“The Boroughs” creators talk trailer secrets, “Stranger Things” comparisons, and '3-season plan' (exclusive)

Nick RomanoMon, April 13, 2026 at 1:00 PM UTC

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Denis O'Hara (Wally), Alfred Molina (Sam), and Alfre Woodard (Judy) on 'The Boroughs'Credit: Courtesy of NetflixKey Points -

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance creators, back with a new Netflix show, break down the trailer for The Boroughs.

Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews address Stranger Things comparisons.

The duo are hoping for a "three-season plan": "We know the last shot of the last scene of the last episode of the last season of this show."

There was a temptation early on to call The Boroughs "Stranger Things for seniors," and the similarities are clear. The eight-episode series is coming to Netflix (May 21) with the Duffer Brothers behind them, only this time as executive producers and not creators. Then there's the premise: a group of older misfits at a retirement community become entangled in a dark, otherworldly mystery lurking underneath the facade.

And it all looks "Spielbergian" with the kinds of visuals and camera shots reminiscent of E.T. or Close Encounters, just like Netflix's streaming monolith that came to a close in January.

"I don't think we were trying to hit a target," Jeffrey Addiss, a showrunner and creator of The Boroughs with Will Matthews, tells Entertainment Weekly in a joint interview over Zoom. "I think we love a lot of the same things as Matt and Ross. We're around the same age. We love the same things. That has infused our styles. You can't try to be Stranger Things. It's the biggest show in the world. What you could do is try to tell a great story that you think people who love Stranger Things might also love."

Sam (Alfred Molina) and Claire (Jena Malone) on 'The Boroughs'Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

Since the end of Stranger Things, Netflix will release three shows by year's end from the Duffers' Upside Down Pictures, the production company that the sibling duo launched with Hilary Leavitt. The first was Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, the Carrie- and Rosemary's Baby-inspired horror show about wedding nuptials gone oh-so wrong. The second will be the animated Stranger Things spinoff, Tales From '85 (April 23). Then comes The Boroughs, from the makers of The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.

"Matt and Ross apparently really liked the Dark Crystal," Addiss remarks. "So they got their big overall deal and Hilary Leavitt asked them, 'Who do you wanna meet with?' And I guess they said us."

Amid the current Hollywood landscape, where original stories tend to evaporate under the Los Angeles sun and it always feels like IP-or-bust, Addiss and Matthews saw this as an opportunity to create something brand new with the backing of two of the biggest showrunners in the business. "That's just not a call a lot of people get anymore," Matthews points out. "It's silly, but it's so genuine," he adds. "We thought, 'Let's do a show that we could only do with the Duffer Brothers behind us.'"

The misfits

(L-R) Sam (Alfred Molina), Wally (Denis O'Hare), Art (Clarke Peters), Jack (Bill Pullman), Judy (Alfre Woodard), and Renee (Geena Davis) on 'The Boroughs'Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

That became The Boroughs, the first teaser trailer for which arrives Monday. It's a show that asks, What are you going to do with the time you have left? "That question has higher stakes when your cast is older, but it's a question that everybody asks," Addiss says. We wanted to make a show that was about older characters, but for everybody."

Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2, Boogie Nights) stars as Sam, who reluctantly moves into the titular idyllic retirement community in Albuquerque, N.M., at the suggestion of his daughter, Claire (Jena Malone). He's actively mourning the death of his wife and acclimating to living his remaining years without her, though he tries his best to fit in with some of the neighbors.

Jack (Bill Pullman), Renee (Geena Davis), Judy (Alfre Woodard), Wally (Denis O’Hare), and Art (Clarke Peters) are the kind of "old-timers" who enjoy their weekly barbecues and getting stoned around a fire pit under the stars — so not Sam's typical vibe.

Very soon, however — as in, by the end of the first episode — Sam encounters...something. A monster? A giant animal? He doesn't fully know, but he's spooked. And now, with the help of his new friends, he's determined to get to the bottom of it, even when it plunges him deep into a sinister mystery at the very heart of the Boroughs.

"Jeff loves monsters, and I have been spiritually a senior citizen since I was in high school," Matthews jests. "So we thought, 'Let's put those two together.'"

The cast bringing these stories to life is, collectively, a living time capsule of the kinds of movies The Boroughs channels. One episode features a clear nod to Thelma & Louise (1991), which starred Davis, while a few titles in Woodard's sprawling career, including Primal Fear and Star Trek: First Contact, seem to fit the tone of the series at various point.

