The Boroughs

Overall, a concept built around heroic senior citizens feels like smartly capitalizing on an underutilized asset in YA-centric Hollywood.

The supernatural element here is snicker-worthy scary. But where “The Boroughs” sizzles is in its May-December romance between Renee — played with such appeal and zest by Davis — and helpful new security guard Paz (San Francisco native and dreamboat Carlos Miranda). Their interplay sparks the kind of chemistry most romantic comedies beg for and gives Miranda a part that will melt hearts and turn him into a breakout star.

Though The Boroughs doesn’t go too deep below the surface when fleshing out its main characters, it’s still easy to root for their mission and desires while empathizing with their personal struggles and flawed moments of selfishness.

Once you get on its wavering wavelength — sentimental, sincere, sweet, a little silly, not overly concerned with making perfect sense — and realize the show is not out to hurt you, it’s a very enjoyable watch.

The Boroughs’s ensemble cast is so experienced and gives the characters such depth that the series’ hokier creature-feature ideas become tolerable and its larger considerations about what the purpose of life is as we near its end feel momentous.

The ordinariness of “The Boroughs” doesn’t mean that there aren’t some time-tested horror-movie ideas kicking around in it — it’s a fairly amusing gloss on the notion that the people warehoused in retirement communities are literally having the life sucked out of them. And while the main characters fall into types like the aging stud and the aging hippie, most of the performers find a little extra personality around the edges.

The stellar cast of The Boroughs is the biggest reason to watch this series, even if the story might be a bit predictable.

Overall, it’s a fun ride with just enough emotional weight given to it by an excellent ensemble.

More than just a spiritual successor to Stranger Things, The Boroughs is an original sci-fi that succeeds on its own terms, even if it does need to iron out a few wrinkles, figuratively speaking.

“The Boroughs” may feel like “Stranger Things” meets “Coccoon,” but that oversimplification is a disservice to what viewers get here. Even in moments that are shaggier than the 1960s carpets in their homes, the experience of this cast matters in carrying multiple genres at once.

Sadly, The Boroughs also shares with Stranger Things a tendency to stop developing characters and relationships after efficient introductions. (The exception is Wally, a gay man whose memories of the AIDS crisis complicate his every choice.) Instead, both shows keep adding portentous but vague themes until so many ideas have been articulated that only the most anodyne takeaways survive.

A consistently surprising new-by-way-of-old-school genre affair that appears primed to be the streamer’s next big thing.

Heartbreaking, funny and endlessly fascinating.

“The Boroughs” provides the odd sensation of nostalgia tapping into a recent piece of nostalgia. The series too often feels like a copy of a copy. So it’s up to the cast of welcome familiars to make “The Boroughs” worth a trip. They’re all more than watchable.

The show's sprawling, starry cast is also a blessing and a curse. It has to spend a huge amount of time introducing (and making us invested in) a large ensemble of characters, resulting in the first couple of episodes feeling rather slow. But once warmed up, they’re a treat.

Viewers can guess the identity of the main villain almost immediately, and as the season wears on, the later revelations aren't as exciting as they probably should be. It's just as well that the show's casting choices are so strong, making this an easy series to keep streaming to the end.

To be sure, the series even at its clunkiest is never less than perfectly watchable; any show that sees Woodard shooting at monsters or O’Hare preparing to thwack one with a meat cleaver can’t help but be at least a little amusing. But it’s a letdown for a story with bright early gleams of potential.

The series is pretty terrific.

It is, obviously, a fine cast and any fears (deriving from the presence of the Duffer brothers, famed for Stranger Things, as producers) that some of the best actors in the business are about to be wasted on hokum are soon laid aside by an intelligent, witty script and a plot that nods to all the most entertaining monster tropes without being slavishly devoted to them.

It’s The Goonies for senior citizens, full of warmth and never taking itself too seriously.

Part Thursday Murder Club, part Stranger Things, The Boroughs may not sweep the board at the Emmys but it is an unexpectedly entertaining mix of adventure and wonder, drama and humour.

Never as intense as Stranger Things, but also never as surprising, The Boroughs charms while plucking the heartstrings as its characters, especially Sam, contend with grief, loss, and regret while displaying admirable resilience and a timeless respect for Bruce Springsteen.

It’s not as well-plotted or engrossing as Stranger Things‘ first season—again, the comparisons are inevitable—but The Boroughs offers plenty of fun and nostalgia (including a cheeky Thelma & Louise reference) in its own right.

Depth could have been distributed more evenly across the ensemble rather than focused so heavily on Sam. Even so, the cast remains one of the show’s strongest elements.