It's been quite some time since I last wrote a post of a TV Series. I have heard about this one few months ago but I cannot remember now where I first heard it. Anyway, when I got the chance to watch it, I finished this in just 2 days as it consisted only 8 episodes. In fact if I watched it during the full weekend when I was having nothing to do, I am very sure that I would have finished it within 1 day. Anyway, what is the story all about? Let's find out, shall we?
Brief Story Line
This series was set in the year 1983 in a town named Hawkins, where a group of 12 year old children consisted of Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Will (Noah Schnapp) were best friends and loved to play Dungeons & Dragons board game at the basement of Mike's house. One night after > 10 hours playing, Lucas, Dustin and Will went home by bikes where they split their ways in one of the crossroads.
On the following day, Will's mother Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder - Edward Scissorhands, Dracula, The Age of Innocence etc) and her eldest son Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) who realized that Will never came back home, decided to go the police office and file a report to chief Hopper (David Harbour - Quantum of Solace, The Equalizer, etc). Meanwhile, at school, Nancy Wheeler, Mike's older sister (Natalia Dyer - Hannah Montana: The Movie) was having the usual teenager situation with her love interest, Steve (Joe Keery), the popular high school jock. Nancy's best friend, Barb (Shannon Purser) did not really agree to this relationship, but since Nancy was very sure of her feeling towards Steve, she could only support this.
To make things further complicated, a young girl with shaved head and was having limited vocabulary suddenly appeared out of nowhere. It would later be revealed that the girl who mentioned her name was Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) actually came from the place where she was experimented by group of scientists led by Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine - Full Metal Jacket, The Dark Knight Rises etc).
As it would be virtually impossible to continue the story line without revealing too much information, I better let everyone continue to see what the series were trying to tell.
End of Brief Story Line
All the brief story above was only things shown in the pilot episode. As this is a Netflix original series, just like similar series such as Daredevil and Jessica Jones, the length of each episode ranged from 40-55 minutes. There were lots of things that would only be revealed in the subsequent episodes such as what experiments were done by Dr. Brenner, what relations was Eleven had with the things happening in the power company, what happened to Will Byers, what was the growling sound who seemed to got out of the experiment lab and so on.
I trully enjoyed watching this TV series as it has all the ingredients that make a powerful, edge of the seat science fiction thriller that literally made me could not stop watching. If I had not remembered that I need to work on Monday morning, I might have continued the whole 8 episodes till 3AM. I believed that the pace of the series were quite constant. There were no bad or very slow episodes as each one would reveal something new which would explain to us why things happened, as well as the solution to the problems Mike Wheeler & the gang were having and Nancy Wheeler's problems at school and outside, and of course the efforts done by main characters of Joyce and Hopper.
Watching the kids' adventures actually made me having a nostalgic feeling of reading children's adventure book but with science fiction twists. The set in 1980s also made me love the series even more, with some songs that I liked. Plus as I said, it's a dream come true for science fiction lover with so many scientific things exist in this series (which I could not say here without giving spoiler). Just that you won't be disappointed. Of all the characters development here, I enjoy seeing Hopper and also Eleven. Funny thing is Millie Bobby Brown the girl playing Eleven is a fan of Liverpool FC (just like me and I remember seeing her mentioned by LFC twitter. Ya, rather out of topic. LOL) Oh Mike and friends relationship also very nice to see, but I do not really enjoy the storyline of Nancy & Steve, though I changed my mind after episode 6 and beyond. I am sure that you would understand where I am coming from if you watch it till then.
The special effects for this TV series were pretty good and the sound effects were OK. But the main plus of the series to my personal opinion was the story & character developments combined with the mystery surrounding the city and also the combination of thriller, coming of age drama with science fictions.
So if you are a fan of science fiction and you also like the 1980s era, please be sure to see this one. It would be worth your while. However, if you are not a fan of such things, or you do not really like stories set in the 1980s, then perhaps you would not enjoy it like I did. But I do believe that you can still give it a try, as it's only 8 episodes and it would not take too much of your time to complete it like watching other TV series with many episodes per season. Good news that it has been confirmed there would be a second season of 9 episodes, which is a very good thing as there was something happened in the end of the season finale which would be making me mad if there was no continuation to that.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
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