ALL OF THIS. There was a lot of good character interaction, but the season was so uneven. I also agree with you about the guys being dumbed down and made ineffectual -- it's like, I appreciate that they were giving the girls a chance to shine this season, but they completely overshot and ended up with a completely different terrible dynamic, where the girls are the only sensible and competent people and the guys are complete doofuses. I also agree about the disappointment with Steve having lost a chunk of his character development. At least the part that he kept is "sweet doofus" as opposed to turning (back?) into a total asshat the way Hopper did, but I missed the guy from season two who was cool and brave and competent.
And yeah, I really wished we'd gotten more buildup with Max and Billy! They could have done so much with that. In general I felt the absence of the kids' home life this season. We know absolutely nothing about Robin's family (even her last name!), the only parents that we even saw (besides Joyce) were Karen and Ted, and we never even really saw the kids interact with their siblings except right at the end, even Jonathan and Will.
One thing that contributed to this, I think, is that this season's character team-ups never really got switched up at all, and I think the character relationships in general suffered for it. In previous seasons they shook up the character pair-ups a lot -- season 2's teamups for Steve, for example, started out with Steve and Nancy, took a side trip into Steve and Billy, then it was Steve and Dustin, and then Steve and all the kids. Hopper in S2 started out with El and then it was Hopper-Joyce-Will and then Hopper and El again at the end. This season established most of the divisions in the cast in the first episode and then never really rotated them, which I think is one thing that made it feel like a lot of the relationships that were important in previous seasons got little to no development here. (And there were also a couple of weird ones like Nancy and Jonathan, who spent all their time together and yet never really seemed to interact.)
It was just a weird season all around. I really enjoyed watching it, and I think you're right that it would've had a hard time living up to my expectations after season 2, but I definitely don't think that's the only reason why it just didn't feel the same.
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And yeah, I really wished we'd gotten more buildup with Max and Billy! They could have done so much with that. In general I felt the absence of the kids' home life this season. We know absolutely nothing about Robin's family (even her last name!), the only parents that we even saw (besides Joyce) were Karen and Ted, and we never even really saw the kids interact with their siblings except right at the end, even Jonathan and Will.
One thing that contributed to this, I think, is that this season's character team-ups never really got switched up at all, and I think the character relationships in general suffered for it. In previous seasons they shook up the character pair-ups a lot -- season 2's teamups for Steve, for example, started out with Steve and Nancy, took a side trip into Steve and Billy, then it was Steve and Dustin, and then Steve and all the kids. Hopper in S2 started out with El and then it was Hopper-Joyce-Will and then Hopper and El again at the end. This season established most of the divisions in the cast in the first episode and then never really rotated them, which I think is one thing that made it feel like a lot of the relationships that were important in previous seasons got little to no development here. (And there were also a couple of weird ones like Nancy and Jonathan, who spent all their time together and yet never really seemed to interact.)
It was just a weird season all around. I really enjoyed watching it, and I think you're right that it would've had a hard time living up to my expectations after season 2, but I definitely don't think that's the only reason why it just didn't feel the same.