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Before Netflix drops the new Duffer Brothers-produced series The Boroughs, get an exclusive preview of the show's score. Listen to it now.
Stranger Things may be over, but Matt and Ross Duffer are returning to haunt Netflix with a new horror series this week. The Boroughs is a frightening journey into a retirement community with a terrible secret.
Before the series drops tomorrow, Collider has an exclusive preview of the show's eerie score by John Paesano, and an exclusive look at the score's inspirations from Paesano himself. Paesano is a veteran composer who's scored movies , TV shows , and video games . He's next set to score one of his highest-profile films yet: Nintendo's long-awaited The Legend of Zelda.
For The Boroughs, he discussed how the show's score was influenced by some of the greatest movie composers of all time: "I grew up on the music of John Williams, James Horner, Jerry Goldsmith, James Newton Howard, and Alan Silvestri. Those were composers who wrote big, bold, thematic scores that were not afraid to be emotional, adventurous, and completely upfront.
That kind of scoring is really where I live, so I am always looking for projects that want to tap into that feeling, and The Boroughs offered that to me. Once I got together with the team, we spent a lot of time talking about the great scores of the late ’80s and ’90s. It was a period when orchestral music was unapologetically bold, emotionally direct, and full of storytelling shape.
But we were not only interested in recreating the sound of that era. We wanted to tap into the process as well.
" Much as Stranger Things was set in the 1980s and used a period-appropriate synth-heavy score, Paesano looked to that cinematic decade for inspiration: not necessarily via contemporary instruments, but as an overriding philosophy. "For The Boroughs, we tried to approach the score as if we were writing it in 1988. Not constantly tethered to picture or reacting to every cut, but writing from conversations, story, character, production art, and instinct," Paesano explained.
"Of course, the music still had to serve the show, support the drama, and land with the picture. But we wanted the score to have its own narrative spine. Like the great scores of that era, the goal was for the score to be able to tell the story whether the picture was there or not. To carry theme, emotion, mystery, danger, humor, and adventure on its own terms.
" He went on to say,"That became one of the guiding principles of the score. Let the orchestra speak boldly, let themes develop with shape and purpose, and bring that classic sense of cinematic storytelling into a modern show in a way that felt alive, fresh, and completely sincere.
" All eight episodes of The Boroughs will premiere on Netflix on May 21. Before it drops, you can listen to the first track from The Boroughs soundtrack,"Welcome to the Boroughs," below. COLLIDER Collider · Quiz Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars Five universes.
Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you'd actually make it out of alive. 💊The Matrix 🔥Mad Max 🌧️Blade Runner 🏜️Dune 🚀Star Wars TEST YOUR SURVIVAL → QUESTION 1 / 8INSTINCT 01 You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you.
What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one. APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it. BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons.
Questions don't keep you alive. CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who's pulling the strings. DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it.
EFind the people fighting back and join them. You can't fix a broken galaxy alone.
NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 2 / 8RESOURCE 02 In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires. AKnowledge. If you understand the system, you don't need resources — you can generate them.
BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it. CTrust. In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity.
DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on. EShips and credits. The galaxy is big — you survive it by being able to move through it freely.
NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 3 / 8THREAT 03 What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you're honest about what you're actually afraid of. AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant. BA raid.
No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left. CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you're a problem, you're already out of time. DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn't even know I was playing.
EThe Empire tightening its grip until there's nowhere left to run. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 4 / 8AUTHORITY 04 How do you deal with authority you don't trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.
ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it. BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better. CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do.
Visibility is the enemy. DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can't beat a system you refuse to understand. EResist openly when I have to.
Some things are worth the risk of being seen. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 5 / 8ENVIRONMENT 05 Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn't just tactical — it's physical, psychological, and very much about where you are. AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — cramped, artificial, but with access to everything that matters.
BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement. At least the threat is honest. CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions. DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand.
EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire's attention rarely reaches. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 6 / 8ALLIANCE 06 Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are. AA tight crew of believers who've seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose.
BOne or two people I'd trust with my life. Any more than that and someone talks. CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities.
I work alone unless I have no choice. DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last. EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts.
NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 7 / 8MORALITY 07 Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they're actually made of. AI won't harm the innocent — even the ones who'd report me without hesitation. BI do what I have to to protect the people I've chosen.
Everything else is negotiable. CThe line shifts depending on who's asking and what's at stake. DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people's future, even if it'd help now. ESome lines, once crossed, can't be uncrossed.
I know which ones they are. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 8 / 8PURPOSE 08 What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.
AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it. BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving. CAnswers.
Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out. DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations. EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else's boot. REVEAL MY WORLD → Your Fate Has Been Calculated You'd Survive In… Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for.
This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for. The Resistance, Zion The Matrix You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You're a systems thinker who can't help but notice the seams in things. The Wasteland Mad Max The wasteland doesn't reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break.
That's you. Los Angeles, 2049 Blade Runner You'd survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely. Arrakis Dune Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards. A Galaxy Far, Far Away Star Wars The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn't have it any other way.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ What Is 'The Boroughs' About? Set in an exclusive New Mexico retirement community, The Boroughs centers around a mismatched group of retirees who start to realize that something is terribly wrong in their cloistered home. Widower Sam Cooper is the newest arrival to The Boroughs, and he's the first to realize that something is wrong.
The series also stars Geena Davis , Alfre Woodard , Bill Pullman , Clarke Peters , Denis O'Hare , Jena Malone , Carlos Miranda , Seth Numrich , and Alice Kremelberg . Jane Kaczmarek , Ed Begley Jr. , Dee Wallace , and Karan Soni will recur.
The Boroughs was created by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews . Ben Taylor directs and executive produces, while the Duffer Brothers executive produce. The Boroughs will premiere on May 21 exclusively on Netflix. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
The Boroughs Like Follow Followed Drama Mystery Supernatural Sci-Fi Release Date May 21, 2026 Network Netflix Showrunner Jeffrey Addiss, Will Matthews Cast See All Directors Augustine Frizzell, Kyle Patrick Alvarez, Ben Taylor Creator Jeffrey Addiss, Will Matthews Powered by Expand Collapse
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