How quickly a good thing can become a bad thing is not one of the specific tales from ’85, but it is more or less the overall theme of Stranger Things: Tales from ’85. That applies both to the story connecting these ten episodes and to the general feeling I had when it was all over. Our young cast is in between mysteries in 1985, now fully aware of Eleven’s powers, the Upside Down, and everything that happened to Will. With nothing particularly strange happening at the moment, the kids are bored enough to consider expanding their detective talents. Luckily for them, more strange things are afoot in Hawkins because apparently everything happens here. It reminds me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where Sunnydale sat on the Hellmouth, so Buffy rarely had to go anywhere to find evil because evil conveniently came to her. Hawkins has basically become the same thing. There might as well be a giant dot on the map that says, “Come here and wreak havoc.”
This animated spinoff is Netflix’s first attempt at keeping Stranger Things alive after the conclusion of the live-action series, but none of the original cast has returned to voice their characters. Instead, Netflix found people who sound vaguely like the actors they’re replacing, to varying degrees of success. Brooklyn Davey Norstedt voices Eleven, Luca Diaz is Mike, Benjamin Plessala is Will, Braxton Quinney is Dustin, Elisha “EJ” Williams is Lucas, Jolie Hoang-Rappaport is Max, Brett Gipson is Hopper, and Jeremy Jordan steps in as Steve. I thought Max and Dustin came the closest to sounding like the characters we already know, while several of the others, including Hopper, weren’t even close. Some of these performances reminded me of having that friend who can do a Christopher Walken impersonation, except he really can’t do a Christopher Walken impersonation. He just thinks he can, and you’re supposed to pretend because you’re trying to be a nice person. That’s how some of this voice casting feels. They matched what they could and moved on from there.
The season takes place across a wintry Hawkins landscape and has the gang facing all sorts of monsters, including pumpkin monsters, which might have been more interesting if I hadn’t already sat through Hulu’s Carved, where a giant pumpkin monster cuts people up, along with another recent R.L. Stine adaptation playing around with similar territory. The kids don’t really want to work with the adults because they’re convinced they can handle this themselves. They want to find the things that go bump in the night and tackle them while also dealing with school, bullies, parents, curfews, and all the usual Stranger Things adolescent drama. There’s also a new kid in town, Nikki Baxter, voiced by Odessa A’zion, whose mother Anna is voiced by Janeane Garofalo. Nikki gets roped into the larger arc of the season and helps balance out the group a little more.
The problem with introducing somebody like Nikki into a story that supposedly happened between things we’ve already seen is that we know the future. It takes away some of the suspense. It’s sort of like watching The Westies right now. When you have characters filling out the Irish gang against John Gotti, everyone already knows how Gotti’s story ends, while some of these lower-level Irish wannabes are unknown to history. When you suddenly introduce a significant new character into Stranger Things who isn’t around later and doesn’t remain part of the group, there’s an immediate question hanging over that character. Depending on what they decide to do with season two, I suppose Nikki could remain within the confines of the animated series, but who knows. I’m actually a little surprised this got another season. It must have been part of a larger plan because this wasn’t very good.
It started out fine because the premise was interesting, but stretching this story across ten episodes makes it feel increasingly like a side quest. Eventually they try pulling everything together through a science project connected to Nikki and her family, but by the time I reached the end, I wasn’t particularly interested in how they were maneuvering everyone into place. I just kept thinking, how does this remotely compare to the live-action series? And for parents thinking this might be a more family-friendly way of introducing their kids to Stranger Things, this still has plenty of scary monsters. This isn’t Stranger Things Babies, where everyone fights cute little Demogorgons who just need a hug. These creatures are still intended to be frightening. They just happen to be animated.
The best thing I can say about Tales from ’85 is its audio description. International Digital Center, the company behind the live-action Stranger Things audio description, returns here, and Jamie Lemcheck narrates after also narrating the final season of the original series. That creates at least some welcome continuity between the two shows, especially when so many of the voices have changed. Since Tales from ’85 is such a visually striking show by nature, there’s plenty for the audio description to tackle, from the animation itself to the various creatures terrorizing Hawkins. Whatever problems I had with the actual series, the audio description wasn’t one of them. This is a strong track attached to a show I increasingly wished I wasn’t watching.
As far as comparing this with the live-action seasons, I think Tales from ’85 answers a question for anyone who has complained about any previous season of Stranger Things. If you didn’t like one of those seasons, here’s Tales from ’85 to clear up the rankings as to which adventure actually belongs at the bottom. I can’t imagine too many people putting this above any of the live-action seasons, no matter how much they disliked one of them. This is exactly what it feels like: a franchise extension that cheapens the brand instead of finding a different story worth telling within the same universe. Breaking Bad found Better Call Saul. It didn’t decide there was secretly another Walter White adventure wedged between episodes that everyone somehow forgot to mention afterward.
That’s the biggest problem. Tales from ’85 wants us to believe this was part of the lore all along, hiding in plain sight, even though nobody talks about these events later. Somehow this entire adventure is now connected in the great circle of Stranger Things life. I argue that no one really needed this. Netflix could have created another series within the Stranger Things universe using many of the same themes without returning to these characters at all. Follow one supporting character somewhere else and discover another portal, another Upside Down, or some completely different strange thing happening in another part of the world. Do a prequel. Tell us a story about Hawkins before Eleven and the gang. There were options.
Instead, they chose animation and a story squeezed into existing continuity, hoping the Stranger Things name would do most of the heavy lifting. It feels like a cash grab arriving when the ending of the original series is still fresh in people’s minds. Did we really need to keep Stranger Things alive this quickly after the finale? Do we really need multiple seasons of Tales from ’85 this soon? I don’t think so. There’s something particularly strange about watching a franchise refuse to let its audience miss it. Stranger Things barely got out the door before Netflix started rattling the keys again.
Despite the strong audio description, this became a chore to get through. I wish there were fewer episodes. I wish the story was more interesting. I wish more of the voice actors sounded like the people they’re supposed to be representing. Most of all, I wish Netflix had taken the opportunity to prove that the Stranger Things universe was bigger than these same characters having yet another adventure in Hawkins that apparently everybody forgot about afterward. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s what Netflix is interested in. I think they plan on dangling the shiny keys until that trick doesn’t work anymore.
Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 is a brand-killing waste of time.
Rotten: 4.7/10
