How do you do,
The television shows we see echo that of the old serials in the use of the cliff hanger. In the theater, people waited a year or more to find out what happened to Andy Hardy or the Little Rascals. On television, we usually have to wait for months before a new season commences and we find out how things are going. Same with That 70s Show where after a summer of waiting, we finally get to see what happens to the gang.
The television shows we see echo that of the old serials in the use of the cliff hanger. In the theater, people waited a year or more to find out what happened to Andy Hardy or the Little Rascals. On television, we usually have to wait for months before a new season commences and we find out how things are going. Same with That 70s Show where after a summer of waiting, we finally get to see what happens to the gang.
Season Five begins with Donna and Kelso in California while Eric is moping about in Point Place, until he learns of her call. He then goes all the way to California to be with her and they reunite like the previous season never happened. They head home to face angry parents. Red takes away the vista cruiser and Bob sets Donna up in a Catholic school. Jackie has moved on from Kelso for good by moving on to Hyde, who grew a beard at some point. Kelso and Hyde go into a war over Jackie, which is briefly interrupted when the former's girlfriend from California, played by Jessica Simpson, arrives and Jackie becomes territorial. One day, Kitty announces she has started menopause, which makes her feel old, while her parents come into town. The problems with it are made manifest when the gang visits a college. Kitty's father dies and she deals with her cold mother while Simpson leaves with the knowledge that Jackie and Kelso are still into each other, yet Jackie stays with Hyde for the rest. Eric proposes to Donna and everyone soon finds out. Red puts the hardest of oppositions to their marriage by firing Eric and using his college money for personal projects (also fining him for being out of line), leading to Eric to hire himself into Bob's girlfriend's job. Fez finally gets a girlfriend in Nina, to whom he loses his virginity to, before she dumps him for his neediness. One day, it's revealed his green card was expiring and he has to go home after graduating. The teens gather at a camp and miss graduation, after which Laurie marries Fez so he could stay, which is more than what Red's heart can bear.
Season Six then follows with Red recovering from his heart attack while Eric puts his moving out on hold to help out around the house and as well as his marriage plans. Kelso claims to have "done it" with a girl at a concert, who later reviews to be pregnant with his child. Kelso decides to become a cop, leading to a variety of jokes involved. Fez gets his citizenship official and apparently leaves Laurie, who gets a new actress in this season and is written out. He and Kelso become corners of a love triangle with another cop at one point. Jackie's father goes to jail for fraud and she moves in with Donna. All is fair until her mom returns. Her welcome from the guys is warm, but not the girls. Donna and Eric are also caught having sex and Donna decides to hold it for marriage, leading to some strain, that both admit they can't handle abstinence. Eventually, they both begin to doubt their marriage and wonder if they could go through with it. The season ends with Eric running off and leaving Donna at the altar.
Seasons five and six mark the high water mark of That 70s Show, having some of the best and worst episodes of the series' run. It's the turning point for the show as the gang now must transcend from childhood to adulthood, though teen rebellion is shown to not really be conquered at this point. There is one thing to point out before we go too deep.
Shortly after Season Four premiered, the 9/11 attacks happened. The buildings made in the Seventies, the World Trade Center, were destroyed on that day, which, perhaps, may have some affects to the show, but I can't find any production notes to cite. One thing I noted is how it took in the post-9/11 hysteria and translated it in the Seventies lens in the premiere of Season Five. When Red is asking where Eric is, Hyde goes into a ramble about how one day the US government will create tracking devices that would be placed into our bodies, leading to this exchange:
I mentioned previously how the characters can line up on the political spectrum and it's still true in Season Five. Red is still on the Far Right, becoming increasingly patriotic in the series' run, whereas most of the teens are on the Far Left and seem to show indifference to patriotism, or see the US Government as the bad guy here. However, except for "Love California Style", much of the political commentaries have shifted into the background while the character drama takes center stage, continuing the teen rebellion against adult authority figures.
The first part of Season Five has that authority coming down on the teens. After Eric, Donna, and Kelso return, Red takes away the keys to the Vista Cruiser, leaving Eric without a set of wheels. Driving the car is a privilege, and Eric lost it in his journey. At least he knew better than to drive it to California, since that would be deemed auto-theft. However, as the season progresses, Red's punishment comes close to abuse. In the Thanksgiving episode, Eric forges Red's signature when he is failing math and tries to hide it, but the truth comes through. Red was just letting Eric sit with the adults, but when the truth comes he sends Eric back to the kiddie table, and then fines thirty dollars. A better way to handle it would be to discuss the matter later and carry on the dinner, but charging a teenager thirty dollars, which ought to be $119.09 in today's money (looking at that, you are likely to have whistled, which proves my point). Most teenagers don't have that much money, as they routinely blow it away on other things. Even though Eric has a job, this fine would have hit him in the budget area since that's practically what he makes in a week. Even the threats of kicking Eric in the rear, designed to be a gag in the show, qualifies as abuse, and Red's only lucky Eric turns eighteen around this time.
