For a while, Prime Video was the place to go for interesting and original science fiction shows. However, they also became known for cancelling those same shows right when they were hitting their stride. For example, The Peripheral was a complex, time-bending cyberpunk story that ended after only one season, and Outer Range, a unique mix of western and science fiction, was cancelled after two.
Apple TV+ has become a major player in science fiction streaming. They’ve been adapting classic sci-fi novels like Neuromancer and Foundation into high-quality shows, and also creating original series like For All Mankind (which reimagines the Space Race), Pluribus (about a surprisingly friendly alien invasion), and Severance (a dark look at work-life balance). Apple allows its sci-fi programs the space to develop, and the result is a consistent flow of critically acclaimed shows.
Amazon could’ve held that title for itself, but it didn’t take enough chances on its best sci-fi shows. Fallout has been a smashing success, but for every Fallout, there are a dozen shows like Paper Girls that Amazon gutted before they got a fair shake.
Paper Girls Was More Than Just A Stranger Things Ripoff
After the huge popularity of Stranger Things, Hollywood rushed to create similar shows and movies. They revisited classic Stephen King stories that had influenced the Netflix hit, like It and Firestarter, with mixed results. They even brought Finn Wolfhard, one of the stars of Stranger Things, into the Ghostbusters universe, rebooting the franchise as a story about kids facing spooky adventures in their town.
Prime Video aimed to replicate the success of Stranger Things with its TV series based on the comic book Paper Girls. While the comic came out in 2015—before Stranger Things even aired—the parallels are clear: kids on bikes facing strange, supernatural events in the 1980s. However, the show soon develops its own unique identity.
Starting in 1988, Paper Girls follows a group of unlikely friends delivering newspapers the day after Halloween. Their ordinary route quickly turns extraordinary when they’re caught in a conflict between groups who can travel through time. The story explores what happens when they meet their future selves, and creator Stephany Folsom expertly uses these encounters to create compelling drama. While it shares some similarities with Stranger Things, Paper Girls is much more than just a copy. It also features time travel elements and battles with robots reminiscent of Voltron.
Paper Girls Deserved More Than One Season
Let me tell you, Amazon really did Paper Girls dirty back in 2022. The show clearly suffered from a shockingly low budget – honestly, some of the special effects looked older than The Walking Dead’s from years ago! And to make matters worse, Prime Video did next to nothing to actually promote it. So, naturally, when few people even knew it existed, let alone watched, Amazon used that as a perfect excuse to cancel it after just one season. It felt like they set it up to fail.
I discovered Paper Girls shortly after its release, but not through typical advertising like trailers or posters. I actually learned about it from a strong recommendation by Kevin Smith and Marc Bernardin on their Fatman Beyond podcast. It seems unusual that a company as large as Amazon would need to depend on podcast hosts to inform people about a good new show they’re releasing.
Paper Girls deserved so much more than a hasty one-and-done hatchet job. The visual effects didn’t look great, but the cast’s chemistry was electric, and they were all rich, interesting, deeply human characters in their own way, with far more potential than eight episodes could live up to.
2026-07-29 19:59