Welcome to The Boroughs, an idyllic retirement community in the sun-drenched expanse of the New Mexico desert. For new arrival Sam Cooper (played by Alfred Molina), however, it’s a gilded cage for a grieving widower trying to figure out what to do with the time he has left.

In the new trailer for the upcoming sci-fi series The Boroughs, from creators, showrunners, and executive producers Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews (The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance), soon after moving in, Sam has a terrifying encounter that reveals something monstrous stalking the perfectly manicured cul-de-sacs.

The series, which is executive produced by the Duffer Brothers, combines “the things each of us loves most, which is I love monsters, and Will has been a 70-year-old since he was 10 years old,” says Addiss. Matthews concedes that he has “an affinity for the vintage,” adding, “I would want to live at The Boroughs if it weren’t for a pesky monster problem.” Catch a glimpse of the mystery and wonder ahead in the trailer above, as well as in the fresh photos below. 

When Sam’s concerns are at first dismissed as the musings of a confused old man, he finds unlikely allies in his misfit neighbors. Together, these improbable heroes — a curmudgeonly ex-engineer, a sharp-witted former journalist, a spiritual seeker, a cynical music manager, and a brilliant doctor running out of options — must work together to uncover a dark truth at the heart of The Boroughs before their time runs out. 

It was “fundamentally important,” Addiss says, that the show’s central characters being older isn’t treated as a joke. “It is part of why they are our heroes,” Addiss adds. So when we meet the members of The Boroughs community in Season 1, “their lives are already pretty full. And then they go on this adventure that changes them.”

Molina was drawn to the role of Sam because he understood the character’s grief. Plus, he was interested in playing a reluctant hero of sorts. “There was also something about the character’s grumpiness that appealed to me,” Molina says. “As I read more and more episodes, I thought, ‘This is a character that could really go somewhere.’ He starts off in one place and is somehow forced to go somewhere else. He may not like it all the time, and he may not want to, but he has to.”

A stacked ensemble of film and TV heavyweights has assembled for the series. Alongside Molina (Spider-Man: No Way Home, Three Pines), the cast includes Geena Davis (Thelma and Louise, A League of Their Own), Alfre Woodard (Clemency, Salem’s Lot), Denis O’Hare (American Horror Story, This Is Us), Clarke Peters (The Wire, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), and Bill Pullman (The Sinner, Independence Day). 

“[Working with my co-stars] was amazing. What was interesting, between us, [was that] there were all kinds of connections,” says Molina, explaining how almost everyone in the cast has crossed paths at some point in their careers. “So we all arrived, in a sense, with the ice broken. It made the whole thing very, very easy. There was no trauma. We’ve all learned how to take the job seriously, but not ourselves at all. And that makes for a very easy atmosphere.”  

The Boroughs may be a sci-fi mystery, but at its core, it’s really a story about time. 

“The central question of the show is: What will you do with the time you have left? And we literally say that in the pilot,” Addiss notes. “It was important to us that was the question because it’s a question that anybody can ask. It’s a question that any audience of any age can ask. And our heroes are probably on the shorter end of the stack, so the stakes are higher. The choices they make matter more because they maybe have less time left — or they might have more time, because weird stuff is always happening in The Boroughs.”

Matthews concludes, “No one knows how much time they have left. Everyone of every age is trying to figure out what to do with the time they have left. And sometimes that question is inspiring all the things you want to do. Sometimes that’s a weight. There’s a lot of different ways to face the rest of your life, but everyone is always facing the rest of their life. And that’s why it’s a show for everybody.”

Visit The Boroughs when it premieres May 21 on Netflix.