Speaking of time, one thing that bothers me in the show is the year a season is in. First Season was both 1976 and 77, while Seasons two to three are 77 to 78. However, despite Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas episodes in each season, we are still stuck in 1978 in Season Five. And that's not the worst of it. Eric turned seventeen in Season One, and he hadn't aged a year for the past four seasons. In truth, Season Five with its year setting should have had Eric turn twenty-one and be in college by now. At least, Season Five is the season everyone graduates from high school, except for Jackie.
Back to the way everyone comes on the teens, Bob finally puts his foot down on Donna's behavior in the last season and decides to send Donna to a Catholic school, jokingly called Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows. As you would expect, the story line is not developed well and exists only to put Donna in the uniform of a Catholic school girl, specifically for fanservice. Not only that, where Donna had been in rebellion all through the past season without Eric's help, Bob is willing to believe that Eric had dirtied her up (apparently not over what happened in "Parents Find Out" or earlier) and his decision to keep them apart is his way of fixing it. This also leads to him and Red arguing on who was the worst. Bob also tries to keep them apart in college in setting Donna up for one school, while Eric has to settle for the university. Ironically, Bob's attempt at separating them only keeps them together all season.
Eventually, Eric decides that he doesn't want to be separated from Donna and he asks her to marry him. She says yes, but they keep the engagement a secret for many episodes until Kitty goes to a ring store to pick up what turns out to be the engagement ring. Not really the best way to find out. The adults are shocked, as you would expect.
Not as shocking as Jackie moving onto Hyde when Kelso ran out on her. I have heard of how girls have this "bad boy" phase, and apparently that is what Jackie is having with Kelso gone. However, Kelso goes through great lengths to get Jackie back, none of which work. When Jessica Simpson comes to town, her beauty once more sparks rivalry, leading to the moment when Jackie catches her making out with Kelso and yelling, "Get your hands off my boyfriend!"
To tell the truth, that is something that has never happened to me, yet; an ex-girlfriend coming along and telling some woman to get off me. If it did happen, I'd be willing to point out to the said ex that we aren't together anymore and she has no right to claim me. I am sure plenty of the male readers (or female, if you're a Lesbian reader) would agree and have done the same thing. Kelso, however, lets it get to his head that Jackie wants him back. So does Hyde. Remarkably, they have the situation resolved in the end with Simpson's character departing from the show for good, while Jackie convinces Hyde she has no lingering feelings for Kelso. It really isn't until near the end that another crisis comes up: Hyde thinks Jackie cheated on him with Kelso, prompting him to cheat on her. It turns out, Kelso was freaked out about a sex dream Fez had that featured him in it, and it's not really homophobia. It's just weird. Hyde confesses, which makes Jackie break up with him and for the first time we see Hyde changed. Earlier, he shaved his beard off and let Jackie sleep in when her father is arrested for fraud. Yet here, nothing seems to work, though when Kelso decides to take advantage of the situation and make a move on Jackie, their rivalry continues, with Kelso falling off the tower again.
At the end of the season, Jackie is made to chose between the two (becoming Dawson's Creek moved into the seventies), but decides she loves herself in Season Six. I know people tell others to love themselves, but Jackie's takes it up to the eleven, considering how selfish she gets. However, she isn't over Hyde and fantasizes of reconciliations with him, including a Grease themed one. They do reconcile and make another relationship, during which Jackie finally begins to grow from the spoiled princess into a caring girl. Unfortunately, it ends in mid-season, once more, when Hyde shows that he has commitment issues.
In my experience, there comes a point in the relationship where one or the other member of the couple will want to get married, and it's usually the girl who gets the wedding fever. One sign of them being perfect together is rather or not the guy might take the hint and propose. Of course, since Hyde has seen his dad run off, followed by his mom, and Season Six reveals (surprise, surprise!) Hyde's father was someone else, thus he has no model on which to lean on for getting a stable relationship. Instead, he has only seen love never last. The result of that is Hyde becomes a commitmentphobe because he doesn't want to get hurt after being so so many times. This will be something to return in Season Seven.
Season Five and Six are about change. For one, Kitty announces she's pregnant in "What is and What Should Never Be", only to find out in "Heartbreaker" that she is starting menopause. For fans of The Golden Girls, Betty White appears here as Kitty's mom. She seems like a nice old lady at first, though she has a bad habit of saying something mean with a smile (something I personally hate) and is pushing to have her way at times with her husband: she would ask him to do something, he says he'll get to it or it's fine; she asks again, and he replies again of either one; then she yells "Bert!"
