There’s conspiracy theories, monsters and magic, geeks galore, teenage angst and Winona Ryder acting like her life depended on it! Genius Casting!

Tom Harris, November 2016

Netflix – I’ve heard strange things about it; some bad, mostly good – and so when someone told me that there was this epic new series called ‘Stranger Things’ excusive to the online giant, I of course budgeted £7 a month by cancelling all my charity donation direct debits [Sometimes it’s good to be selfish] and I’ve been rewarded with this superb piece of nostalgic, creative genius from the Duffer Brothers.

Is it A: The Goonies meets Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Is it B: ET meets Dark Angel? Or is it C: The Wonder Years meets Alien…? The answer is D: All of the above.

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What it definitely is though is utterly brilliant! It has a great soundtrack, especially in the earlier episodes, featuring The Clash, Peter Gabriel’s atmospheric cover of ‘Heroes’ &  The Bangles’ hugely underrated version of ‘Hazy Shade of Winter,’ that plays out Episode 2 in a moment of exhilarating genius that makes you yearn for Episode 3.

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There’s conspiracy theories, monsters and magic, jump-scares (see end of episode 7, still recovering) geeks galore, teenage angst and Winona Ryder acting like her life depended on it! Genius Casting!

Ryder is incredible as the hapless and hopeless, Joyce Byers, whose son, Will, disappears into thin air. When Will’s friends, Mike, Dustin & Lucas, find a mysterious girl, Eleven – the brilliant Millie Bobby Brown – in the woods on their search for their missing buddy, things begin to get…stranger…

This series transported me right back to zooming along the mean streets of Birmingham on my Budgie, that’s the bike not a caged bird by the way.

Check it out for nostalgic, sci-fi conspiracy, monster fantasy. You will not regret it!

Season 1: Episodes 1-8 are available exclusively on Netflix