Stranger Things Has Officially Changed Genre

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Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven in season 4, episode 1 of Stranger Things

Published Apr 27, 2026, 5:32 PM EDT

Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020.

While the original ending of Stranger Things made the show’s future as a franchise feel forebodingly obvious, the arrival of Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 just confirmed that the biggest problem with the series will continue unabated. When the series first debuted in 2016, Stranger Things was a breath of fresh air. A fusion of John Carpenter and Steven Spielberg, the ‘80s-inspired small town mystery series fused sci-fi and horror with dark character drama for a rich, rewarding viewing experience.

Crucially, however, Stranger Things was far from a broad, silly crowd-pleaser. While it was never as dark as IT’s TV spinoff, Welcome to Derry, Stranger Things season 1 featured unvarnished depictions of brutal bullying, grief, alcoholism, and parental neglect that made the series a bracing watch. From the homophobic insults slung around by bullies to the poverty of the Byers family, the show was far from an idealized vision of the ‘80s as fondly misremembered by Gen X viewers.

However, that soon changed as the series continued. In particular, 2019’s Stranger Things season 3 transformed the tone of the show radically, introducing a cartoon-ish sense of humor and far broader characterization as well as a garish new color palette. Hopper went from a grieving, troubled father to a grumpy sitcom dad crossed with a ‘80s action hero, and Mike went from a sweet, sensitive suburban kid to a gormless bad boyfriend for the sake of plot convenience. Unfortunately, the main change underlying these alternations only got worse as the show continued.

Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 Proves Netflix’s Franchise Is Family-Friendly Now

Eleven with a nosebleed in Stranger Things

At its core, Stranger Things was not a family-friendly show when the series began, but it has done everything in its power to change that in the years since. A look back on Netflix’s most-watched shows ever proves that a broad demographic appeal isn’t necessarily a prerequisite for success on the streaming service. Wednesday’s re-imagining of the Addams Family franchise is a family-friendly affair, but the stark, brutal, and thoroughly mature Adolescence was just as big a hit with viewers worldwide.

Meanwhile, the fact that Invincible and The Boys are two of Prime Video’s biggest shows, while Game of Thrones remains the biggest HBO franchise to date, proves that shows that push the boundaries of censorship can attract huge audiences. In contrast, Stranger Things season 1 was never as dark or violent as these shows, but the creators of the series still felt compelled to ensure it only got more family-friendly as it progressed, and its first spinoff, the animated series Stranger Things: Tales from ’85, brings this process to its inevitable conclusion.

Set between seasons 2 and 3, Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 sees recast versions of Dustin, Mike, Max, Will, Lucas, and Eleven join Odessa A’zion’s new character Nikki Baxter in taking down monsters that have escaped the Upside-Down. Pitched as a Saturday morning cartoon set in the world of Hawkins, Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 actively tries to make Stranger Things into a more family-friendly series, with less violence, more harmless monsters, and less mature dialogue.

Stranger Things Was Originally A Dark Mature Series

Millie Bobby Brown in Stranger Things Season 5 finale

While seasons 1 and 2 of the series are arguably as bleak as anything Stephen King wrote that inspired the show, this isn’t the only thing that made the series distinctly family-unfriendly. Like the teenage characters of Stand By Me or the It movies, the kids of Stranger Things talk like real teens, which means a lot of swearing and genuinely cruel insults. This is hardly as shocking as seeing a government agent casually murder an innocent diner owner in the pilot, but it is another reminder of how dark the original tone of the show is.

In contrast, the Duffer Brothers’ upcoming follow-up The Boroughs has a playful sense of whimsy and wonder that borrows from Ron Howard’s sentimental 1985 sci-fi movie Cocoon. If they wanted to, the show’s creators could have made Stranger Things season 1 something more like Joe Dante’s 1985 hit Explorers, a light kid-centric Amblin Entertainment movie that didn’t feature any of the scares or gore that defined the horror genre throughout the decade.

Unfortunately, Stranger Things tried to have its cake and eat it, too, by making Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 and season 3 outright comedic, while other outings of the show are darker and more mature. 2022’s superb season 4 was an abrupt return to the grim tone of season 1, dropping all the wacky plot contrivances like secret Soviets hiding under the mall in favor of a villain that used the mental illness of teenagers to torture them to death.

Stranger Things Changing Genres Hurt Season 5’s Ending

This sudden tonal swerve could have been disastrous, and it is bizarre to re-watch the series as a whole and see the blatant change that takes place between seasons 3 and 4. However, Stranger Things season 4 made Vecna such a compelling villain, thanks in large part to Jamie Campbell Bower’s performance, that the change felt like a welcome relief after the silliness of season 3. Sadly, the show pivoted right back to goofiness in season 5, and Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 only made this change worse.

Eleven’s ambiguous fate aside, not one main character died in the show’s final outing. A series that seemingly killed off both Will and Eleven at the midpoint and the ending of season 1, respectively, had now reached a level of PG-rated safety so extreme that Mike, Will, Lucas, Dustin, Max, Erica, Hopper, Joyce, Steve, Robin, Nancy, Holly, both Wheeler parents, Murray, Robin’s love interest, and even season 5 newcomer Derek all emerged unscathed from the finale.

Maya Hawke's Robin and Joe Keery's Steve in Stranger Things

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Admittedly, Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 at least marketed itself as a lighter alternative to the original series. However, the fact that the show stars the same characters in the same universe means that the spinoff can’t help but feel like another contribution to the franchise’s attempts to retcon its dark past. Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 takes the sweary, imperfect kids of Stranger Things seasons 1 and 2 and their murky, grim hometown, and transforms the setting and the stars into anodyne, sanitized versions of themselves, with all rough edges smoothed out and any interesting idiosyncrasies filed down.