Her arrival shows a generational gap between her and her daughter. If one thought Kitty was conservative, her mom actually considers the word "menopause" dirty talk. Later, when Kitty tries to have a woman to woman talk with her about it, Betty claims she didn't have it, and then says that it was not something to talk about, showing her to be from a different time.
Kitty goes crazy after menopause. She gets very sensitive to criticism (to a point that you can't be honest around her without causing her to get upset), throws a hissy fit at the drop of a hat, and gets jealous when a pretty woman walks in.
To me, Kitty's menopause was what ruined these two seasons because, for the most part, because of the way it's treated. Women who have menopause are going to be experiencing some vulnerability and need some support, just as they did when they got their first periods (in this case, they have gotten so use to bleeding once a month and worrying about pregnancy during sex that when this happens all that suddenly seems like Paradise Lost) and Kitty is no exception. Instead, most of the guys get awkward about any discussions of the lady parts, even trying to come up with euphemistic names for it, while avoiding Kitty, leaving Red to handle her. The only guy to sit still and listen to her talk is Fez, as shown in "Over the Hills and Far Away", but he has become a creep in this season, which implies the only reason a man would listen to discussions of body parts are creepy sorts. The girls barely give any support, with Jackie too vain and Donna would only go into a feminist rant about it. The one person she turned to for support on the idea that she knows what is happening, her mom, refuses to talk about it. Then she loses her dad, who was willing to be encouraging. All the while, even her own husband would claim it to be worse than the Korean Conflict. In short, something either mock or cringe at (and yet the show is okay with talks of sex and teenagers having sex?).
It gets worse in Season Six. Jackie's mom, Pam, returns late in the season, though they have transformed the character. Now played by Brooke Shields, Pam Burkhart is a knock out who gets the guys delighted, since she apparently now eye candy for the male gaze. This a far cry from "The Keg" where she appeared as a realtor and more professional looking. But this transformation was apparently something for the male teens in the audience, who are encouraged by the show to drool over her just as teenage boys are suppose to over older women. Not only does that affect the guys, but also the older men, Red and Bob, and Kitty gets very territorial with Red whenever a mention of Pam comes up. Once more, the menopause shows up with the implication that women are good when beautiful and fertile, and once they reach the point of becoming barren and old, they must be traded in for a superior model. While Bob quickly goes along (kinda had to since he and Joanna split a couple of episodes back) while Red tries to convince Kitty that he has no feelings for Pam. In the season finale of Season Five, Red has a heart attack, from which he recovers quickly (lets see, the dad has a heart attack while the mom goes into menopause; was this show trying to imitate 7th Heaven?). However, it's only in "Man With Money", just sixteen episodes in, that he is given a heart monitor, which goes off supposedly when Pam is around and Kitty thinks that is a sign of arousal to the former. In the end, it turns out Bob annoys him and makes his rate go up, which explained the monitor beeping, and showing that Kitty was jealous over nothing. She also took offense to the implication of the doctor that she would be the source of stress during an examination, until he tells her Eric was the cause.
Kitty's menopause is not the only change. Season Five is when the gang finally reach the time when they graduate from high school. In "Over the Hills and Far Away", Kitty and Red take the boys to the University of Wisconsin in Madison, introducing them to college life, or what one expects from it. Just why we never see a scene where the boys learn how different the course work in college is from high school is beyond me. In "Celebration Day", the teens are on the eve of graduation, though they decide to spend their last night in high school out camping. The comedy of errors happen that prevents them from attending, but they still get their diplomas. Well, all except Jackie, who has only one more year. So, with the other five graduated from high school we can see them all going to college.
No, it turns out Fez's time in the US is cut short in "Immigrant Song" and Donna is the only one who talks of leaving town. Eric plans to go with her in their engagement, which upsets their parents. Red still doesn't think Eric is man enough to get married while Kitty sees Eric as her baby, while Bob thinks Donna can do better. In Season Six, when Donna is moving away, Eric tries to consul Bob, who reminds him of how he "dirtied her up and made her have to go to a Catholic school." The one support comes from, of all places, Laurie, who shows up in the final episodes as a reformed woman, though no one seems to buy it.
