⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: This article contains full spoilers for Stranger Things: Tales From ’85, Season 1.
When Netflix announced an animated spinoff of Stranger Things set between Seasons 2 and 3, reactions were divided. Some fans saw it as a natural extension of a beloved universe. Others were more skeptical: an animated series with an entirely new voice cast replacing the iconic performances of Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, and the rest of the Hawkins gang? That’s a bold ask of a fandom built on specific faces and voices.
Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 premiered on April 23, 2026 on Netflix and was developed by Eric Robles and Jennifer Muro, based on the world created by Matt and Ross Duffer, who serve as executive producers alongside Shawn Levy, Dan Cohen, and Hilary Leavitt. The Duffers’ stated intention was to capture the feel of an ’80s Saturday morning cartoon set in the Stranger Things universe, and that ambition shapes everything about what the show is and isn’t.
The result is a series that is genuinely more interesting than it had any right to be, more creatively ambitious than its premise suggests, and more frustrating in its canon complications than even skeptical fans anticipated.
What Is Tales From ’85?
The series takes place in the winter months between Season 2 and Season 3 of the main show, specifically after the Snow Ball dance of November 1984 and before the summer of 1985 when the Starcourt Mall storyline begins. At this point in the story, Eleven has just closed the gate, Will has returned from the Upside Down, and the couples formed at the Snow Ball are still new.
The series depicts the children — Eleven, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Will, and Max — as they confront new monsters of the Upside Down and unravel a paranormal mystery terrorizing their town. The primary antagonist is a new creature called the Snowshark, accompanied by pumpkin-headed demogorgons and vine-like monsters, giving the show a mix of adversaries rather than a single villain-of-the-season structure.
Animation is handled by Flying Bark Productions in Sydney. Robles cites 1980s cartoons and young adult horror as major influences, including He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Scooby-Doo, and especially The Real Ghostbusters, which he referred to as his “north star.” The production team also studied modern animated successes like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Arcane in creating the visual style. Prominent creature designer Carlos Huante, known for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Prometheus, was involved in creating the new monsters.
The Series Review
The Animation
The animation is the show’s most unambiguous success. It is lush, vibrant, and captures that specific neon-meets-winter-grit of 1985. Seeing Hawkins in a stylized, hand-drawn light gives the town a fresh energy that allows the creators to lean into the horror elements in a way that live-action budgets sometimes restrict.
The crisp, polished, colorful cartoon version is actually much prettier than the murky CG of the later live-action seasons, and the decision to set the story in winter rather than the franchise’s more familiar summer and autumn settings gives the animation a distinctive cold palette that feels genuinely new. Hawkins in the snow is a different place, quieter and more isolated, and the animation captures that atmosphere beautifully.
The Voice Cast
None of the original live-action actors returned to voice their characters, and the animated series assembled an entirely new lineup of voice talent: Brooklyn Davey Norstedt as Eleven, Jolie Hoang-Rappaport as Max, Luca Diaz as Mike, Elisha “EJ” Williams as Lucas, Braxton Quinney as Dustin, Ben Plessala as Will, and Brett Gipson as Hopper. Additional voices include Odessa A’zion as new character Nikki Baxter, Jeremy Jordan, Janeane Garofalo, and Lou Diamond Phillips.
The disconnect between seeing Finn Wolfhard’s animated face and hearing a different voice is initially strange, but the writing is so authentically Stranger Things that the voices blend into the background within the first episode. The story is simply too captivating to let a minor change distract you.
The Horror
Tales From ’85 is significantly creepier and scarier than anticipated. It isn’t afraid to get dark — really dark — maintaining that high-stakes tension where you genuinely fear for the safety of the kids. The issue that may arise for some viewers is the fact that it gets very dark. The original series did as well, but it’s strange to have a series with a TV-PG rating be this intense.
Tales From ’85 is as creepy and unsettling an idea as this horror-adjacent franchise has produced in years, and the animated format actually liberates the horror in unexpected ways. Creature designs that would require enormous practical effects budgets in live action are rendered with striking confidence and genuine menace here.
