Stranger Things 3 gives more Saturday morning picture show flashback moments as we watch the residents of Hawkins, Indiana grappling with things in the woods and hideous monster attacks.
You can just sense that aerial scene of a bleak dark forest can only mean one thing. Trouble in them-there woods. In the last series we had to get to grips with the Upside Down // whoa // parallel universe of mind-flaying gloom and just when we all thought it was safe to come back into the sunlight some mad scientists start drilling again.
It's all set in the 1980s so we get a vintage vibe to the titling, the clothes, the music and even the special effects. To be honest, there are more 'look away' moments in the new series and, I suspect, a higher body count.
Despite the menace, we are still all having fun in new-style shopping malls (destroying the core town of Hawkins) and Scooby-Doo style knockabout adventures, although the series production team must have had a challenge keeping so many zany characters looping through the scenes without running into one another or sharing knowledge.
There's so many classic tropes included too - everything from team bonding, girls go shopping, swooning over the lifeguard, crummy product placement, shootout in the burning building. And in the mall, I was secretly looking out for Sam Goody (yes) and Sbarro (didn't spot one). The mall movie playing? Back to the Future I, of course.
That's part of the success of this series, I suppose. It does what you want it to, rolling towards its next spot of mayhem. Headlights in the distance? Engine revving? That'll be trouble. Down the stairs into the sputteringly lit basement? Don't look! Pipe organs at the sun-drenched funfair? Dial up the menace.
Here's the advert for the Starcourt Mall, complete with VHS jitter.
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