Netflix's animated spinoff Stranger Things: Tales From '85 offers only two and a half good reasons to watch. First, if you're truly a child and your parents haven't decided to let you watch due to Stranger Things' TV-14 rating, this softer production with a TV-PG rating might satisfy your curiosity. The second reason is, if you're a die-hard Stranger Things fan eager to consume every detail of the franchise, you might not be able to skip this production. The third reason – or rather a half-reason – is the character Nikki played by Odessa A'zion. This new character, adorned with a mohawk dyed strawberry pink, is so fresh and appealing that it seems a shame not to include her in the live-action version of the original Stranger Things. However, unless you fall into the above two categories, even this character isn't enough to endure a series that otherwise feels monotonous and less ambitious.

Developed by Jennifer Muro and showrunner Eric Robles, this new story begins in 1985, between the second and third seasons. The young heroes, still enthusiastic from their victory in closing the gates to the Upside Down, have returned to an ordinary life devoted to junk food, Dungeons & Dragons, and awkward childhood flirtations. But we know that more battles await them over the years. This brief holiday will soon come to an end, and when people in Hawkins start getting abducted by plant-like monsters, Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, Max, and El spring into action once again. This time, they also get help from Mrs. Baxter's (Janeane Garofalo) daughter Nikki, the new substitute science teacher.

Tales From '85 doesn't seem to intend to create much of a stir in the boat of Stranger Things. The very transition from live-action to animation seems rooted in a reluctance to return to the stronger early seasons; back then, the characters genuinely looked and acted like children. While the animation's clear and bright visuals are as pleasant as the blurry 3D graphics of later seasons, everything else is just a continuation of the routine. Although the monsters are unprecedented creations, they resemble hybrids of Demogorgons and Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors. While the characters experience drama among themselves, they spend time reiterating discussions we've seen before. Although Nikki, skilled in DIY mechanical engineering, provides the team with new gadgets, their plans always end up being thwarted by yet another creature from a massive other world, only to be saved at the last moment by El's telekinetic power.

The character El is designed so powerfully that throughout the ten half-hour episodes, the only real tension comes from the extraordinary performances and bright chemistry of the young actors in the live-action version, which easily overshadows the script's shortcomings, while in the animated version, the voice actors are trying to replicate the previous performances. Only Braxton Quinney, who voices Dustin, and sometimes Jolie Hoang-Rappaport, who voices Max, show real vocal resemblance. If the other actors (Luca Diaz for Mike, Elisha Williams for Lucas, Ben Plessala for Will, and Brooklyn Davey Norstedt for El) had been allowed to bring their characters to life on their own, these differences might not have been an issue. But the series doesn't dare let anything expose script inconsistencies.