Described as a “love letter to the ’80s classics that captivated a generation”, the original drama is set in 1983 Indiana, where a young boy vanishes into thin air. As friends, family and local police search for answers, they are drawn into a mystery involving top-secret government experiments, supernatural forces and a strange little girl. The second series of Stranger Things continues a year later when the citizens of Hawkins, Indiana, are still reeling from the horrors of the Demogorgon and the secrets of Hawkins Lab.

The series stars Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers, David Harbour as Chief Jim Hopper, Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler, Noah Schnapp as Will Byers, Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven, Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair, Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson, Cara Buono as Karen Wheeler, Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler, Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers, Joe Keery as Steve Harrington, Dacre Montgomery as Billy, and Sadie Sink as Max, among others.

Stranger Things is a Netflix original production created by The Duffer Brothers, who also serve as executive producers and directors along with Shawn Levy (who also directs), Dan Cohen and Iain Patterson.

The programme has enjoyed popularity across a range of age demographics, drawing huge ratings and similar strong engagement across social media platforms. Recent surveys have shown that nearly a third of the programme’s audience of Netflix’s flagship show are aged over 35, and over two-thirds of social engagements across the US driven by 18-34-year-olds. It also boasts a predominantly female audience, with 57% of social noise in the US being generated by women.

The programme received 18 Emmy nominations in 2017, with five wins, and was honoured with the 2017 SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, as well as the 2017 Norman Felton Producer of the Year Award in Episodic Television - Drama from the Producers Guild of America.