Red's heart attack is another change, as it signals the man we see as one tough guy is mortal and thus will die at some point. There was one earlier episode where Red almost gets hit by a branch, leading him to have a vision of his funeral where no one shows up. So, he reforms and starts being nice around everyone. However, this gives him the vision of not getting any peace, even in death. The early seasons also had a case of Red's health brought up and Kitty putting him on a diet, which further shows an out of date concept of masculinity being that real men don't eat healthy food. In Season Six, we get "Join Together" when this diet is brought up again, and this time Red can't have any beer. He reacts to that by faking another heart attack to get Kitty to change her mind, but she doesn't buy it. All the while, Red becomes child like in not being able to do and have the things he use to take. At least, he gets to have sex again in "The Magic Bus."
Eric rises to the occasion to be the man of the house while his father recovers, giving up college for a time in the process, which does mean Donna and he will be apart for awhile. However, in a strange plot twist, Donna returns in the same episode as she left. In "The Magic Bus", Eric turns eighteen, at last, and expects the party he always gets (as opposed to his seventeenth where he finds the birthday parties embarrassing). Instead, Kitty doesn't set up a party and Eric's birthday is treated as second to his parents getting intimate. Here, Eric learns that with adulthood some of the things we use to consider cantankerous and odious suddenly is longed for because we don't get it anymore.
Other changes include Kelso getting a woman pregnant and joining the police force to get the money to raise his child. At the same time, Fez's marriage to Laurie ends when the latter, who is played by a different actress, disappears and he becomes a US citizen. "A Legal Matter" has him being given some facts about the US, which I'll mention a few things. When Donna mentions that the Statue of Liberty was a gift to the US from the French, Kitty claims to have not known that (then tries to use cooking skills as a way to feel equal, if not superior, to Donna). Then, when Donna tells Fez the basis of the Vietnam War, Red pulls Fez from her and then says "it was a tie" and that the Vietnamese were happy for American involvement. The implication from it is the older generation knows nothing about America and if it did it's only the politically incorrect myths, the Anglocentric version, etc. This episode aired almost a year after we went into Iraq, which many liked to claim was the new Vietnam, which suggests to me the episode was meant to satire the war there. Red sits Fez down and has him recite a bunch of nonsense that would make a right wing talk show host proud, all the while struggling to get Fez to say "America." I personally think Fez's mispronouncing of America seems a little racist since plenty of people from Latin America and the Caribbean learn how to pronounce it properly (just caked by their accents), and I have never heard of anyone say "A-may-dee-ka."
Fez and Kelso also form two ends of a love triangle in two episodes, "Sally Simpson" and "Won't Be Fooled Again", where Officer Suzy, played by Alyson Hennigan, appears. Fez gets a crush on her, while Suzy is smitted with Kelso, who sees her as a guy (prompting feminists to roll eyes at how the only way a man would avoid objectifying a woman is to treat her as one of the guys, as evidenced at his continued staring at Donna's chest). The miscue forms the comedy and the two men almost don't speak to one another. Suzy tries to get them to settle their differences, but it only works when she walks out on the both of them, thus removing any reason to fight. This I often question because Donna and Jackie never have a guy to fight over and they never settle their differences.
One thing I must bring up is how Kelso gets progressively dumber with each passing season. I mean, what next? Is someone going to mention of him humping something for some strange reason (like a dog on someone's leg)? He is pretty much an idiot in the earlier seasons, especially when they talk of him lighting a bag full of feces and then stomping it out, leading to Leo to call him "crappy shoes" (hashtag punchline rimshot), as well as him starting a fire in Jackie's house. In Season Six, he really gets dumb. He actually believes he is a stooge; he takes the car he was suppose to watch out for a joy ride, which when stolen he wants to call the cops before seeing his badge. Then there is his firing a flare gun and thinking he could put out the fire with another flare (and he was waving a flare gun around while under the influence). The last part won't seem funny after you get this commercial. Kelso also grows a mustache to fit in with the cops, during which he makes a transformation and leave the drug habits of the circle. This results in Hyde and Fez altering it in his sleep, and the next morning, Kelso looks like Hitler and has to be shown it (at least he sees it as a "good burn", how did he not see it when getting ready that morning?). Topping it all is how he thinks having sex standing up determines the sex of the baby he has spawned.
The final change to complete is Eric and Donna heading to marriage. Through Season Six, they pull it through, and there is even one point that Bob begins to come around while Red appears to be sabotaging the marriage with taking away money and job. At one point, back in Season Five's "Battle of Evermore", when Red asks why Eric didn't do anything about the hubcaps, he says, "You took away my keys so I can't drive. You took away my job so I can't afford a new hubcap. You took away my self-esteem so I have no pride in my job or my possessions." Even when Eric takes on adulthood, there is still no respect. Eric tries out the household chores with Red watching, with two reactions. One, Eric takes delight in having Red be the one to hold the flashlight for a change, and two, Red never thinking Eric's skills are good enough. "Young Man Blues" has him fixing a lawn mower and testing it out, and it works. However, Red doesn't believe him.
