“Stranger Things” Happened: The Top 25 Shows of 2016, No. 9

It’s always fun when a show that few people have heard of – one that seems to get insufficient attention from the press in advance of its premiere – becomes a huge hit, generating audience love and building buzz far greater than “bigger” shows that are targeted as likely hits before their debuts. That happened this summer with HBO’s The Night Of and High Maintenance, which slipped in under all of the love being lavished on Westworld, Divorce and Insecure and became two of the most talked about series of 2016 (especially The Night Of). But the best example of this growing new world order, in which the media misses the mark by a mile and then scrambles to play catch up, came with the arrival of the horror/science-fiction/adventure series Stranger Things, which captivated millions of viewers who were turned onto it via word-of-mouth on social media.