Stranger Things for the Senior Set

An outstanding ensemble cast makes this sci-fi thriller worthwhile.

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IT WOULD BE EASY to suggest The Boroughs could have been called The Boomers because, well, it could have. That's not meant to be an insult in the Gen-Z slang way, though. On its surface, the new Netflix series is a sci-fi adventure about a group of unlikely friends in a senior community coming together to defend themselves and prove the natural process of aging should not immediately equal cultural or societal irrelevance. That is a pleasant story line that could also work as the premise of a prescription-drug commercial. What makes The Boroughs more interesting, and more appropriate as a boomer journey of discovery, is how it grapples sincerely (and, okay, defensively) with the question of what this specific generation owes those that came after it. The series lays out two potential boomer paths, and they take the story out of the cul-de-sac to somewhere less manicured and more provocative.

The Boroughs is named after the series' fictional setting: Imagine if the Villages of Florida were in the New Mexico desert and lacked seemingly all the MAGA-ism.