Of all of the Netflix Original Series so far, Stranger Things feels like the most attuned to the binge-watching model. Despite their serialized natures, series like Orange is the New Black and House of Cards are still relatively episodic, giving each hour some semblance of its own story. Stranger Things, though, feels like an 8 hour movie. The episodes give the viewer decent stopping points, but there’s never any suggestion that the show is meant to be consumed one episode at a time. The show’s creators, the Duffer Brothers, mean to hook you at the start and keep you attached until the very end.
They’re quite successful, too. It’s true that Stranger Things borrows from a whole host of 80s movies, especially those written and directed by Stephen King and Steven Spielberg: ET, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, It, The Goonies, The Shining, and more. The influence of other filmmakers can be felt as well; the teenage storyline feels like a direct engagement with the work of John Hughes, and the creature designs are inspired by the work of John Carpenter (this connection is even directly acknowledged when a couple characters are watching The Thing on TV). But just making a series of nostalgic references doesn’t make for good TV. The most impressive aspect of Stranger Things is how engaging its individual storylines are and how perfectly it weaves them together in its later chapters.