Kitty, on the other hand, eventually comes around, though not before making a big deal out of it. That thing of her needing something to take care of leads to Red getting her a dog name Shotzi (and a fish in an earlier episode), though the dog disappears for a while. When Donna has her bachelorette party, we get more of Kitty's rivalry with Donna over generations where she said hers was when she had her first sip off wine. Donna and Jackie, however, bring Kitty to a strip club to show that this is suppose to be Donna's last wild night (which makes me point out the hypocrisy in the male gaze philosophy, where the complaints of women being objectified are done by the sex industry, yet the feminist Donna is willing to oogle a bunch of men stripping without raising a fuss. I mean, male strippers are as human as their female counterparts, and suffer the same abuses and standardization as well).
However, the one thing to undo it is what is considered normal, the pre-wedding jitters. I have yet to meet anyone who never got those, not any of my friends seemed to have had them. Donna and Eric get them and it leads to them thinking of bailing. In the end, it's Eric who bails while Donna shows up at the wedding. This after a season of build up to the day with opposition from parents and some problems within. In "Baby Don't Do It", Donna uses the pregnancy scare and marriage counseling to decide to abstain from sex, and like a typical television male Eric gets upset because in the television world men are suppose to be eager for sex. Eric doesn't last long, especially when Pam comes in and gets him horny. Finally, in "Happy Jack", Eric is caught masturbating in the bathroom by Donna and he claims his needs have risen to Fez's levels. In the end, Donna also inadvertently admits that she can't hold back either, and she also indulges in the solitary act.
Eric also sees Donna's dress and winds up ruining it. Fortunately, Donna has a back up. Yet, these are nothing to compared to the jitters. When Eric leaves, it's one great disappointment, but at least Midge returns. The season finale "The Seeker", Donna and Eric finally meet again and they agree they aren't ready for marriage.
Despite the flaws, there are a few good things in these two seasons, particularly as the changes transform the place. For once we are in 1979 and the teens are allowed to grow up and graduate. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, these two seasons are the high water mark of the series. In the next part, we come to both the watershed season and the worst season.
Season Six then follows with Red recovering from his heart attack while Eric puts his moving out on hold to help out around the house and as well as his marriage plans. Kelso claims to have "done it" with a girl at a concert, who later reviews to be pregnant with his child. Kelso decides to become a cop, leading to a variety of jokes involved. Fez gets his citizenship official and apparently leaves Laurie, who gets a new actress in this season and is written out. He and Kelso become corners of a love triangle with another cop at one point. Jackie's father goes to jail for fraud and she moves in with Donna. All is fair until her mom returns. Her welcome from the guys is warm, but not the girls. Donna and Eric are also caught having sex and Donna decides to hold it for marriage, leading to some strain, that both admit they can't handle abstinence. Eventually, they both begin to doubt their marriage and wonder if they could go through with it. The season ends with Eric running off and leaving Donna at the altar.
Seasons five and six mark the high water mark of That 70s Show, having some of the best and worst episodes of the series' run. It's the turning point for the show as the gang now must transcend from childhood to adulthood, though teen rebellion is shown to not really be conquered at this point. There is one thing to point out before we go too deep.
Shortly after Season Four premiered, the 9/11 attacks happened. The buildings made in the Seventies, the World Trade Center, were destroyed on that day, which, perhaps, may have some affects to the show, but I can't find any production notes to cite. One thing I noted is how it took in the post-9/11 hysteria and translated it in the Seventies lens in the premiere of Season Five. When Red is asking where Eric is, Hyde goes into a ramble about how one day the US government will create tracking devices that would be placed into our bodies, leading to this exchange:
Hyde: Damn US Government.It's meant to be something of a joke to rattle those who were waving the Old Glory after the attacks, but over time, as controversies of the PATRIOT Act arose, the hindsight sort of changed among the viewers. No doubt, Hyde would have claimed the attacks were an inside job while Red would deny that, saying it's a Communist lie or the US Government wouldn't kill its own people unless a totalitarian regime had taken over the country, adding that it wouldn't happen because "We the People" would rise up and stop such a regime.
Red: 'Damn US Government'? Without our government, you'd be stuck in Siberia right now, sucking the juice from a rotten Commie potato. And if the US Government decides to stick a tracking device up your ass, you say "thank you and God bless America." ["Going to California" 2002.]
I mentioned previously how the characters can line up on the political spectrum and it's still true in Season Five. Red is still on the Far Right, becoming increasingly patriotic in the series' run, whereas most of the teens are on the Far Left and seem to show indifference to patriotism, or see the US Government as the bad guy here. However, except for "Love California Style", much of the political commentaries have shifted into the background while the character drama takes center stage, continuing the teen rebellion against adult authority figures.
