Stranger Things (2019)

Season 3

Director: The Duffer Brothers, Shawn Levy, Uta Briesewitz
Starring: Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard
Episodes: 8

Synopsis:
Tensions rise as Mike and his friends start to drift apart amid the rise of a new threat to Hawkins.

Impressions:
Because I'd heard such bad things about this season, I was very reluctant to watch it. I enjoyed the first two seasons, so I didn't want to watch the show drive off a cliff. If it weren't for my self-imposed deadline for posting this review, who knows how long I might've procrastinated on watching it? However, now that I've seen it, I feel like I was set up for a crash that didn't happen. Now, I'll admit that conflict ball gets gripped rather firmly by several of the characters and if you don't like the idea of petty teenage drama amid world-ending dangers, then it'll probably grate quite a bit. Also, at least in the first few eps, Hopper's characterization seemed to be degenerating into a buffoonish sitcom dad, but this gets set aside as the threat begins to assert itself. While I thought Billy and Max felt a bit superfluous last season, they get a lot more focus here and it's certainly better that they were already established beforehand. It's particularly interesting that Max and Eleven become gal pals given Eleven's original take on the lil' red-headed rascal. I don't know how everyone will take to new character Robin, but I generally enjoyed her dynamic with Steve.

The plot this season is a bit of John Carpenter's The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers with a dash of the '88 version of The Blob. In the previous season, I was concerned about threat escalation getting out of control, but here at least, it's more of an extension of the previous season with a different approach rather than a scaled-up danger. The B plot with the Russians could've used some finessing to come off as more plausible, but I'm not opposed to the general principle of it.

Overall, my take is far more positive than not, but I believe I can see the sticking points that might not make it so well-received in some circles. If you're of the mind that the series should've just stuck to the container of the first season and didn't like the expansion and escalation of the second, then you're not going to like this any better. However, if you liked what the second season was doing and are willing to be a little flexible in your suspension of disbelief, you should like this as well. With that in mind, I'm going to say give it a watch at least.

Rating:
Watch It