Turned down again and again
Stranger Things was created by the twin brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, who pitched it, under the working title Montauk, to television networks that turned it down one after another; one said a show about children would have to be either for children or about a detective. Netflix took a chance on it, and it arrived in July 2016 with almost no advertising. Within weeks it was one of the most talked-about shows in the world. Its fifth and final series was released in 2025.
The story begins in November 1983 in HAWKINS, a fictional small town in Indiana, and was filmed mostly in and around Atlanta, Georgia. It follows a group of friends, MIKE WHEELER, DUSTIN HENDERSON, LUCAS SINCLAIR and WILL BYERS, whose search for Will after he vanishes leads them to a girl with strange powers, ELEVEN, named after the number tattooed on her wrist in the laboratory where she was raised, and to a dark mirror-world called the UPSIDE DOWN.
Monsters named after a board game
The boys play Dungeons and Dragons, a fantasy game in which players act out an adventure while one of them, the dungeon master, describes the world and its monsters. When they meet a terrifying creature from the Upside Down, they name it the DEMOGORGON, after a demon prince in their game, and a later villain, VECNA, takes his name from an evil wizard in the same game. Sales of the real game rose sharply after the series began. Our board games page covers the history of tabletop gaming.
Eleven's favourite food, frozen EGGOS waffles, got a boost too: the company reported a jump in sales after the first series, and later made adverts that played on the show.
A song from 1985 goes to number one
In 2022, the fourth series used Kate Bush's song Running Up That Hill, first released in 1985, as the song that saves the character MAX from Vecna. Millions of viewers who had never heard it went looking for it, and it reached number one in Britain thirty-seven years after it first came out, breaking records for the longest gap between a song's release and its reaching the top. Kate Bush, who rarely gives interviews, said she was thrilled.
The show is packed with 1980s details: bicycles with walkie-talkies, arcade games, the Rubik's cube and synthesiser music; the pulsing theme tune was written by two members of an electronic band called Survive. The actor who plays Eleven, Millie Bobby Brown, shaved her head for the part at the age of eleven. Gaten Matarazzo, who plays Dustin, has a rare condition that affects the growth of his teeth and bones, and the writers made it part of his character, which helped raise awareness of it.
Grown-ups and teenagers too
The adults matter as much as the children. JOYCE Byers, played by Winona Ryder, strings Christmas lights across her living room so her missing son can talk to her by making them flash. Police chief HOPPER becomes Eleven's adoptive father. The teenagers NANCY, JONATHAN, STEVE, ROBIN and EDDIE join the fight, and Steve, who began as a snobbish boyfriend, becomes the babysitter of the whole gang. The series has frightening scenes and is rated for teenagers and up.