We’re amid a serious Stranger Things drought. Yes, Season 5 is coming, as the Duffer brothers love to keep reminding us, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s been three years since we visited Hawkins, or that there’s only one season left. Once Season 5 is done and dusted, how will Netflix continue the story of its first sci-fi hit? We finally have an answer, and it solves the show’s biggest problem.
Variety reports that Netflix has greenlit an animated spinoff called Stranger Things: Tales From ‘85. A first look at the series will premiere at June’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival, but we already got a little hint at what’s to come when the organizers said, “Your Saturday morning cartoons are getting turned upside down.”
That’s about all we know for sure so far. The title suggests the series will be an anthology, while the mention of Saturday morning cartoons implies a more classic Scooby-Doo-esque monster-of-the-week vibe. And since the title mentions 1985, we can assume it will take place during Season 3, before the Byers move to California.
Finally, the pesky problem of time’s mercilessness has been solved.
This animated series fixes the live-action version’s biggest problem: the never-ending march of time. Stranger Things has been in production for a decade now, so the tweens they cast back in 2015 are now full-grown adults busy marrying nepo babies and directing their own horror-comedies.
Animation can create years’ worth of content while freezing the Hawkins gang in 1985 forever. Stranger Things may have found a way to fight off demons, alternate dimensions, and metaphysical threats, but it’s only now that it’s found a way to fight the biggest threat to profitability: aging.
