Paper Girls is a series that will immediately draw comparisons to Stranger Things.
Because the Amazon drama, which is based on the comics by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, is set in the 1980s, has a science fiction premise and youthful protagonists on vintage bicycles. But the similarities end there and it would be reductive and unfair to “Girls” to simply call it the “female ‘Stranger Things'”.
The new series (streaming now, ★★★ of four) follows four 12-year-old girls as they become embroiled in a time-traveling war that leads to adventurous, time-consuming (to quote “Doctor Who”) science fiction and, most importantly, deep conversations with her future self. If you’ve ever imagined what your childhood self would think of the choices you made as an adult, this is the series for you. (Or maybe this is the show that makes you run and hide for fear of being shamed by the kid you once were who predicted a very different adulthood for you.)
“Girls” is scary, heartfelt, complex (and sometimes just downright complicated). It starts off with a lot of panache and excitement, but falters in the last few episodes of the eight-episode season due to poor pacing and poor acting. Even if you feel like you’re missing a clue about the world of time travel, the series is based on the performances of its four young leads, all wonderful talents, demonstrating thoughtful scripts. “Girls” not only has tween girls as its main characters – a Hollywood rarity – but also gives them agency and personality that is often denied to them.
The series begins in the early hours of November 1, 1988, when four women deliverers race headlong into a battle of a legendary time-traveling war. The rebellious, rowdy STF Underground seeks to use time travel to make things better, while the powerful, entrenched Old Watch seeks to preserve the status quo that gave them power. That doesn’t mean much to the girls, who are more focused on getting home after being accidentally kidnapped in a time machine that dumps them in 2019.
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Hunted by the Old Guard and aided by disappointing versions of their adult selves and the STF, KJ (Fina Strazza), Mac (Sofia Rosinsky), Erin (Riley Lai Nelet) and Tiffany (Camryn Jones) form an appealing quartet with plump lips of involuntary adventurers. Natural caretaker Erin is dismayed to discover that her 43-year-old self (Ali Wong, full of joy) is estranged from her sister and dallying on with life. The ambitious Tiffany expects her adult counterpart to rule the world while KJ and Mac are faced with revealing truths about their future.
“Girls” is ambitious, sometimes to a fault. It’s a paranormal adventure and a coming-of-age story, but one in which the youngsters see in vivid color what growing up is like when they meet their older selves. Switching back and forth between two TV shows (part “Who”, part “Now and Then”) is clunky at times. Characterization is stronger than sci-fi world building, as opposed to the usual issues that plague genre shows. Even after watching all eight episodes of the first season, I’m still not entirely clear what the rules of time travel are. (And unlike free-running time-travel shows like Who, there seem to be some rules; they just aren’t articulated to the audience).
But even if I don’t quite get what’s going on with the Old Guard (portrayed by delicious villains played by Adina Porter and Jason Mantzoukas) or the implications of time travel, I can forgive Girls. There’s something refreshing about a series so concerned with examining the inner workings of girls and the women they become, especially considering how few TV shows or movies even focus on this period of girlhood. On the run and stranded in time, one of the girls gets her first period. So many Hollywood first menstrual stories are cheesy, inaccurate, or both, but “Girls” sets it up for delightful laughs when the girls have to decipher the instructions for tampons from the future. The series is littered with smart little details like this, from the way the girls dress to the way they switch codes when speaking to each other and adults.
So no, Girls is more than just a Stranger copy, although I imagine the popularity of this Netflix juggernaut helped launch a Girls adaptation. It’s set in a world where young girls are the heroes of their own stories, which could just as easily be science fiction.
More:Hollywood ignores tween girls. Here’s why that needs to change.
