A TV / movie critic doesn't like it ... so that means it must be
excellent. :-p


'Stranger Things' Animated Spinoff 'Tales From '85'
Is a Depressing, Cynical Retread
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Most spinoffs expand their flagship shows in a direction. That
direction could be forward, following a beloved character past
the events of the original story, a la "Frasier"; it could be
backward, fleshing out the origins of a person or place with
pre-established significance, the approach taken by both
current "Game of Thrones" offshoots. It could even be lateral,
simply transferring a concept to a different setting within
the same universe in the time-honored tradition of procedurals
like "CSI" or "Law & Order."

For its first official TV extension, "Stranger Things" opts
for none of the above. (A theatrical production, "The First
Shadow," took place in the 1950s.) "Stranger Things: Tales
From '85" is animated rather than live action, an obvious
visual cue we're no longer watching the show that wrapped its
blockbuster run on Netflix earlier this year. It turns out such
a signal is sorely needed, because "Tales From '85" winds back
the clock to tell the exact same story as "Stranger Things"
proper, with the exact same characters, in the exact same
archetypal small town of Hawkins, Indiana.?

The primary distinction is that this version of the Hellfire
Club, now voiced by a fresh set of actors, will never face the
main constraint on a serialized story about young children: They
don't age. "Tales From '85" is a transparent attempt to preserve
"Stranger Things" in pixels rather than amber, allowing Netflix
to keep capitalizing on the phenomenon long after its original
faces have moved on to other projects.

Per the title, "Tales From '85" takes place between the events of
"Stranger Things" Seasons 2 and 3 - before the Battle of
Starcourt Mall, the introduction of fan-favorite character Robin
(Maya Hawke) or, most crucially, the main protagonists started to
visibly transition from adorable tweens to post-puberty
adolescents to, eventually, young adults. Exactly what occurred
between those two chapters has never been a subject of great
suspense. "Tales From '85" is quite literally doodling in the
margins of "Stranger Things" mythology, or would be if the
creative team (led by showrunner Eric Robles, with the Duffer
Brothers executive producing) had opted for a hand-drawn look
inspired by the kind of '80s cartoons its heroes watch between
interdimensional adventures. But instead of "Transformers" or
"He-Man," "Tales From '85" as produced by animation studio Flying
Bark looks like any number of contemporary, computer-generated
shows, just with flashes of neon and other period details.

To summarize the plot of "Tales From '85" is redundant, because
it's the same plot as any other season of "Stranger Things":
besties Will (Ben Plessala, subbing in for Noah Schnapp), Mike
(Luca Diaz, for Finn Wolfhard), Lucas (EJ Williams, for Caleb
McLaughlin), Dustin (Braxton Quinney, for Gaten Matarazzo), Max
(Jolie Hoang-Rappaport, for Sadie Sink) and their superpowered
friend Eleven (Brookly Davey Norstedt, for Millie Bobby Brown)
team up to fight an interdimensional threat from the Upside Down
as local adults remain oblivious. That the gate between our world
and the Upside Down in the Hawkins Laboratory basement is
technically shut at this point in the master narrative is a mere
technicality that's easily handwaved.

The group's internal dynamics and story beats are just as
identical as the overall mission. Mike is protective of Eleven;
Lucas and Max have sweet (then-platonic) chemistry; Dustin hangs
out with reformed bully Steve Harrington (Jeremy Jordan, stepping
in for Joe Keery). Dustin even re-christens the group the Hawkins
Investigators Club, a particularly groanworthy development since
there's already a fictional member's group that unites the ragtag
gang. (Did the Hellfire Club not survive the digital transition?)
If "Stranger Things" was already a nostalgia exercise, then "Tales
from '85" caters to nostalgia for nostalgia, a recursive loop with
a predictably diminished impact.

The ensemble's main new addition is Nikki (Odessa A'Zion), a
pink-mohawked punk whose individuality is encouraged by her mother
Anna (Janeane Garofalo), a substitute science teacher. Why haven't
we heard any mention of Nikki in subsequent seasons? Perhaps because
she serves as a kind of proto-Robin, a queer-coded role model to
encourage Will's individuality before he even understands what makes
him different. Once the real Robin shows up down the line, Nikki
could be safely memory-wiped. As engaging an aural presence as
A'Zion, a rising star, may be, it's hard to fall in love with
someone you know won't be around in just a few months of in-universe
time, never to come up again.?

More than the presence of such technically new faces that slot neatly
into pre-established tropes, what distinguishes "Tales From '85" is
that the characters are no longer tethered to flesh-and-blood humans.
Without the liability of actors whose voices will deepen and heights
will shoot up over time, Netflix can continue to exploit this IP as
long as its audience desires, looking ever-more-solipsistically
inward rather than branching out. I'll give "Tales From '85" this
much credit: it's as creepy and unsettling an idea as this
horror-adjacent franchise has produced in years.

All eight episodes of "Stranger Things: Tales From '85" are now
streaming on Netflix.



<https://variety.com/2026/tv/reviews/stranger-things-tales-from-85-review-animated-spinoff-1236728076/>






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