Why are subscription-platforms like Netflix grabbing the critical kudos from the previously all-powerful networks? Take a look at ‘Stranger Things’ to get the answer says John Mosby…
“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?”
– The Writer (Stand By Me)
Many years ago, I sat in a Santa Monica production office and talked to Tim Minear about the changing face of technology and creativity. He said, in no uncertain terms that the one factor that would likely affect everything in the coming decade was the over-looked aspect of distribution. He said that with the internet becoming faster, effects-houses raising their game and computer-savvy genre-fans made their way into the business, that the networks would have to watch their back – that streaming would become commercially viable and that new entertainment hubs would spring up to challenge how fans got their fix.
As a producer (with a body of work that includes Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Terriers, Dollhouse, The Chicago Code and the delightfully provocative American Gothic) he also makes a great seer and futurist (albeit a tad less hairy)… because that latter title is doing very nicely on America’s FX channel and a brief look at what genre fans are watching proves that cable/satellite and streaming is definitely where the cool guys are. Think Netflix, Showtime, Starz, HBO and even SKY… the outlets moving from ‘showing’ to actually doing’ too. Think Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead through to the likes of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Banshee and Bosch. The growing number of subscriber-content platforms – has gone from being a library of classics to creating their own productions and subsequently they being heralded as the future of original programming made real.
One of the most recent examples is the new Netflix mini-series Stranger Things which debuted last month and has been getting the raviest of rave reviews. Minear may not be involved with it, but I bet he likes it. Set in small-town Indiana during the 1980s it tells the story of a missing boy and a found girl… and how a group of kids and world-weary adults are drawn into something not of this world. There’s conspiracies, monsters, death, love, friendship and toothy grins… what better recommendation can you offer?
It could be lightning in a bottle… every so often a show ‘hits’ the right note and nerve and launches itself on an unsuspecting public who have been starved of something great in primetime. But actually the truth is far more simple – and more complicated to deliver. The secret is giving the audience what it wants before it knows it wants it. Stranger Things is that such rare beast.
If it’s still hard to put your finger on just why THIS particular show has proven such a success, that may simply be down to the finite number of fingers you’re using – because Stranger Things has the unusual circumstance of almost having too many good complementary things working for it, so many well-designed cogs working in Timex-level combination that the real question is why we haven’t seen a series quite as perfectly-pitched as this for a long while. If your ‘dream dinner-party guest’ game resulted in you naming Steven Spielberg, Stephen King, John Carpenter and John Hughes then there’s a very good chance that self-same brainstorming session would result in a little success story like this. It should have been a show blueprinted for the networks – but the fact it went to Netflix (already the home of Marvel‘s best tv adaptations) mayhaps let it breathe more deeply…
To say that Stranger Things is a nostalgia-trip to the 1980s isn’t quite enough. Yes, it draws on key cultural touchstones of the time, warmly paying homage (sometimes obvious, sometimes far more subtle) to a raft of sources as diverse as Stand by Me, The Goonies, The Breakfast Club, Dungeons & Dragons, ET, Aliens, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Evil Dead and The Thing… But if it was only coldly checking off a list of ‘must-copy’ elements like a pragmatic, reminiscing bean-counter, it’s unlikely it would have been embraced quite so warmly. What the mini-series does is take that nostalgia and build something much darker amid the whimsy; it takes innocence and celebrates it by by never shirking on also showing the horrible effect of losing it. By the time the show has run its course (a perfectly-allocated eight episodes in length) you realise that it isn’t just a fairy-tale that is emulating the Eighties – it’s a love letter-like eulogy from now to that unique, beautiful and fragile moment between the wonderlust of adolescence and the wonder less of adulthood. It’s built to win-over and engage a sometimes jaded modern audience but also to strike most deeply at the heart of anyone who was exactly the age of the main, young characters in those years. Stranger Things, despite its trappings, would never had been made IN the Eighties: it’s sharper and more poignant edge needs the prism of the passing decades to give it that generation-x-factor. No, you don’t need to have been the age of the characters in the Eighties to be drawn in to the story, but I defy anyone who was to not to love it all the more passionately.
Created by ‘The Duffer Brothers’ (Matt and Ross – who have worked together before on the likes of Hidden and Wayward Pines and who have surely certainly cemented their reputations with this) it combines character and story with all the due care and attention such a project needs – and the cast to deliver it. Millie Bobby Brown is a star in the making. She was already the equal of her more established co-stars in the another recent mini-series Intruders with a memorable ‘What goes around comes around…‘ attitude and delivery as a young girl playing host to an old man’s psyche. Here, with a shaved head and one of the most emotive faces of her generation, she gives us another bravura performance – and an ‘Eleven’ for whom we can simultaneously feel sadness and fear. She’s a young Jean Grey and Nikita combined – or if you’re way to young to appreciate those references fully, let’s say she’s a pre-teen Lucy, but… well, actually interesting and well-thought out. Her ‘rescuers’ are no slouches either… Finn Wolfhard as the D&D obsessed Mike, drawn into playing the most determined hero for real (and soon to be seen in the It remake), the engaging Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas and the instant fan-favourite Gaten Matarazzo as the affable and nerdy Dustin. Each of them take the stereotypes you presume they’ll play and give each of them a twist.
But equally good are the older members of the cast, many also given the prize of having the story give them far more to do than you’d first expect. ‘Teenagers’ Nancy (Natalia Dyer), Jonathan (British actor Charlie Heaton) and Joe Keery as Steve supply something of a traditional love-triangle but – the supernatural element aside – it might be the more rereshing take on cinematic teenage angst seen since the era of John Hughes movies that it sometimes evokes – again mixing up your expectations of where the story could go and why. Winona Ryder is the big name catch – more than willing to play an non-glamorous but interesting role to remind us of how good she can be; David Harbour (The Newsroom, The Equalizer, Banshee) continues to be an actor to watch and his Chief of Police is developed nicely as he begins to realise there’s more going on around him than mere small-city crime. Matthew Modine’s almost sociopathic Doctor Brennan is the closest the characters come to caricature but even then the mysteries he’s involved with keep his presence interesting. String in a range of supporting players who each have their moments and it’s hard to find a single off-note throughout.
There’s simply an organic story-telling here that feels both classic and strangely rare in modern productions. There are solid reasons that the pieces of the jigsaw and characters’ different ‘clues’ fail to come together more quickly, an often overlooked aspect that often hobbled shows like LOST. It turns tropes into traps and when revelations and pay-offs actually happen, it’s fireworks and danger all the way.
Whether it be Stranger Things, American Gothic or Game of Thrones… we’re seeing productions from the once-were-outliers that take risks and treat the audience as intelligent viewers (of all ages), not just consumers. And the pay-off is obvious for all concerned.
Netflix confirmed today that the inevitable second season for the show has been set in motion (see the teaser below) for 2017 and will run to NINE new episodes, introducing some new characters and expanding out the universe(s).. One hopes that this little gem can sustain its sparkle. It may be true you can’t go home again. But if that abode is wired for cable, has risk-takers like Netflix and shows like Stranger Things, it’s certainly worth giving it the old-school try…
10/10
