‘Stranger Things’ Competing in Tight Race with HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’ for Top TV Series Spot; Winona Ryder Talks New Role

‘Stranger Things’ is competing in a tight race with HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’ for the top spot in most popular television series as reported by a new measuring service that analyzes content across all media platforms. Meanwhile, Winona Ryder shared her thought on her new role as Joyce Byers.

According to CNET, Netflix’ new science-fiction horror web television series is running a tight race against HBO’s fantasy series ‘Game of Thrones’. Parrot Analytics, a service that measures and predicts content across all platforms, revealed that ‘Game of Thrones’ continues to dominate the top spot for television series for the first week of August. However, ‘Stranger Things’ is trailing close by in second place.

It was reported that the show could easily gain the highest rank against its competitor. Other television series with the highest average demand expressions included in the top ten are AMC’s ‘Preacher’, USA Network’s ‘Mr. Robot’, ABC Family’s ‘Pretty Little Liars’, AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’, Showtime’s ‘Ray Donovan’, Cartoon Network’s ‘Steven Universe’, Starz’ ‘Power’, and HBO’s ‘The Night Of’.

‘Stranger Things’ was created by Matt and Ross Duffer. It pays homage to ‘80s pop culture specifically the works of Stephen King, John Carpenter, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. It stars an ensemble cast of Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers, David Harbour as Chief Jim Hopper, Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler, and Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven.

Ryder’s Joyce is the distraught mother of Will, a boy whose sudden disappearance ushered in a host of unusual events in the small town of Hawkins, Indiana. In her search for Will, Joyce stumbles into a greater government conspiracy.

According to The Telegraph, Ross Duffer expressed his enthusiasm over casting the 44-year old actress for the role. He said, "She hasn't had a part like this before… She is a mother doing whatever she can to get her son back. She kicks a lot of asses. Winona was definitely excited by that and gave it 110 per cent…. It was huge that we were able to land her. It gave the show an identity, and she was just amazing. Young kids and teenagers are going to discover her. Anyone older will love seeing her back and getting a good role."

He added, "'It was strange initially to be directing Winona Ryder. Of course it was. But you're there for six months. You get past it. You have to. Sure, they are still times when you step back and think, ‘wow, it's Winona’. You have to get over it."

Ryder is one of cinema’s most prolific actresses of the 1990s. She rose to international fame and critical acclaim with her work on several cult favorites, coming-of-age films and dark-themed projects including ‘Beetlejuice’, ‘Heathers’, ‘Edward Scissorhands’, ‘Dracula’, ‘Reality Bites’, and ‘Girl, Interrupted’.

The actress opened up about her role on the Duffer Brothers’ show and admitted that although she did not have kids of her own, she understood the complex relationship between mother and child because of her niece.

According to NYMag.com, she said, “I’m getting asked a lot, ‘You don’t have kids, so how do you know how to act like a mother?’ I know nothing could compare, and I haven’t had that experience, but when my niece was born, I felt like I would jump in front of a car and die for this little person I didn’t even know yet.” 

When talking about Joyce, she said, “I actually felt tremendous compassion for her. I feel like she was one of these people that had dreams [for her life]. But she had kids. And it made me think of all the women that I know who have kids, who when they talk about [anything negative about their lives as mothers], they always say, ‘But I love my kids, I wouldn’t trade them for the world.’ Like they feel guilty for even hinting that they’d want something outside of kids! It’s a weird thing.”

‘Stranger Things’ is a science-fiction and horror web television series airing on Netflix. The show premiered on the network on July 15, 2016.