Stranger Things Tales From '85

Netflix

Netflix may have broadcast the end of the main Stranger Things series in a controversial finale that had fans divided or mad. Mostly mad. But now a new, somewhat unexpected project has just gone live months later: Stranger Things: Tales from ’85.

It’s a new animated series that takes place between seasons 2 and 3 of the show and features almost the entire main cast. Well, the main character, not the main cast as no one has shown up to voice their roles for Tales From ’85, which I do find a bit odd. But maybe that would have cost a lot more, even for just voicework across five total hours of ten episodes. Here’s the synopsis:

“Snow Sharks. Jerk O Lanterns. Killer Vines. When new breeds of monsters turn up in Hawkins, Eleven and friends must band together again to fight back.”

This is supposed to be “canon,” though obviously it’s not terribly important to the overall arc of Stranger Things as it wasn’t even remotely built into the main show. Critics have now reviewed the show and, as it stands, it’s doing okay on Rotten Tomatoes, but it is lower-scored than all past seasons of the main Stranger Things. Here’s the list:

• Stranger Things season 1 – 97% critic score
• Stranger Things season 2 – 94% critic score
• Stranger Things season 3 – 89% critic score
• Stranger Things season 4 – 89% critic score
• Stranger Things season 5 – 82% critic score
• Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 – 75% critic score

So that’s certainly a trendline, though it goes from near-perfect to still pretty good. There are not enough audience reviews on Rotten Tomatoes yet to put up a score, but over on IMDB, it has a rather disastrous 4.4/10 with almost a thousand reviews in. But considering the show has barely been out 6-8 hours or so, I very much question the legitimacy of that, especially after the enormous fan anger over the finale for various reasons. User scores are often protest votes when something like that happens.

There is in fact going to be a live-action Stranger Things spinoff, not just this animated series, though it will not be in the hands of the Duffer Brothers themselves. We do not know anything like a title or release timeline for the spinoff, but we know it’s going to be very separate from the original show. Different cast with allegedly no crossover, different decade, no Upside Down. Just…very far apart.

As for this show, I suppose it’s akin to some sort of after-dinner cappuccino rather than anything all that substantive. But if it’s pretty good and you’re not furious at Stranger Things or anything, it might be worth a watch.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.