Somewhere in Taiwan, someone had been scrolling past Stranger Things since it came out. Too scary. Not for them.
What they did love was a sentimental Mandopop ballad. The kind your friends sing at karaoke.
And underneath all the monsters, Stranger Things is really about that. Old friends, looking out for each other.
So for Season 3, we changed the soundtrack, not the show. We recut scenes into Mandopop music videos, then handed the songs to Taiwan's best-loved street musicians.
People who had never watched a single episode started watching. They pushed the show into Netflix's Top 10 in Taiwan for the first time.
Turns out the monsters were never the point.
P.S.It's the only brief that ever asked me to research karaoke hits.