The showrunners wrote the characters of Renee and Judy for them early on, though it was different for Jack, whom they initially envisioned as more heavy-set. Then they met Pullman, known for films like Independence Day and Spaceballs, and "it just was Bill," Addiss says.

For Molina's Sam, a crucial lead in the ensemble, Addiss pulled inspiration from his late grandfather, who passed away before he and Matthews could finish Dark Crystal.

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Judy (Alfre Woodard), Sam (Alfred Molina), and Wally (Denis O'Hare) on 'The Boroughs'Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

"I think there's a lot of him in Sam," Addiss says. "He was a grump in the best possible way, and I loved him dearly — but, boy, he was a grump. Even the way Sam dresses reminds me a lot of the way Fred stands. And then my grandmother now has moved into one of these communities and is flourishing and just started acting. Now she's emailing and calling me, asking me for play recommendations."

Matthews points to his own grandfather, who lived to the age of 101. "Men tend not to do well when their wives die," he says. "So there was a question of, How's this going to go for grampy? And he had a third act. He started teaching English to Chinese students at the local university. He started organizing walk groups. He would walk around town and visit the local shops. He started taking classes. He lived in his own apartment all the way up to the end. We really wanted to tell a story about what aging is like now because it's different than you think or remember."

It's the stories of their elders that influenced the specifics of this motley retirement crew, down to how Art, played by Peters from The Wire and Da 5 Bloods, provides the Mary Jane. "It was also my mother who said, 'When they're sitting around the campfire, they should probably be smoking marijuana because that's what we do,'" Matthews recalls. "So it's not what you think."

The monster

A monster of 'The Boroughs'Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

The monster may not be what you think, either.

In terms of inspiration, the Duffers once spoke about Ron Howard's 1985 film Cocoon, about a group of elderly Floridians stumbling upon an alien fountain of youth of sorts in their retirement community. If any movie had the greatest influence on The Boroughs, however, the creators suggest it would be M. Night Shyamalan's 2002 movie Signs, about a farmer discovering a strange crop circle on his property.

"Signs is genre, it has strong family elements, it's all set around one place, and it also has a very expressive and big score like we do," Addiss says, "which isn't something you see every day."

The alien allusions continue from there. The Albuquerque setting is physically close to Roswell in New Mexico, while the marketing materials for The Boroughs feature a bird's-eye view of the retirement property, which looks like a crop circle or model of the cosmos when all lit up. So is it aliens?

Art (Clarke Peters) stands before a mysterious tree on 'The Boroughs'Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

"We're not going to tell you what they are. That's part of the fun," Addiss responds. "What I will tell you is that we know the answer. We know the answer very well. We know the last shot of the last scene of the last episode of the last season of this show. Nothing is accidental."

He confirms there is "a three-season plan with ideas about spinoffs after that" already churning in their brains, but the uncertain landscape of the TV business right now all hinges on ratings and subscriber numbers. Plans, as they learned already, can easily change.

"We learned a hard lesson on Dark Crystal: Don't end on a cliffhanger," Addiss continues, referring to their show's cancellation after an Emmy-winning first season. "So the end of the season [of The Boroughs] is an emotional wrap-up but opens a door and hints at where we wanna go in the next season — and even a little bit into the season after that."

Wally (Denis O'Hare) and Renee (Geena Davis) on 'The Boroughs'Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

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At the very least, the showrunners share what the creatures represent. "What we really wanted is for the monster to feel like a part of the show specifically. So it has a similar problems," Matthews explains. "What are you gonna do with the time you have left? How do you deal with aging? That's true for the monster, too. How old is the monster, really? That's part of what our characters are struggling with. We didn't want it to feel like a show that has a monster. We wanted to feel like it's a show where the heroes and the villains are all on the same arc because then they're all someone you can root for, even if they're bad guys."

Of all the perceived Stranger Things overlaps that aided them the most in pitching The Boroughs to Netflix, it was likely this collection of unlikely heroes struggling with these questions amid a non-earthly dilemma. Seniors and kids have more in common than you might think, especially if they're warning their community about monsters.

"Maybe the only group that's more ignored, overlooked, and not listened to than kids is senior citizens," Addiss says. "A lot of the thematics and a lot of the difficulties line up, they're just on the other end of the timeline."

on Entertainment Weekly

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