Fan’s champion Barb made an appearance in the opening sketch of the Golden Globes this year, coming back from her disastrous death in Stranger Things to join fellow castmates in the musical number.

“I’ve got a little secret, don’t repeat or tweet it. Barb is still alive,” rapped Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Caleb McLaughlin, Gaten Materazzo and Noah Schnapp. Nancy’s best friend and hugely hard-done-by Barb then emerged alive from a pool – fitting, as that’s the way she met her end in the show and was left for dead in the Upside Down – surrounded by Barb-like synchronised dancers.

The sci-fi show creators Ross and Matt Duffer have unfortunately been adamant that Barb, played by Shannon Purser, is dead in the show, although they promised season two would offer her some justice. A previous teaser for the second series of the hit Netflix show showed a television plea for the missing character.  

Elsewhere in the night, Meryl Streep used her speech while collecting the Cecil B DeMille award for outstanding contribution to entertainment to criticise president-elect Donald Trump, all without naming him. She spoke of the time he imitated a disabled New York Times reporter in 2015, stating that it “broke my heart”. She also criticised his other aggressive behaviours and encroaching policies, and called for the protection of a free press.

“This instinct to humiliate when it's modelled by someone in the public platform by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody's life,” she said. “Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence.”

Streep added: “We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call him on the carpet for every outrage... join me in supporting the Committee to Protect Journalists, because we’re gonna need them going forward, and they’ll need us to safeguard the truth.”