Stranger Things has happened. Twice.

I wanted to talk about Stranger Things today......

Stranger Things is one of those TV shows that come along once in a while and blows my socks off. I would say the last TV show to do that to me was Breaking Bad, for different reasons. Stranger Things came out of nowhere really and punched me right in the geeky, pop culture, 80s fanboy ribs. I absolutely loved the first season. And this is why.

The Duffer brothers managed to pull off something special that ticked all the right boxes for me as a 80s movie geek. You can see straight away where they got their inspiration from. I suspect that, like me, they are huge fans of movies like The Goonies, E.T, and Stand By Me.

It is the perfect storm of nostalgia, great casting and great acting. We have the safe hands of the likes of Winona Ryder and David Harbour. But the casting really excels when it comes to the young stars of the show. These kids are excellent and the chemistry between them really works. As a viewer you are rooting for them and they are very believable.

The story for the first season was compelling, I binged the lot. Then told my wife about it and binged again while she watched it. And then binged again when my daughter wanted to watch it. We all loved it. What kept me going back to it is how it evokes the nostalgia of the child in me. I know that as a kid I would have loved Stranger Things. I would be re enacting scenes in the school yard with my mates like we did for Ghostbusters and The Goonies in the 80s. I went to Stakeford First School and we always used to do the first scene from Ghostbusters where Stantz, Spengler and Venkman are in the library and they see the ghost librarian. They try to grab her and she turns into a hideous ghoul and they run away. We used to run around the school yard, each taking turns to be the ghoul. It was great fun. That's what Stranger Things reminded me off and that's a great feeling.

I loved it so much that when my wife and I found out she was pregnant with our son I did a Stranger Things "pregnant reveal" video for friends.

And what about the soundtrack? Wow. So important. It was absolutely brilliant. Michael Stein and Kyle Dixon made a great job of using synthesisers, in homage to the likes of John Carpenter and Georgio Moroder, to evoke the memories of movies like Big Trouble In Little China. This was so important to the show. Like Star Wars wouldn't be what it is without John Williams, Stranger Things wouldn't be what it is without Stein and Dixon. What a great job.

My absolute favourite though was Eleven. Such a fascinating character and brought together all the things I loved as a child. She had powers very similar to the Force. She was like Luke Skywalker but a total bad ass. Using her powers to kill, repeatedly. Sometimes in gory ways. She was great. My favourite moment is when she flips the van. It reminded me very much of E.T when they are all escaping on their bikes at the end and E.T makes them fly over the road block. I watched that bit over and over again. Brilliant TV. And then it was finished.

I longed for season 2. In the meantime I filled the huge Stranger Things shaped whole in my life by buying merch from the show. Mostly t-shirts and Funko Pop Vinyl toys (I might make a blog entry about those because they are brilliant). And some cool AR on my Pixel 2 phone.

A

I took the day off work to binge season 2 ( I got mercilessly ribbed for that)and they didn't let me down. I was very excited about Sean Austin's character. For a show that was clearly inspired by The Goonies it was exciting to have an actual Goonie in it! I met him in Glasgow once at a convention and he was a really great bloke. My only complaint on season 2 was that there wasn't enough Eleven.

So now I wait for season 3 and beyond. I just hope they don't run out of ideas and keep it going just for the sake of it, like Big Bang Theory.

Adam