Stranger Things Season 3 Review: 6 Ups & 6 Downs

2. The Lack Of Compelling Character Development

Perhaps the biggest disappointment throughout the season is the bizarre lack of meaningful character development almost across the board.

When the season begins, Hopper (David Harbour) feels like he's regressed back to his season one self without sufficient justification, almost becoming a caricature in the process, and it's a hole he's never really dug out of during the season.

The aforementioned perfunctory romances are meanwhile often used in place of actual character arcs, while surprisingly little is made of the coming-of-age potential better exploited in the two prior seasons.

Meanwhile, if you were hoping that Cary Elwes and Jake Busey might make valuable contributions this season, their new characters are basically both cartoons who get surprisingly little screen time.

For the most part, the show's characters, both kid and adult, feel stuck in the same gear from the beginning of the season to the end, with desperately little personal growth taking place.