While Netflix’s business model of producing original programming seems to be akin to flinging spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, few people could have predicted the success of its sci-fi drama Stranger Things. Before its release, little was known about the project beyond the involvement of Oscar-nominated actress Winona Ryder (Bram Stoker’s Dracula), so the show was billed as her major comeback to the industry after a quiet decade. Its creators, the Duffer Brothers, were best known for a little-known horror film, Hidden, and their work on the Fox series Wayward Pines. The show itself was considered a summer viewing stopgap before the premiere of Netflix’s more hotly hyped (and wildly more expensive) drama The Get Down, which would arrive a month later.
Yet within its first month of release, Stranger Things would go on to become one of the streaming service’s most critically adored seasons, as well as its most popular debut drama. While Netflix don’t release viewership numbers, Symphony Technology Group estimated that the show averaged around 14.07 million adults between the ages 18–49 in the United States alone. Those are the kind of ratings traditional networks can no longer retain for their dramas.
A year later the show has managed to retain its hype, which is no mean feat in the age of Peak TV and Netflix releasing new shows with increasingly regularity. The five child actors in the ensemble, most notably Millie Bobby Brown, have become major stars and staples of the convention circuit, David Harbour went from respected bit-part actor to fan-favorite, and the future Hellboy, and the show took home the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. Suffice to say that Netflix’s expectations for Stranger Things have dramatically increased since the series’ debut.
Stranger Things season 2 is set to debut on October 27th, just in time for Halloween, but promotion for it began months ago when Netflix paid the hefty price to advertise during the Super Bowl. That teaser may have only been 30 seconds long, but it set back the streaming service at least $5m. It ended up being a savvy investment and increased online buzz for the show, which it’s retained over the following months. The challenge for Netflix and the Duffer Brothers won’t be to keep the hype going so much as live up to it, which will be a lofty feat unto itself.
Every successful first season faces the possibility of the sophomore slump, wherein the promise of the set-up stumbles in its execution. This is an especially common phenomenon with genre shows: Twin Peaks took a noticeable nosedive in its 2nd season; Lost offered a 1st season cliff-hanger for the ages then became too tied up in its own convoluted oddities to keep the momentum going; and The Walking Dead confined most of its action to Hershel’s Farm, bringing the action to a grinding halt. Building the mystery is one thing: Paying it off and keeping the story moving forward is much more difficult, and even some of the great show-runners can’t keep up the runaway pace. Stranger Things’s second season promo has already promised more of the big bad monster from the upside down, which is certainly a dramatic raising of the stakes, but the need to keep doing so could shift the focus away from the richness of the ensemble, where the real magic lies.
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Sometimes, networks take the wrong ideas from a show’s success and make major changes that force the show to take new directions that lessen its appeal (such was the case with Fox’s Sleepy Hollow). Netflix has tried to remain hands-off with original programming, giving creators like Peter Morgan (The Crown), Jenji Kohan (Orange is the New Black) and Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij (The OA) a level of creative freedom most traditional networks simply wouldn’t allow. That model has paid off handsomely for some shows, but there are notable failures, like The Get Down.
While reports of the series’ budget have been varied, Deadline estimated that the twelve episode run cost a staggering $190m, making it easily the most expensive TV show ever made. Overall, reviews for the show were respectable, but it failed to capture audiences’ attention, and its under-performing nature could not help but be compared to its summer neighbour, Stranger Things. Many reports cited the show-runner Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge) as the cause of the eyebrow-raising costs, as the director’s style led to script rewrites, shooting delays and other such problems. This is obviously something Netflix are keen to avoid in the future, which could pose problems for Stranger Things. It costs much less to make than something like The Get Down or The Crown, but more is riding on its success, and with Netflix’s own finances under scrutiny, they may be fighting off the urge to take rein of the creative controls.
Stranger Things has received acclaim for its homages to the work of classic horror authors, most notably Stephen King. The genre king’s stamp is all over the show, from the interactions between the kids evoking memories of Stand By Me to Eleven’s parallels with the protagonist of Firestarter. Even the show’s distinctive opening credits are straight from a King novel. This creative reworking of nostalgia is one of the show’s real strengths, but now the show has to premiere alongside one of the works it is most inspired by. IT, often cited as King’s masterpiece, is a major source of influence for Stranger Things, particularly in its central conflict with the kids going up against a shadowy supernatural force and being unable to tell the adults about it. The latest adaptation of the novel, starring Bill Skarsgård and Finn Wolfhard (Mike from Stranger Things), premieres a month before the show’s second season, which will present a fascinating compare and contrast for the series, but also raise those expectations even further.
The biggest problem Stranger Things faces is the challenges the show set itself. The gripping intrigue of the first season - from the mystery of Will Byers’ disappearance to Eleven’s origins to the nefarious aims of Hawkins Laboratory - were set up with such control and panache, hooking viewers and giving them just enough information to let Netflix roll onto the next episode. They have to tread a fine line in the second season between giving the audience the answers they crave and holding back enough to keep them interested. If you leave them hanging for too long, they’ll grow frustrated and turn off; give them everything they want and there’s no reason to continue watching. Even Stephen King can’t help but stumble with some of his third acts, unable to give the pay off his build-up promised.
With the Emmy nominations being announced this week and Stranger Things garnering a staggering 18 nominations, Netflix’s expectations for the show may surpass that of their entire original output of television. The stakes are simply too high for them not to do everything in their power to make this show a long-term hit, one that will keep audiences hooked and subscription numbers rising. That’s no mean feat for the Duffer Brothers, who now find themselves under a much harsher spotlight than before. Giving everyone, from audiences to Netflix to critics, what they want may be easier said than done.
