Stranger Things Season 3 Review: 6 Ups & 6 Downs

5. Too. Much. Romance.

Even for the standards of TV shows revolving around teenagers, there are just way too many romantic subplots crammed into these eight episodes.

In the first half of the season in particular, as many characters as possible are paired-off into predictable couplings that, bar a single exception, lead exactly where you expect they will.

Forced love stories rarely make for compelling drama, and that's absolutely true in this case. Even Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and Mike's (Finn Wolfhard) love-in just feels like it's eating up precious time that could be spent exploring literally anything else.

At best, the prolonged devotion to the heroes' love lives is a failed attempt at character development, and at worst it's a soapy attempt to pad out a malnourished central plot.

Sadly, Hollywood will seemingly be forever convinced that audiences won't identify with characters unless they're constantly falling for the nearest person in earshot. Not good.