The first part of Season Five has that authority coming down on the teens. After Eric, Donna, and Kelso return, Red takes away the keys to the Vista Cruiser, leaving Eric without a set of wheels. Driving the car is a privilege, and Eric lost it in his journey. At least he knew better than to drive it to California, since that would be deemed auto-theft. However, as the season progresses, Red's punishment comes close to abuse. In the Thanksgiving episode, Eric forges Red's signature when he is failing math and tries to hide it, but the truth comes through. Red was just letting Eric sit with the adults, but when the truth comes he sends Eric back to the kiddie table, and then fines thirty dollars. A better way to handle it would be to discuss the matter later and carry on the dinner, but charging a teenager thirty dollars, which ought to be $119.09 in today's money (looking at that, you are likely to have whistled, which proves my point). Most teenagers don't have that much money, as they routinely blow it away on other things. Even though Eric has a job, this fine would have hit him in the budget area since that's practically what he makes in a week. Even the threats of kicking Eric in the rear, designed to be a gag in the show, qualifies as abuse, and Red's only lucky Eric turns eighteen around this time.
Speaking of time, one thing that bothers me in the show is the year a season is in. First Season was both 1976 and 77, while Seasons two to three are 77 to 78. However, despite Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas episodes in each season, we are still stuck in 1978 in Season Five. And that's not the worst of it. Eric turned seventeen in Season One, and he hadn't aged a year for the past four seasons. In truth, Season Five with its year setting should have had Eric turn twenty-one and be in college by now. At least, Season Five is the season everyone graduates from high school, except for Jackie.
Back to the way everyone comes on the teens, Bob finally puts his foot down on Donna's behavior in the last season and decides to send Donna to a Catholic school, jokingly called Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows. As you would expect, the story line is not developed well and exists only to put Donna in the uniform of a Catholic school girl, specifically for fanservice. Not only that, where Donna had been in rebellion all through the past season without Eric's help, Bob is willing to believe that Eric had dirtied her up (apparently not over what happened in "Parents Find Out" or earlier) and his decision to keep them apart is his way of fixing it. This also leads to him and Red arguing on who was the worst. Bob also tries to keep them apart in college in setting Donna up for one school, while Eric has to settle for the university. Ironically, Bob's attempt at separating them only keeps them together all season.
Eventually, Eric decides that he doesn't want to be separated from Donna and he asks her to marry him. She says yes, but they keep the engagement a secret for many episodes until Kitty goes to a ring store to pick up what turns out to be the engagement ring. Not really the best way to find out. The adults are shocked, as you would expect.
Not as shocking as Jackie moving onto Hyde when Kelso ran out on her. I have heard of how girls have this "bad boy" phase, and apparently that is what Jackie is having with Kelso gone. However, Kelso goes through great lengths to get Jackie back, none of which work. When Jessica Simpson comes to town, her beauty once more sparks rivalry, leading to the moment when Jackie catches her making out with Kelso and yelling, "Get your hands off my boyfriend!"
To tell the truth, that is something that has never happened to me, yet; an ex-girlfriend coming along and telling some woman to get off me. If it did happen, I'd be willing to point out to the said ex that we aren't together anymore and she has no right to claim me. I am sure plenty of the male readers (or female, if you're a Lesbian reader) would agree and have done the same thing. Kelso, however, lets it get to his head that Jackie wants him back. So does Hyde. Remarkably, they have the situation resolved in the end with Simpson's character departing from the show for good, while Jackie convinces Hyde she has no lingering feelings for Kelso. It really isn't until near the end that another crisis comes up: Hyde thinks Jackie cheated on him with Kelso, prompting him to cheat on her. It turns out, Kelso was freaked out about a sex dream Fez had that featured him in it, and it's not really homophobia. It's just weird. Hyde confesses, which makes Jackie break up with him and for the first time we see Hyde changed. Earlier, he shaved his beard off and let Jackie sleep in when her father is arrested for fraud. Yet here, nothing seems to work, though when Kelso decides to take advantage of the situation and make a move on Jackie, their rivalry continues, with Kelso falling off the tower again.
At the end of the season, Jackie is made to chose between the two (becoming Dawson's Creek moved into the seventies), but decides she loves herself in Season Six. I know people tell others to love themselves, but Jackie's takes it up to the eleven, considering how selfish she gets. However, she isn't over Hyde and fantasizes of reconciliations with him, including a Grease themed one. They do reconcile and make another relationship, during which Jackie finally begins to grow from the spoiled princess into a caring girl. Unfortunately, it ends in mid-season, once more, when Hyde shows that he has commitment issues.
