them. I spent most of the show making excuses for their behavior towards other people, and you really shouldn't have to do that for your protagonists.
Still and all, it’s a nice slow burn mystery that clocks in at six hours of entertainment. It has an internal consistency to its mythos and cosmology that is refreshing to see. None of the main characters acts in a particularly stupid manner just to serve the needs of the plot. Yes, some do act in stupid ways, but for understandable reasons, he’s twelve years old, she’s a grieving mother, that sort of thing. And the show spends just enough time showing their normal routine, their normal crises, and how the pressure of the situation affects those day to day pressures. It’s very Stephen Kingesque in that regard.
Still and all, it’s a nice slow burn mystery that clocks in at six hours of entertainment. It has an internal consistency to its mythos and cosmology that is refreshing to see. None of the main characters acts in a particularly stupid manner just to serve the needs of the plot. Yes, some do act in stupid ways, but for understandable reasons, he’s twelve years old, she’s a grieving mother, that sort of thing. And the show spends just enough time showing their normal routine, their normal crises, and how the pressure of the situation affects those day to day pressures. It’s very Stephen Kingesque in that regard.
The suspense ratchets up well over time. Six hours is a long time to sustain the
mystery and keep the viewers interest, while simultaneously keeping the body
count low and the plot moving forward at a reasonable pace, but “Stranger
Things” manages that trick. Interestingly,
much of the suspense occurs when two people discuss the crisis and the search
of the missing boy, they each hold a piece of the puzzle, and if they could
only share those pieces they’d be a lot better off. At the same time, neither one thinks the
other will believe him or her, and so they talk around the subject while the
viewer knows both that they should just blurt out the information, and at the
same time knows why they don’t. That’s
some solid writing.
The little nods to the era were nice, too. The 40+ crowd might want to check it out if
only for the nostalgic factor of synth music and opening title sequence that
could have been sucked through a wormhole straight from the 1980s. Pull tab
Schlitz beer, an actual A/V club, a close-enough-for-government-work soundtrack
and posters for John Carpenter’s “The Thing” are a few other fun examples.
All in all, “Stranger Things” gets a tepid
recommendation. Despite its flaws, it’s well
worth a watch.