The Story
The ten-episode season follows the Party discovering a new threat connected to experiments conducted by Nikki’s mother, Anna Baxter, a biology teacher at Hawkins High. Daniel Fischer, played by Lou Diamond Phillips, is ultimately revealed as the one behind the new creatures, having stolen Anna Baxter’s experiments and created something terrifying.
The finale brings the Party to a confrontation involving the Plant Queen, a creature trying to push its way back into the Upside Down, with the characters recognizing that if it can open one gate, it can open many. The season ends with the immediate threat resolved but Nikki Baxter still very much in Hawkins, setting up Season 2.
The critical consensus, however, is mixed. On Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds a 62% approval rating based on 34 critic reviews. The Hollywood Reporter argued that Tales From ’85 indicates very little interest in rocking the Stranger Things boat, narratively or tonally, and that even the shift from live-action to animation seems rooted more in a desire to return the story to its stronger early seasons than to genuinely shake things up.
Similarities to the Original Series
The Core Cast and Their Dynamics
The most important similarity is the one that was most uncertain before premiere: the dynamics between the core characters feel authentic. Following Season 2’s Snow Ball dance, Mike and Eleven are now a couple, as are Lucas and Max. Will is left feeling like an outsider within his own friend group, a dynamic that echoes the broader arc of his character across the original series. The show doesn’t invent new versions of these characters. It picks them up exactly where the main series left them and continues their journeys with genuine understanding of who they are.
The friendship at the center of the show, the collaborative problem-solving, the way the Party argues and reconciles and always comes back to the same conclusion that they’re stronger together: all of it is present and recognizable. Dustin’s enthusiasm, Lucas’ skepticism, Will’s quiet bravery, Eleven’s fierce loyalty — these are the same characters.
The 1980s Atmosphere and References
The production team studied the visual and cultural language of 1980s Saturday morning cartoons to build the show’s aesthetic, and the result is a series that is steeped in ’80s nostalgia in a way that feels earned rather than performative. The music cues, the clothing, the references to contemporary pop culture — all of it is calibrated to the same nostalgic register as the main show’s best seasons.
The Upside Down mythology is treated with the same seriousness the main show always brought to it. The rules of the alternate dimension, the behavior of its creatures, the way the human world and the Upside Down bleed into each other: none of it is simplified or softened for the animated format.
The Found Family Theme
The show’s emotional core is the same as the original: a group of kids who choose each other, who show up for each other despite every reason not to, and who face impossible things together because alone the impossible things win. Nikki gives Will someone he can genuinely open up to, someone who understands what it feels like to be different and on the outside looking in, and that specific dynamic — the outsider finding their place in the Party — is the same emotional engine the original show ran on from its very first episode.
Differences From the Original Series
The Animation Format
The most obvious difference is also the most consequential. Animation allows the show to do things live action couldn’t or wouldn’t: more expansive creature designs, more overtly stylized action sequences, a visual language borrowed from Saturday morning cartoons that sits in productive tension with the show’s horror content. The animation is gorgeous, lush and vibrant, but it is also fundamentally different from the specific, grounded visual language of the live-action series that built its atmosphere through practical cinematography and location shooting.
The Voice Cast
The absence of the original actors is a persistent low-level distraction for anyone who came in as a fan of the live-action series. The new cast does strong work throughout, and the writing supports them well, but the specific chemistry between Millie Bobby Brown and Finn Wolfhard, between Noah Schnapp and Gaten Matarazzo, built across years of shared performance — that’s not replicable by design alone. The show knows this and works around it rather than trying to replicate it.
The Tone and Rating
Tales From ’85 carries a TV-PG rating compared to the original series’ TV-14, which creates a slightly different tonal register even when the content gets dark. The horror is genuine, but it is modulated slightly differently from the main show’s most intense sequences. The Hollywood Reporter described it as a “diet version of Stranger Things,” which is unfair as a complete assessment but not entirely inaccurate as a description of the tonal gap between the two.
