Stranger Things
Stranger Thingsvery easily has an equal amount of blatant Amblin homages that both do and don’t work—I’m sorry, but The NeverEnding Story duet nearly threw me out of last season’s arc as just pure nostalgia placement. In season four volume one, the use of Kate Bush’s “Running Up that Hill” worked so much better, giving Max a weapon through her Walkman and her friends’ quick thinking to reel her back to life with it. The Duffer Brothers are great at creating characters, they just need to let go of the nostalgia crutch and they’ll do right by our Hawkins heroes. The show is most powerful when it focuses on each character’s journey and anchors them with a symbol or theme of the era.
