The teens from Hawkins, the fictional town in Stranger Things, have now grown up. Covering 1983 (Season 1) through 1987 to 1989 (Season 5), Stranger Things has recreated a deeply nostalgic decade packed with pop culture Easter eggs. And as the kids wrap up their last game of Dungeons & Dragons — which — it seems the show has checked all boxes for late-’80s nostalgia. Even the series finale included a nod to 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Yet despite positioning itself as a series about geeky kids obsessed with all things nerdy, Stranger Things Season 5 largely overlooked the biggest shift in geek culture of 1987 — a shift that grew even more significant by 1989: the launch of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). As a Star Trek fan who was a real child in 1987, here’s why I’m bothered by the lack of TNG references in the lives of the supposed nerds of the late 1980s. Mild spoilers for Stranger Things Season 5 follow.
Stranger Things Season 5 kicks off on November 3, 1987, and right away, a breakfast scene misses a chance for geeky authenticity. No cereal is served in that moment, but if there had been a Cheerios box on the table, it would have prominently featured Star Trek: The Next Generation. That’s because in 1987, TNG was part of a cereal promotion: boxes had TNG stickers, and young fans could mail away for a poster that replicated the one Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) kept in his Ready Room. General Mills launched this promotion on September 15, 1987. I’ve fact-checked this, but I also remember it clearly — I was one of the kids who sent for the poster and got two copies. (I was six in 1987, so slightly younger than Holly Wheeler in Season 5, depending on how you view her age .)
Okay, so who cares? I’m being nitpicky — the Stranger Things kids don’t have Cheerios in that scene anyway, so what’s the fuss? Well, this was just the start of TNG’s dominance in late-1987 mainstream pop culture. The show premiered on September 28, 1987, with a two-hour episode centered on a space deity deciding if humanity deserved to be saved. That sounds pretty Stranger Things-esque, doesn’t it? Are we really supposed to believe neither Dustin nor Robin had thoughts about this?
Speaking of Robin, in Season 4 she wore a Star Trek-adjacent shirt that read: “Beam Me Up. This Place Sucks,” paired with a sort of retro 1950s UFO design. This is Stranger Things’ most blatant Star Trek oversight: it’s a Trek reference, but lacks any Trek imagery or branding. The most common late-’80s version of this phrase was on shirts that said, “Beam me up, Scotty, there’s no intelligent life here.” () There was at least one similar ’80s shirt that featured the Enterprise and the line, “Beam me up, Scotty, this planet sucks.” (.) The “Scotty” part matters!
I know this is again nitpicky, but I can’t imagine or recall any Star Trek merchandise — fan-made or official — that didn’t include the name “Scotty.” That’s the core of the reference, isn’t it? (Again, more eBay evidence, and .) Could the Duffers not find items on eBay? Why not just put “Scotty” on the shirt? It feels like a diss to Scotty! (And yes, . That’s irrelevant.)
Why get so worked up? I’m being ridiculous, right? Yes, I totally am. But historically, Stranger Things has gone out of its way to include period-specific geek references. That’s exactly why so many people from my generation were obsessed with the show when it debuted in 2016. The Star Wars toys in Season 1 were incredibly accurate, and in Season 2, the kids had really (like really) precise Ghostbusters Halloween costumes — as if they’d made them right after the movie hit theaters. Also, that 1983 “red box” Dungeons & Dragons set was the real thing, marking the moment D&D simplified and rebranded for mainstream audiences. All of that was practically perfect.
So if you’re arguing Hawkins is a small town, or that by Season 5 they’re cut off from the outside world — come on. These kids listen to Kate Bush, and The Last Crusade gets a nod in the finale. You can’t tell me the ideal versions of Lucas, Dustin, or Will didn’t have strong takes on the biggest geek culture debate of the late 1980s: Kirk vs. Picard!
Plus, The Next Generation featured Wil Wheaton — who, alongside LeVar Burton, were the two most recognizable cast members back then: Wheaton for Stand By Me, Burton for Roots and Reading Rainbow. , so again — wouldn’t the kids have been huge Wil Wheaton fans? And didn’t they watch Reading Rainbow at all? (I’m )
I get that by Season 5, the Stranger Things crew has more pressing issues than keeping up with new pop culture. That’s a valid point. But that’s really the only way to brush off the complete absence of TNG references in Season 5 — especially the finale’s coda. By 1989, TNG was starting its third season, , and it might have been just as relevant to the kids as anything in The Last Crusade.
The lack of TNG references in Stranger Things Season 5 doesn’t feel intentional. I understand — it’s simpler to reference Indiana Jones and Star Wars. That’s totally okay. But it still feels like a missed chance. The Hawkins kids, in their narrative, were growing into a sort of “next generation” themselves — so it feels like in some alternate reality, they would have loved The Next Generation. And in my headcanon, they definitely did.