A highly acclaimed show on Prime Video, which boasted a Rotten Tomatoes score of 87%, had the potential to become a worthy replacement for Netflix’s Stranger Things. Unfortunately, despite landing in critics’ good books, the show failed to last longer than one season.
Given how Stranger Things is one of Netflix’s most valuable TV sci-fi IPs and has only grown from strength to strength with each season in terms of viewership and cultural impact, not a lot of shows deserve to be labeled as its replacements. One Prime Video show, however, came close to capturing that mantle in more ways than one.
From a sense of wonder to nostalgic storytelling, the Prime Video show had all the right ingredients that audiences have grown to love about Netflix’s Stranger Things. Unfortunately, before the series could deliver the massive highs its overarching story could achieve, it was abruptly canceled.
Prime Video’s Paper Girls Could Have Been The New Stranger Things, But It Was Canceled
Despite Earning Acclaim, The Show Did Not Return After Season 1
Stranger Things and Paper Girls have distinct identities because of how they approach sci-fi. While Stranger Things is more about parallel dimensions and government experimentation, Paper Girls primarily dabbles with time travel. However, despite this difference, the two shows seem quite similar because of how they approach their character beats.
Although Paper Girls eventually jumps ahead in time, it initially, like Stranger Things, unfolds in the 1980s, giving it a nostalgic retro vibe.
Just like Stranger Things, Paper Girls primarily revolves around a young set of characters who find themselves in the middle of a massive supernatural conflict they struggle to understand. Although Paper Girls eventually jumps ahead in time, it initially, like Stranger Things, unfolds in the 1980s, giving it a nostalgic retro vibe.
Paper Girls also seems to feature its own version of the Hawkins Lab. Just like the Lab’s agents in the Netflix show try to cover up their ethically skewed experiments, a group, Old Watch, tries to preserve a single timeline in Paper Girls by all possible means. With so many glaring similarities between the two, it would be fair to say that Paper Girls could have been Prime Video’s Stranger Things replacement.
The Show Was Only Starting To Build Its Sci-Fi Foundation In Season 1
Soon after Paper Girls landed on Prime Video, many critics praised it for its ambitious storytelling. Many also acknowledged that even though it riffs on many familiar sci-fi tropes, it manages to feel fresh because of the heavy focus on its young roster and the emotional weight their time-traveling endeavors carry.
Related
10 Scary Coming-Of-Age TV Shows Like Amazon’s Paper Girls
Which shows like Amazon’s Paper Girls manage to capture the coming-of-age experience alongside supernatural shenanigans?
However, like Stranger Things, Paper Girls only seems to scratch the surface of all the intriguing sci-fi ideas it could have explored if it had lasted long. If Prime Video had not canceled it after one season, it would also have been exciting to see its young cast members grow into their roles as reluctant time travelers.
