The series didn’t get a big push from Netflix. It wasn’t pitched to TV critics. But when it debuted in July 2016, “Stranger Things” caught on. Netflix doesn’t release viewership numbers, but clearly a lot of people were talking about it and writing about it.
With good reason. The eight-part story, set in 1980s Indiana, played out like a 1980s horror movie. It centered on the strange disappearance of 12-year-old Will (Noah Schnapp); the efforts of his friends Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Glenn Matarrazo) and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) to find him; and the arrival of a strange girl, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), with strange powers.