The 80s brought new worlds to millions of viewers to enjoy through the small screen. Series with audiences incomparable to today, if only because of the scarcity of television networks in those years, which changed the lives of many viewers.
The novelty and the lack of possibilities to choose from (until the subsequent proliferation of private channels, DTT, streaming platforms…) made some series become true social phenomena.
Fortunately, and despite the current enormous offer in audiovisual entertainment with an inexhaustible and constantly renewed supply of the best series, streaming platforms offer the possibility of recovering these gems of yesterday along with the most recent titles.
The best series of the 80s on streaming platforms
-«Alf» (HBO Max): Everyone’s favorite alien (except, perhaps, cats) arrived home from the planet Melmac and stayed to live on Earth welcomed by a family for whom he became another member.
-“Fame” (HBO Max): The current musical talent contests and reality shows probably had their origin for many in this series, a small screen adaptation of the film of the same name directed by Alan Parker. It showed the hard path from talent to stardom, condensed in the mythical phrase with which all the episodes began (“You have many dreams, you seek fame, but fame costs and this is where you are going to start paying: with sweat”) and reflected in the efforts of singers, composers, dancers… to develop their qualities in pursuit of their dreams.
-«The Golden Girls» (Disney+): The most delicious trio of retirees (in addition to the incomparable Sophia Petrillo, mother of one of them) in the history of television. They shared experiences, coexistence and, above all, hookups and adventures in the golden retreat of Miami, all seasoned with the most hilarious humor and inexhaustible anecdotes about the peculiar Saint Olaf or the past Sicily. Throughout 7 seasons and almost 200 episodes they demonstrated that humor and vitality know no age. It was such a tremendous success that it soon became a showcase for coveted star appearances by all kinds of celebrities of the time, from Bob Hope and Burt Reynolds to Julio Iglesias, also featuring the appearance of the then not so well-known George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino (the latter as an Elvis Presley impersonator).
-“The Simpson” (Disney+): They are pure television history. Everyone’s favorite family has now run 35 seasons and more than 750 episodes without leaving a clue based on the hilarious lives of a middle-class family formed by the father (Homer, a worker at a nuclear power plant… or “nu-ce- “lar”, as he would say), Marge (housewife, loving mother and wife), Lisa (brain prodigy, too mature for her age, in love with ponies), Maggie (she just crawls and uses her pacifier, although she arrived to be suspected of murdering Mr. Burns) and Bart, the little earthquake that goes wrong in the studios and who has a factory in the center. Surely the most influential television title in history and the most watched series on the entire planet.
-«Marriage with children» (Pluto TV): The Bundy family constitutes the less idyllic side of the “typical American family”, almost like Simpsons in the real world: Ted (the apathetic and grumpy shoe salesman father), Peggy (the compulsive and sexually frustrated shopping mother before her unappetizing husband), Kelly (sculptural teenage daughter who accumulates clichés about the dumb blonde archetype… or maybe she is not so dumb deep down), Bud (the son who has just reached adolescence who only seeks to become a conqueror) and Buck (the family dog, sometimes seems to have more common sense than the rest and his thoughts are occasionally heard). Together with their peculiar neighbors, this family keeps getting into trouble from which they don’t always come out successful.
-«Star Trek: The Next Generation» (Netflix): Almost 180 episodes over 7 seasons allowed in the mid-80s to revitalize the classic series created by Gene Roddenberry in which the Star Trek ship explored space, the last frontier. With a new crew (the plot is set a century after the original) it was also a pioneer in expanding the universe trekkie by causing with its success the birth of new spin-off series such as “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”, “Star Trek: Voyager”, and “Star Trek: Enterprise”in addition to having four feature films released in theaters in which they continued the adventures of this new generation of galactic explorers under the command of the charismatic captain Jean-Luc Picard.
