Nostalgia is an easy way to grab our attentions, especially for one of the bigger blossoming periods for what we might consider modern fandom: the 80s.  But there’s much more to that formula, certainly.  At a high level you can just do an in-name-only version and end of with popcorn (quality comments withheld) flicks like Transformers; a little more effort gives you movies that understand the vibe, but are still fully presented through a modern filter of homage, a la Super 8.  Jumping in, the variations certainly spread out: dedicated visual feasts like House of the Devil; spiritual Goonies remakes like Housebound.  These latter two flicks are, by my opinion, quality, but they still don’t fully solve the nostalgia equation to produce a max value.

Stranger Things does this.

It is, undeniably, imperfect, but so are other five star offerings out there; the good and great topples the questionable so resolutely that there’s naught to do but smile and shrug at its problems.  You have, effectively, forgotten them as soon as they occur.

But to be fair, the ‘good movie / tv’ formula for something steeped in genre has been proven to us before, it’s just, y’know, hard to do; the key seems to be making sure you have a story and characters that are informed by your scene, and don’t just exist because of it.  Story?  Characters?  I know, wacky stuff.  Stranger Things may be populated with tons of visual nods to Stephen King, and Carpenter, and I can never not associate a teen in anything horror-related named Nancy with NoES, and it may dig deeper than that via “skinning” the project with an 80s template: The outsider kid explorers; the synth music; the goddamn delightful title font.  But strip all that away, and there’s still a story here, and still characters to get in to.

ST mostly focuses on Mike (Finn Wolfhard), the 3D kid in his typically 2D cast of friends (one of the show’s oversights), and his struggles in coming to terms with the mysterious disappearance of his friend Will, and the equally mysterious appearance of the nigh-monosyllabic “El,” whom the kids take in when they determine she’s involved in some dangerous shenanigans.  Reverberating out from this are events dealing with Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), Will’s brother, and Joyce (Winona Ryder), his mother, as well as Jim (David Harbour), the drunken sheriff kicked into action by the occurrences.  And all of this, of course, ties back to El, and to those shenanigans.  Each of these leads gets well-nurtured screen and script time that proves the main benefit of having this kind of filmic story serialized: We don’t have to take cheap shortcuts to establish these characters; they can be allowed to grow organically with the plot developments.

…Which leads to the biggest success of the series: Creators The Duffer Brothers and co-director Shawn Levy – and a scattering of writers – include every setup trope we can think of: The geeky guy, hot girl, jock guy love triangle; the aforementioned slob-to-hero sheriff; the single mother and the returning ex – and that’s where genre informs the story, as we’re using and abusing the nostalgia to play with our familiarities with these tropes, and find comfort in the various happy endings they generally offer – but then Stranger Things takes years of film and tv history and slaps it on top of that, giving the heightened reality a very reality reality glaze.  That’s not to say we don’t get happy endings, but ST is content to not resolve everything cleanly.

The main Strange Thing is a little murky, and the fact that we don’t see any parents except for those tied into the story is almost hilariously manipulative, as though by ignoring the side characters’ other facets we’ll forget to consider they may have them, but I’ve hardly touched on all the majesty – majesty that’s apparent from episode one and maintained all the way through – that makes the criticizable elements seem like trifles.

I’ve also not even mentioned Matthew Modine’s awesome head of grey hair.  But the amount of thing I’d need to mention to give this series its due would just take up your precious viewing time, which leads us into a final, pleasing observation: There’s no “wait for X episode” moment with Stranger Things.  It’s a very honest show with its approach, which means you’ll know within the first episode if it’s for you or not.

But maybe that’s just another one of those nostalgia things.