The Secret Diary of Erin Tieng, aged 12 and a bit.

A peek into the seedy underworld of teenage gang warfare in suburban America takes a scary turn in more ways than one.

We’re following a motley crew of girls (who would likely not typically cross each other’s paths) on their stupid o’clock paper round while they’re chased by a gang of spiteful, violent boys. A typical Tuesday in 1988? Not as I recall, although I never had a paper round. Being almost the same age as these plucky girls, I did get stuck on a supposed anachronism involving the Care Bears until I realised it was an exaggeration from the character in question, belying the fact that she’s not the double-hard bitch she makes out to be. OK that’s a realistic and plausible touch, I like it.

I don’t like the fact that this feels so derivative, nor the fact that I’m even thinking that, considering the Paper Girls comics hit stands in the year before the Thing it feels like it’s a poor copy of. That makes staying with this episode more of an uphill struggle than it should be, but all is not fair in love and 80s themed sci-fi.

It’s not Erin’s fault, she’s a likeable protagonist. It’s just that too little is explained too slowly and the pacing, for me, is a little off-kilter. I can’t wrap my head around all the things that happen at the end of the final act quickly enough, and the timey-wimey stuff is too unclear, for my money. I like quickly established rules of time travel in my genre fantasy, or I struggle to get on board. I’m not going to write this off after one episode though, I still want to know where this goes.

Verdict: A confusing opener, but I’m rooting for it. 6/10

Claire Smith