Stranger Things: Tales from '85 review: The best Stranger Things season since 2019

I thought I was done with Stranger Things.

Like many others, I was a fanatic about the show early on, but each season was a full step down from the previous one. Season 1 was a perfect 10. Season 2, with the addition of Max and a nearly-as-good story, was a solid “nine.” Season 3 was a respectable “eight” (hurt only by the convoluted Russia stuff). But with seasons 4 and 5, the deterioration was unmistakable thanks to actors who had aged out of their roles, the addition of too many new characters, and stories that seemed to drag, making the final two seasons a “seven” and “six” respectively.

I definitely didn’t think I needed more Stranger Things, much less a cartoon that recasts all the original characters. Then I watched Stranger Things: Tales from ‘85 and found it to be way better than I expected. Thanks to clever writing and great voice acting, the animated series manages to recapture some of that early Stranger Things charm.

Stranger Things: Tales from ‘85 was executive produced by the Duffer Brothers and developed by animation veteran Eric Robles (Fanboy & Chum Chum), who also serves as the showrunner. The series follows Mike, Will, Lucas, Dustin, Eleven, and Max on a storyline set in between seasons 2 and 3 of the original series. Throughout Tales from ‘85's 10 episodes, the kids face off against a horde of demogorgon-like parasitic plant monsters. The party also makes a new friend in Nikki (Odessa A'zion), a lonely, outcast girl whose mom (Janeane Garofalo) is the substitute science teacher.

This show, however, is not just a "missing season" of Stranger Things, it's a totally different show. First of all, it’s much more focused on the kids. Joyce is entirely absent from the series, and Hopper is only seen a few times (and only in an adversarial role where the kids need to make sure he doesn’t find out what they’ve been up to). The older teens have very reduced roles, too. Steve and Nancy each get just one episode where they are a prominent guest star, and Jonathan Byers gets only a brief cameo, which is plenty. While this changes the dynamics of the original series, it also helps Tales from ‘85 find its own identity. Half-hour episodes and a more narrow focus on the kids prevents the series from getting bloated with characters (a huge problem for the original series, especially in the later seasons).

The storytelling is also helped along by a clever device introduced by Dustin (Braxton Quinney). Emboldened by the events of seasons 1 and 2, Dustin essentially turns the party into a team of paranormal investigators called the “Hawkins Investigators Club” (which everyone derisively calls “Hi-C”). This gives the kids a reason to go out looking for trouble, rather than contriving ways for it to constantly find them. And since these kids are Ghostbusters fans, it makes perfect sense. They even acknowledge the Ghostbusters inspiration in the show.

Tales from '85 also does a nice job capturing the personalities of those six kids, particularly the youthful energy they had in the early seasons. The show is more “family-friendly” so there’s nothing like Lucas shouting “Eat shit!” in the original show, but this series has not pacified the characters to the degree where it's obnoxious. Being a cartoon, the characters are a little simplified in terms of their personalities, but it's only a mild adjustment and not an obnoxious one.

Turning a sometimes R-rated show into a family-friendly cartoon while still maintaining its familiarity is an extremely tall order, but Robles really pulls it off. Especially impressive is the fact that, just like in the original series, the kids sound like real kids, which is not easy to do and is definitely critical to the show working.

A lot of credit also belongs to the show’s voice actors, nearly all of whom pull off their characters rather convincingly. Hopper (Brett Gipson) doesn’t quite sound like David Harbour. Eleven (Brooklyn Davey Norstedt) also feels a little off, though I think that has more to do with the writing because, at this point in the Stranger Things timeline, Eleven is still talking with that caveman-speak she had early on, and even in the original series, that was often inconsistent. Beyond that, however, all the kids sound — and, more importantly, feel — like the original characters.

There have been some complaints online about the recasting, including the fact that the showrunner didn’t even bother to ask the original cast to return. While I can see why that might offend people who love the original cast, it was the right call. The main Stranger Things kids are all in their 20s now, and would have made for convincing 13-year-olds. It's also pretty clear that, by season 5 of the original series, several of the actors were over Stranger Things, and that apathy sometimes came through onscreen. The same would have happened for this cartoon. Plus, if some actors had returned for this show while others didn’t, it would have made for a strange dynamic. Most importantly, voice acting is just a different skill set than on-camera acting, and some actors — even great actors like Matt Damon in Titan A.E. — aren’t very good at it. Better for Tales from '85 to start fresh with a whole new cast and I think it does that remarkably well.

The cumulative effect of very good casting plus short, energetic, kid-focused stories did something I did not believe was possible. Stranger Things: Tales from ‘85 actually manages to recapture a lot of the early charm from the original Stranger Things. Once again the characters feel like optimistic, energetic kids on a grand adventure. They’re kids who argue with and tease each other and love to eat snack food and make pop culture references. And despite the fact that they’re in life-and-death situations, there's a sense of fun to their stories. It’s a feeling I have not gotten from Stranger Things since 2019.

That said, Tales From '85 isn’t perfect. Beyond Hopper not sounding right and Eleven’s stilted dialogue, Will (Ben Plessala) experiences a character growth that he then experiences again in the show’s later seasons, where he realizes he's not so weak after all. None of the writing here is bad, it’s just redundant.

I also don’t love the new characters. They’re not terrible, but they’re clearly shoehorned in to create this plotline, which makes the eventual revelations about them somewhat obvious. It’s especially strange that Nikki becomes a full-fledged member of the party between seasons 2 and 3, only to never be mentioned again in the actual series. While she’s not annoying or anything, I’m honestly not entirely sure why Robles felt like he needed this character, though perhaps that will be revealed in future seasons of the show, which have yet to be announced but, by the final episode of this season, seem to be intended.

The only thing I really don’t like about the show is how it looks, and with cartoons, that’s a pretty big factor. The darkly-rendered CGI animation suits Hawkins well, and the glowing aesthetic added to the monsters really make them pop. The humans, however, look strangely doll-like, with these big, still faces that barely communicate emotion and are somehow both pretty and ugly at the same time. While you can tell who everyone is, there’s a same-ness to the character design.

Back when this series was announced, the Duffer Brothers said they wanted this show to have the feel of the kind of Saturday morning cartoon they grew up with. With this, I can't help but think that Stranger Things: Tales from ‘85 could have really benefited from being a 2D show with a strong retro style. Instead, we got these weird, emotionless designs that have even less life in them than Marvel’s What If?

Still, while I really don’t like the look of these characters, I do think they felt and sounded right, which is a real testament to the writing and the acting. While I severely doubt Stranger Things: Tales from '85 will ever reach the heights of the original show’s first three seasons, it did make me remember what I love about these characters, which, to be honest, was something I'd kind of forgotten.

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Stranger Things: Tales from ‘85 is streaming now on Netflix.