Movies & TV The Boroughs The Boroughs Is a Charming Distraction, But Nothing You Haven’t Seen Before The delightful cast is still a treat to watch. By Lacy Baugher Milas | Published on May 21, 2026 Credit: Netflix Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Netflix They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, a statement that sounds as if it’s meant to be mean, but can just as easily be read as a compliment in the right circumstances. So while it’s clear from its opening sequence that Netflix’s new sci-fi adventure The Boroughs is meant to feel like a cousin of its megahit streaming phenomenon Stranger Things, the eight-part drama still manages to chart its own path, as it follows a squad of quirky senior citizens who team up to investigate the bizarre goings on in their gated elder community. Our television landscape is often reluctant to tell stories about older characters and the concerns of aging, often defaulting to unfortunate stereotypes or refusing to deal with the difficult everyday realities of older adults. The Boroughs, no matter what else may be said about it, treats its characters as three-dimensional people, all with emotional arcs and personal histories of their own.  Many viewers will undoubtedly tune in because of the involvement of the Duffer Brothers, the Stranger Things creators who also served as executive producers on the painfully ponderous yet strangely popular horror series Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen. The Duffers are once again just producers on this project, but, on the whole, The Boroughs feels much more of a piece with their previous work than Something Very Bad ever did. The show, which hails from Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, boasts a similar found family vibe and feels like nothing so much as a riff on Stranger Things for the retirement set. (Seriously, they basically just swap out the former’s ubiquitous bikes for designer motorized golf carts.)  The Boroughs also has a similar old-school sci-fi feel, with visual and thematic nods to everything from Cocoon to E.T. as it wrestles with deeply human themes of friendship, grief, love, and loss. It’s even got a familiar nod toward vintage technology, and an array of cathode ray tube television sets provide a magical, sparkling visual that rivals the first time we see Winona Ryder communicating via Christmas lights in Hawkins. Also, much like Stranger Things, the show’s larger monstrous mystery doesn’t bear up under a terrible amount of scrutiny, but by the time you reach the answer to what’s really going on at the heart of this retirement community, you’ll likely be more interested in the various relationships between its residents anyway. The story begins as retired engineer Sam Cooper (Alfred Molina) arrives in the picturesque New Mexico community of The Boroughs, an idyllic retirement destination that completely unironically promises its elderly residents the time of their lives. With its lavish golf courses, charming community center, Alexa-like home assistants, and cul-de-sacs full of similarly aged potential new friends, it doesn’t even seem like the folks in charge are lying. But, of course, things at The Boroughs are not as picturesque as they initially seem.   A widower still reeling from the recent loss of his beloved wife, Lilly (Jane Kaczmarek), Sam doesn’t want any part of life at The Boroughs. It was Lilly, as it turns out, who pushed for their move, and in the wake of her death, he’s eager to cancel his contract as quickly as possible. But he begins to reconsider after meeting several of his boisterous and offbeat neighbors, who each force him to reevaluate what it is that he wants to do with the time he has left and who he wants to spend it with. Things take a dark turn when an escaped dementia patient (Ed Begley Jr.) from the community facility breaks into Sam’s home—his own former residence—to warn him about alleged “owls” hiding in the walls, but it’s the unexpected death of one of The Boroughs’ most popular residents that shakes him to his core.  The Boroughs is pretty upfront about the fact that there are dark creatures hidden in the shadows of these picturesque homes, so when Sam has a frightening encounter with a disturbing monster—in all its chittering, many-legged glory—we don’t have to waste any time wondering if we can trust what he’s seeing. Suddenly, he finds himself on the hunt for the truth with a ragtag team of his neighbors and fellow seniors, including investigative journalist Judy (Alfre Woodard), her weed-loving husband Art (Clarke Peters), cancer-stricken doctor Wally (Denis O’Hare), and cynical music manager Renee (Geena Davis).  The gang’s hunt for the truth is cheesy and charming by turns, mixing glimpses into The Boroughs’ murky professional operations and mysterious history with deepening character dynamics and relationship arcs. The show shines brightest whenever various members of its primary ensemble are onscreen together, hunting for clues, hatching plans, or even just hanging out with one another and it’s a testament to the casting department that the chemistry between and among the group feels so lived-in and natural. It’s hard to talk about specifics of the series’ larger plot without spoiling the various twists at its center, but suffice it to say that you’ll see many of them coming. The Borough does attempt to give its primary villains some pathos through their complicated backstory, but the characters still come off stiff and one-note. Like the Duffers’ other projects, The Boroughs is also too long—you could easily trim this down to six episodes or maybe even five without really sacrificing any key story beats—and isn’t terribly subtle about its overarching messages.  It helps that the bulk of the series cast is so strong and more than capable of handling what can often feel like fairly banal or repetitive material. Molina brings a soulful melancholy to Sam, whose loneliness and painfully fresh sense of loss shape the larger edges of the story. Woodard and Peters are charming together as a couple, navigating what it means to be in a marriage for as long as the two of them have been. But it’s O’Hare who steals the show as Wally, taking a character who, by all rights, should be little more than a caricature—he’s basically the professional version of the Sassy Gay Friend and definitely gets all the show’s best one-liners—and giving him complicated layers of grief and rage.  Credit: Netflix © 2026 If there’s a weak link in the ensemble, it’s sadly Davis, whose character gets siloed in a cute but insubstantial romance with a Boroughs security officer (Carlos Miranda) and has little else to do. Don’t get me wrong, we love to see a mature woman getting her shot at love in a major television property and this industry absolutely needs to do this kind of thing more often. (Let older actresses play real romance!) But it’s also hard not to be annoyed at how much more the Renee character could be if given the chance. Every scene Davis shares with O’Hare is dynamite, for example, but we’re only given the barest hints of what her life outside of The Boroughs involves. (Her ex-husband seems like a jerk?) Elsewhere, Bill Pullman is a delightful scene-stealer as boisterous neighborhood playboy Jack, but also suffers from an unfortunate lack of screentime that requires us to be told more about his clandestine relationship with Judy than we’re ever shown.  The Boroughs almost certainly won’t inspire the massive global fandom that Stranger Things did. But as throwback summer adventures go? It’s a charming enough distraction.[end-mark] The post <i>The Boroughs</i> Is a Charming Distraction, But Nothing You Haven’t Seen Before appeared first on Reactor.