Netflix's animated Stranger Things spin-off, Stranger Things: Tales from '85, returns this week with its ten-episode second season, extending the story of the core Hawkins characters after the flagship live-action series concluded last year. The show is set between seasons two and three of the original drama and follows Mike, Lucas, Dustin, Will, Eleven and Max as they confront a new supernatural threat, offering fans a way to revisit the franchise's world and characters despite the main series having ended.

Season two launches on Netflix on 17 September with 10 new episodes, and its plot centres on ghostly apparitions and a swarm of strange creatures disrupting the town around Valentine's Day. The first season, which introduced new character Nikki, saw the group battle plant-like monsters spawned from spores from the Upside Down, traced to a former Hawkins Lab scientist whose experiment spiralled out of control; it received a mixed critical response but was praised for capturing the original show's 1980s-inspired tone and using well-matched voice actors for the returning cast.