In my experience, there comes a point in the relationship where one or the other member of the couple will want to get married, and it's usually the girl who gets the wedding fever. One sign of them being perfect together is rather or not the guy might take the hint and propose. Of course, since Hyde has seen his dad run off, followed by his mom, and Season Six reveals (surprise, surprise!) Hyde's father was someone else, thus he has no model on which to lean on for getting a stable relationship. Instead, he has only seen love never last. The result of that is Hyde becomes a commitmentphobe because he doesn't want to get hurt after being so so many times. This will be something to return in Season Seven.
Season Five and Six are about change. For one, Kitty announces she's pregnant in "What is and What Should Never Be", only to find out in "Heartbreaker" that she is starting menopause. For fans of The Golden Girls, Betty White appears here as Kitty's mom. She seems like a nice old lady at first, though she has a bad habit of saying something mean with a smile (something I personally hate) and is pushing to have her way at times with her husband: she would ask him to do something, he says he'll get to it or it's fine; she asks again, and he replies again of either one; then she yells "Bert!"
Her arrival shows a generational gap between her and her daughter. If one thought Kitty was conservative, her mom actually considers the word "menopause" dirty talk. Later, when Kitty tries to have a woman to woman talk with her about it, Betty claims she didn't have it, and then says that it was not something to talk about, showing her to be from a different time.
Kitty goes crazy after menopause. She gets very sensitive to criticism (to a point that you can't be honest around her without causing her to get upset), throws a hissy fit at the drop of a hat, and gets jealous when a pretty woman walks in.
To me, Kitty's menopause was what ruined these two seasons because, for the most part, because of the way it's treated. Women who have menopause are going to be experiencing some vulnerability and need some support, just as they did when they got their first periods (in this case, they have gotten so use to bleeding once a month and worrying about pregnancy during sex that when this happens all that suddenly seems like Paradise Lost) and Kitty is no exception. Instead, most of the guys get awkward about any discussions of the lady parts, even trying to come up with euphemistic names for it, while avoiding Kitty, leaving Red to handle her. The only guy to sit still and listen to her talk is Fez, as shown in "Over the Hills and Far Away", but he has become a creep in this season, which implies the only reason a man would listen to discussions of body parts are creepy sorts. The girls barely give any support, with Jackie too vain and Donna would only go into a feminist rant about it. The one person she turned to for support on the idea that she knows what is happening, her mom, refuses to talk about it. Then she loses her dad, who was willing to be encouraging. All the while, even her own husband would claim it to be worse than the Korean Conflict. In short, something either mock or cringe at (and yet the show is okay with talks of sex and teenagers having sex?).
It gets worse in Season Six. Jackie's mom, Pam, returns late in the season, though they have transformed the character. Now played by Brooke Shields, Pam Burkhart is a knock out who gets the guys delighted, since she apparently now eye candy for the male gaze. This a far cry from "The Keg" where she appeared as a realtor and more professional looking. But this transformation was apparently something for the male teens in the audience, who are encouraged by the show to drool over her just as teenage boys are suppose to over older women. Not only does that affect the guys, but also the older men, Red and Bob, and Kitty gets very territorial with Red whenever a mention of Pam comes up. Once more, the menopause shows up with the implication that women are good when beautiful and fertile, and once they reach the point of becoming barren and old, they must be traded in for a superior model. While Bob quickly goes along (kinda had to since he and Joanna split a couple of episodes back) while Red tries to convince Kitty that he has no feelings for Pam. In the season finale of Season Five, Red has a heart attack, from which he recovers quickly (lets see, the dad has a heart attack while the mom goes into menopause; was this show trying to imitate 7th Heaven?). However, it's only in "Man With Money", just sixteen episodes in, that he is given a heart monitor, which goes off supposedly when Pam is around and Kitty thinks that is a sign of arousal to the former. In the end, it turns out Bob annoys him and makes his rate go up, which explained the monitor beeping, and showing that Kitty was jealous over nothing. She also took offense to the implication of the doctor that she would be the source of stress during an examination, until he tells her Eric was the cause.
Kitty's menopause is not the only change. Season Five is when the gang finally reach the time when they graduate from high school. In "Over the Hills and Far Away", Kitty and Red take the boys to the University of Wisconsin in Madison, introducing them to college life, or what one expects from it. Just why we never see a scene where the boys learn how different the course work in college is from high school is beyond me. In "Celebration Day", the teens are on the eve of graduation, though they decide to spend their last night in high school out camping. The comedy of errors happen that prevents them from attending, but they still get their diplomas. Well, all except Jackie, who has only one more year. So, with the other five graduated from high school we can see them all going to college.