New Monsters Without Origin Context
The show introduces new plant-based monsters and vine-like creatures that never appear in the main series. The addition to the lore is confusing: why show us new monsters that we don’t see in Seasons 1 through 5? If they’re so scary and significant, why wouldn’t we know about them? This is one of the show’s genuine weaknesses: the new creature mythology doesn’t connect cleanly to the established Upside Down lore, which creates friction for fans who care about internal consistency.
How It Connects to the Original Seasons
Bridging Seasons 2 and 3
The show’s placement in the timeline is its most valuable contribution to the franchise. Tales From ’85 is set in the winter months between Season 2 and Season 3, a gap that the main series essentially skipped over. It gives fans the chance to spend time with characters in a specific emotional state that the main show moved past quickly: the aftermath of the Snow Ball, the new relationships forming, Will’s recovery, and the particular winter of 1985 that the main series only implied.
The Nikki Baxter Problem
The biggest issue with Tales From ’85’s connection to the original series is the retcon created by Nikki Baxter. Nikki is not in Hawkins as of Stranger Things Season 3, despite the show ending with her officially joining the Party, complete with her own Dungeons and Dragons figure.
Nikki is never mentioned in the main show, nor is she present for any of the future battles against Vecna and his minions. This led many to expect the show to answer exactly why, either due to Nikki leaving Hawkins or something potentially darker happening to her. Instead, the Season 1 finale leaves Nikki firmly in Hawkins with no clear explanation for her future absence from the main timeline, creating what is the biggest plot hole that Tales From ’85 has introduced, a retcon many thought wasn’t possible given what is known from the main series.
The showrunner has indicated there is an “ironclad explanation” for Nikki’s absence from Season 3 that will be addressed in Season 2, but until that season arrives, the continuity gap is real and noticeable.
Hawkins Lab Connections
While it is interesting to learn about Daniel Fischer’s background at Hawkins Lab, especially since that setting plays such a significant role in the franchise, the addition to the lore is confusing in the context of the main timeline. The show attempts to tie its new villain to the established history of Hawkins Lab but does so in ways that raise more questions about why none of this was ever referenced in the main series than it answers.
What It Sets Up
One of the mandates of Tales From ’85 is that everything ends up exactly how we found it in Stranger Things Season 3 to honor the existing canon. The finale respects that mandate for the core Party members while leaving Nikki’s situation deliberately unresolved for Season 2. The series was renewed for a second season in April 2026, set to be released in late 2026, which will presumably address the Nikki continuity question while continuing the new monster mythology.
The Verdict
Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 is a genuinely enjoyable animated series that does more right than wrong. The animation is beautiful. The horror is real. The core characters are handled with care and authenticity. The new addition of Nikki Baxter is charming and well-performed by Odessa A’zion, even if her unresolved continuity status is the show’s most significant weakness.
What it isn’t is an essential piece of the Stranger Things mythology. It is an animated spinoff that is also a filler of sorts: dealing with the same characters, places, and struggles as the original series, set between the seasons of that series rather than in a new setting. For dedicated fans who want to spend more time in Hawkins with these characters, it delivers that experience with genuine craft. For casual viewers or those with no existing connection to the franchise, it offers less.
The Duffer Brothers set out to make a Saturday morning cartoon set in the Stranger Things universe, and that’s exactly what they made. The question of whether that was the right ambition for a franchise that built its reputation on cinematic prestige television is one the show’s 62% Rotten Tomatoes score suggests hasn’t been fully resolved. But Hawkins in animation, in winter, with new monsters and a new friend for Will Byers, is a better place to spend time than the mixed critical reception suggests.
Season 2 is coming. The Nikki question will be answered. The Plant Queen opened a gate. And the Party, in whatever form it takes, will be ready.
Season Rating: 7/10
Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 is streaming now on Netflix. Season 2 is expected in late 2026.
Are you watching Tales From ’85? What do you think of Nikki Baxter and the animated format? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
