Stranger Things

Yet another good SF/Fantasy/Horror TV show, and yet another that can be binge-watched the first day of release on Netflix. We would have gone straight to the end, but the Olympics intervened, and Lee and I are Olympics junkies. We plan to get back to it on Monday, August 22nd.

It concerns a young girl who escapes from a sinister facility where they are conducting experiments on children, apparently trying to find paranormal abilities. They have hit the jackpot with the girl, who doesn’t even have a name but is known as Eleven, who has telekinetic powers. She is found by a group of nerdish boys, who conceal her from their parents. One of the boys disappears, apparently to some ugly alternate reality. Winona Ryder is the distraught mother of the missing boy. Matthew Modine is the horrible head researcher.

The story is set in the ‘80s, and brings to mind, deliberately, I think, the works of Stephen King. It’s part Firestarter, part Stand By Me, part From a Buick 8, part The Mist, and even a little bit of the Dark Tower books. This is not a problem for me, I liked all those books. Just pointing it out.