Yep, binged my way through Stranger Things 2. Next comes the bike turbo full set viewing

I'll guiltily admit to binge watching the Stranger Things 2 series. Not all in one go, but still quite speedily. The mainly U-Certificate scariness is appealing, along with some proper Saturday morning cinema cliffhangers.

The actors, both youthful and adult, play the whole storyline convincingly, whilst little hat-tips acknowledge other movies and TV-shows. It could be as simple as the retrieval of a hat after the equivalent of a Temple of Doom moment, mysterious foreboding colour signals, or even the ways that colours repeat around the Mom character played by Winona Ryder.

Actually, Ryder's part as the mother plays brilliantly, and she doesn't seem to waste a single frame. And that's the thing with this series. Just about all the characters could have been selected from other slightly scary movies to play their parts in this one. Whether it's the tough lone cop with a heart of gold, the scientist with secrets, the ensemble BMX-riding lads with their 1980's walkie talkies, mysterious 011, it all fits nicely together.

They've managed to get over the sequel to Part 1 issue too, with the pre-existing scary thing now part of a Much Bigger Thing. For a series which requires plenty of dark-scene action, they've also managed to shoot it well. The only time the screen goes properly black is when they intend it to. Other times we see shadows well lit enough to tell what is happening.

Maybe there were a few pacing issues in this series. There were times when conversations seemed to take their time, but I suppose this was also an echo of olden days episodic shows where the right cliffhanger needed to happen at exactly the right point. Okay, and there is one Mr Robot-esque episode that doesn't seem to serve a sensible purpose, except maybe if they were hunting around for a sequel or trying to think of ideas for a spin off. Easily forgotten in the run of the series although an overly clumsy way to rebuild a character.

Aside from the minor gripes I've decided to do a full series sweep through Series 1 and 2 at some point soon. It may need to be a bike turbo thing.