“Stranger Things” Takes the Internet (and Ward Melville) by Storm

Tia+Mehta

Tia Mehta

Leah Cussen, Staff Writer

Stranger Things is a Netflix-original series released in July this past summer. Many people who watched the show have had extremely positive responses. The show, created by the Duffer Brothers, is set in a small town in Indiana in 1983. It begins when 12-year old Will Byers goes missing, causing his family and his friends to investigate his disappearance, uncover government secrets, and unleash supernatural forces.

Tia Mehta, a sophomore at Ward Melville, had a positive response to the show. She first heard about the show when she happened to see it being advertised on Netflix. She said she really enjoys watching science-fiction, so she decided to give it a chance. “When I first watched the show, I really liked it because it’s not like other shows… each episode was like a mini story. The plot and the characters were really different from what is usually on TV.”

The show follows multiple plot lines: the children (Will’s friends), the teenagers (older siblings of the children), and Will’s mom working with the town’s sheriff to track down Will. Tia says she really enjoyed this aspect of the show because it gave multiple perspectives of what was essentially the same story. Everyone reacted and tried to resolve the problem in different ways. She does, however, look forward to the plot line involving the kids the most because she feels that their story was the most interesting.

Tia says she feels that the 80s time frame, in which the show is set, adds a really cool aspect to it. It shows how life was different at the time, and also opens up the show’s audience to more generations of people.

Tia, along with many others who enjoyed the first season, is excited for the second season to come out next year. She feels “the next season is going to be really good because the show ended with a bunch of cliffhangers, so they have to wrap those up.”