Daily Archives: April 23, 2025

Top Tens – TV: Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV (1) SF (Horror): Stranger Things

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(1) SF (HORROR): STRANGER THINGS
(2016 – PRESENT: SEASONS 1-4+)

 

I assume this Netflix series needs little introduction – but my top spot does illustrate my preamble that my Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series may be the most fluid of all my top ten lists. Even my other top ten TV lists are not quite as fluid, with more enduring first place entries. The problem for me is that many or most fantasy or SF TV series simply miss the mark at the outset – and those that do hit it are inconsistent or lack enduring quality.

For a long time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was my top spot for fantasy or SF TV series, until I ultimately had to shuffle it off to special mention from recognition that while its writing quality and my nostalgia for it endured, it simply could not hold up against the production quality of contemporary TV series. Game of Thrones replaced it – for its first four to six seasons – before the calamity of its two final seasons befell it, particularly that final season.

And so Stranger Things rose to top spot, albeit precariously so, with my second top spot From looking hungrily towards it. However, it too absolutely hit the mark in its debut season but was inconsistent in its second and third season even if I still liked it – before bouncing back to hit the mark again in Season 4.

In the meantime, what’s not to love for fantasy and SF fans?

Eleven! The Upside Down! The Demogorgon and Mind Flayer! Steve Harrington’s magnificent hair (and its secret)!

More broadly, 1980’s nostalgia and pop culture references aplenty! Psychokinetic girls (reminiscent of Charlie, not to mention her adversary, the Shop, in one of my favorite Stephen King novels, Firestarter). Extradimensional alien invasion – evoking Alien and Aliens in Seasons 1 and 2 respectively with more than a touch of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, particularly when it evokes The Thing in Season 3. Mysterious government agencies to rival the nastier versions of men in black (with their black helicopters) – so that’s what the Department of Energy does?

And of course there’s all those Dungeons and Dragons references for this fantasy fan – “I’m our Paladin, Will’s our Cleric, Dustin’s our Bard, Lucas is our Ranger, and El’s our Mage”.

To quote Wikipedia, series creators the Duffer brothers “developed the series as a mix of investigative drama alongside supernatural elements with childlike sensibilities, establishing its time frame in the 1980s and creating a homage to pop culture of that decade. Several themes and directorial aspects were inspired and aesthetically informed by the works of Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter, and Stephen King, among others”. Set in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana in the 1980’s, the first season focuses on the investigation into the disappearance of a young boy amid supernatural or rather paranormal events centered on the nearby Hawkins National Laboratory – and the subsequent seasons are even, ah, more upside downier, with the fourth season as the most upside downiest yet with its cliffhanger ending.

On the other hand, I can suspend disbelief in the Demogorgon and Upside Down – but no one ever made it that far in the Dragon’s Lair videogame…

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

One of the harder series to classify from my top ten – it might readily have been classified as fantasy but I ultimately classified it as SF. It just doesn’t have the vibe of fantasy as it much more evokes the ambience of SF, even if of a more paranormal kind.

 

HORROR

 

The horror elements predominate to the extent that I have classified it as SF horror.

 

RATING:
S-TIER (GOD TIER – OR IS THAT UPSIDE DOWN TIER?)

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Books (Special Mention: Subject) (8) Celtic Mythology

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(8) CELTIC MYTHOLOGY:

PETER BERESFORD ELLIS – DICTIONARY OF CELTIC MYTHOLOGY (1992)

 

My preceding special mention was for books on the subject of Arthurian legend. While Arthurian legend remains my favorite strand of Celtic mythology (although one might argue about how “Celtic” Arthurian legend is), it is far from the only one. Hence this special mention is for books on those other strands or subjects within Celtic mythology.

The mythology of Gaul – which I particularly know from the gods invoked in Asterix comics by Toutatis! The Wicker Man. Druids. The mysterious horned god Cernunnos and other Gallic gods or goddesses. The Celtic mythology that survived most in literary form (mostly as recorded by Christian monks) – in Brittany or coastal France, in Britain and above all in Ireland with its various mythological cycles. The Tuatha de Danann or the gods of Ireland. The Ulster Cycle and Cu Chulainn. The Fenian Cycle and Fionn Mac Cumhaill (sometimes awesomely translated as Finn McCool). And the fairy folklore into which much of the mythology in Ireland, Britain and elsewhere was recycled.

Books on the subject of Celtic mythology already feature as entries in my Top 10 Mythology Books or special mentions – perhaps foremost among them Katherine Briggs and her Dictionary of Fairies, albeit more for that aforementioned fairy folklore. Similarly, The Twilight of the Godlings by Francis Young looks at fairy folklore – but mostly eschews it as surviving Celtic mythology. From recollection, the first volume of Bulfinch’s Mythology or the Age of Fable has some brief reference to Celtic mythology, while the framing device of Robert Graves’ The White Goddess is from Celtic mythology – the Celtic tree alphabet (as well as other aspects of Celtic mythology running through the book, arguably including the White Goddess herself). More generally, Barbara Walker’s Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets has numerous entries on subjects of Celtic mythology.

My keynote book for this special mention is the Dictionary of Celtic Mythology by British novelist Peter Beresford Ellis, because I just can’t resist a good dictionary as my favorite format for reference.

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)