The long wait for Stranger Things Season 5 is nearly over, with the first four episodes of the final season debuting for fans with a Netflix subscription on November 26 in the 2025 TV schedule. The Upside Down is encroaching on the rightside up, and official trailer footage indicates that danger is coming to the Wheeler household. Ted Wheeler has managed to stay mostly oblivious to the Upside Down despite his two oldest kids being mixed up in it, and when CinemaBlend spoke with actor Joe Chrest ahead of the final season, he defended Ted as a much better dad than he's gained a reputation for.
With the exception of some moments with Holly, Ted has seemed like a fairly uninvolved father. While that's been convenient for Nancy and Mike when it comes to secretly investigating monsters from other dimensions and hiding a government fugitive in the basement, it's also given him a bad rap among fans for his parenting skills. When I noted to the actor that Ted isn't necessarily known as dad of the year after the first four seasons, Joe Chrest said:
