Resources For TV Channel Developers

In the summer of 2016, streaming TV was still figuring itself out. Netflix had been producing original series for a few years, with occasional company from Amazon, Hulu, Yahoo and the like. Disney+, Apple TV and HBO Max were still gleams in some billionaires’ eyes.

Would the future of streaming be in wild, form-breaking experimentation, like Netflix’s “Sense8”? Would it be nonlinear storytelling, like its revival of “Arrested Development”? Would it be in prestige comedies, like “BoJack Horseman,” or prestige-flavored dramas, like “House of Cards”?

I’m not sure anybody was expecting the answer to come from a popcorn horror thriller that premiered that July.

But the success of “Stranger Things,” which is about to end its run after nearly a decade, told us that the future of streaming TV was largely in the past. (The first four episodes of the final season arrive on Wednesday night.)

I don’t mean merely that the series is a period piece, though its evocation of the 1980s in small-town Hawkins, Ind., is a big part of the appeal; you can almost smell the hair spray and taste the Orange Julius.

I mean that the series is an entertainment machine built by repurposing vintage pop-culture parts — something that streaming would come to specialize in.

There is the Spielbergian coming-of-age through-line, familiar from movies like “E.T.” (in which Dungeons & Dragons also played a character-establishing role); the horror and adolescent bonding of Stephen King; the chills (and typography) of ’80s supernatural tales; the mean jocks and soulful goths of John Hughes; the well-curated pop-culture quotations, from Kate Bush to “The NeverEnding Story” to the casting of Winona Ryder of “Heathers” and “Beetlejuice.” It’s a big Halloween bowl of retro candy that invites you to remember when, one sugary bite at a time.