SCHOOL'S OUT

SUCH IS THE ALMOST unlimited power of Netflix, they’ve transported Empire back to July, 1985. We’re strolling round the Starcourt, a newly built mall in middle America. Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ is pumping out of the speakers, Back To The Future, Cocoon and Fletch are playing at the multiplex cinema, boomboxes line the shelves of the Radio Shack store, there’s a Jazzercise outlet above the food court, and a bunch of little kids are exploiting the free sample offer at the Scoops Ahoy ice-cream parlour, much to the annoyance of the older teens who work there. School’s most definitely out for summer. In the middle of this retina-scorching whirl of neon and strip-lighting is a teenage girl with a drop of blood at her nostril.

This is, of course, the fictional world of Hawkins, Indiana, the small town at the centre of , Netflix’s biggest pop- culture phenomenon so far, created by the Duffer brothers, Matt and Ross. And that world is about to change radically. After two series mostly set in grey school classrooms and corridors, the basements of suburban homes, and a shady research facility deep in the woods, Season 3 broadens its canvas, with much of the early action