Stranger Things: Season 1 (2016) Cre: The Duffer Brothers
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There's something so wonderfully innocent and sincere about this first season. Whereas, the later seasons become ever more dark and, dare I say bloated, this first set of 8 episodes has a focused cast and narrative. The episodes are each around the 40 minute mark, which is world's away from the feature length episodes that became the norm by season 4.
The narrative is focused and interlinked, each thread feeding the main arc well - leading to a thrilling conclusion and the setting up of the second season. There were three performers who stood out from a talented cast this season.
First of whom is Winona Ryder, who, as many will know, is is immensely talented actress. Having since watched the other seasons, I can safely say this was her best.
The material she has means she can fully display her variety of emotions and really lean into her character's panic and unhinged nature. She excels here, and is easily the season's best character.
Finn Wolfhard was another standout here. For someone so young at the time of releass, he gives a surprisingly comprehensive performance, which laid the path for his success as an actor in the coming years.
Millie Bobby Brown provided the other big performance here, with her role requiring some intense acting, which she nailed, for the most part. Again, being so young, she could easily have struggled here, but she did remarkably well to provide some strong emotional weight for her character.
I'd also like to mention the likes of David Harbour, Joe Keery, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalie Dyer, Charlie Heaton and Noah Schnapp - each of them deserve their own paragraph, but time and characters mean I have to sum them up together.
Overall, it's no wonder this Duffer brothers created series became a global hit that has been one of increasingly few Netflix original series to not only survive, but flourish. This is a really solid debut season and well worth watching, or rewatching for that matter.
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