Stranger Things (2016– )

Stranger Things is the newest foray into Netflix's original programming, of which brings us their most impressive- and strange- production to date. When a young boy named Will Byers goes missing, his friends, mother and the town are thrust into a conspiracy involving a mysterious girl named Eleven and something even more sinister hiding in the woods of Hawkins, Indiana.

From the get-go, you can tell this is an homage to classic '80s Spielberg, drawing on E.T. and Close Encounters, as well as JJ Abrams' Super 8. But, as the show progresses, it becomes more and more like a twisted Stephen King story set in a Spielberg movie. It becomes a dark and twisted ride into an even darker and more disturbing world where the stakes feel higher than anything before it.

I can't go into great detail because spoiling even just a bit of the story takes away from the greater mystery, but I can say, it's one of the most thrilling and intense series to be on TV, without being on TV. If it were to continue, they have to pull the same punches they did with the first season, because they took a great many clichés, and somehow made them fresh and surprising, save for just a couple that they purposefully left cliché.