No, it turns out Fez's time in the US is cut short in "Immigrant Song" and Donna is the only one who talks of leaving town. Eric plans to go with her in their engagement, which upsets their parents. Red still doesn't think Eric is man enough to get married while Kitty sees Eric as her baby, while Bob thinks Donna can do better. In Season Six, when Donna is moving away, Eric tries to consul Bob, who reminds him of how he "dirtied her up and made her have to go to a Catholic school." The one support comes from, of all places, Laurie, who shows up in the final episodes as a reformed woman, though no one seems to buy it.
Red's heart attack is another change, as it signals the man we see as one tough guy is mortal and thus will die at some point. There was one earlier episode where Red almost gets hit by a branch, leading him to have a vision of his funeral where no one shows up. So, he reforms and starts being nice around everyone. However, this gives him the vision of not getting any peace, even in death. The early seasons also had a case of Red's health brought up and Kitty putting him on a diet, which further shows an out of date concept of masculinity being that real men don't eat healthy food. In Season Six, we get "Join Together" when this diet is brought up again, and this time Red can't have any beer. He reacts to that by faking another heart attack to get Kitty to change her mind, but she doesn't buy it. All the while, Red becomes child like in not being able to do and have the things he use to take. At least, he gets to have sex again in "The Magic Bus."
Eric rises to the occasion to be the man of the house while his father recovers, giving up college for a time in the process, which does mean Donna and he will be apart for awhile. However, in a strange plot twist, Donna returns in the same episode as she left. In "The Magic Bus", Eric turns eighteen, at last, and expects the party he always gets (as opposed to his seventeenth where he finds the birthday parties embarrassing). Instead, Kitty doesn't set up a party and Eric's birthday is treated as second to his parents getting intimate. Here, Eric learns that with adulthood some of the things we use to consider cantankerous and odious suddenly is longed for because we don't get it anymore.
Other changes include Kelso getting a woman pregnant and joining the police force to get the money to raise his child. At the same time, Fez's marriage to Laurie ends when the latter, who is played by a different actress, disappears and he becomes a US citizen. "A Legal Matter" has him being given some facts about the US, which I'll mention a few things. When Donna mentions that the Statue of Liberty was a gift to the US from the French, Kitty claims to have not known that (then tries to use cooking skills as a way to feel equal, if not superior, to Donna). Then, when Donna tells Fez the basis of the Vietnam War, Red pulls Fez from her and then says "it was a tie" and that the Vietnamese were happy for American involvement. The implication from it is the older generation knows nothing about America and if it did it's only the politically incorrect myths, the Anglocentric version, etc. This episode aired almost a year after we went into Iraq, which many liked to claim was the new Vietnam, which suggests to me the episode was meant to satire the war there. Red sits Fez down and has him recite a bunch of nonsense that would make a right wing talk show host proud, all the while struggling to get Fez to say "America." I personally think Fez's mispronouncing of America seems a little racist since plenty of people from Latin America and the Caribbean learn how to pronounce it properly (just caked by their accents), and I have never heard of anyone say "A-may-dee-ka."
Fez and Kelso also form two ends of a love triangle in two episodes, "Sally Simpson" and "Won't Be Fooled Again", where Officer Suzy, played by Alyson Hennigan, appears. Fez gets a crush on her, while Suzy is smitted with Kelso, who sees her as a guy (prompting feminists to roll eyes at how the only way a man would avoid objectifying a woman is to treat her as one of the guys, as evidenced at his continued staring at Donna's chest). The miscue forms the comedy and the two men almost don't speak to one another. Suzy tries to get them to settle their differences, but it only works when she walks out on the both of them, thus removing any reason to fight. This I often question because Donna and Jackie never have a guy to fight over and they never settle their differences.
One thing I must bring up is how Kelso gets progressively dumber with each passing season. I mean, what next? Is someone going to mention of him humping something for some strange reason (like a dog on someone's leg)? He is pretty much an idiot in the earlier seasons, especially when they talk of him lighting a bag full of feces and then stomping it out, leading to Leo to call him "crappy shoes" (hashtag punchline rimshot), as well as him starting a fire in Jackie's house. In Season Six, he really gets dumb. He actually believes he is a stooge; he takes the car he was suppose to watch out for a joy ride, which when stolen he wants to call the cops before seeing his badge. Then there is his firing a flare gun and thinking he could put out the fire with another flare (and he was waving a flare gun around while under the influence). The last part won't seem funny after you get this commercial. Kelso also grows a mustache to fit in with the cops, during which he makes a transformation and leave the drug habits of the circle. This results in Hyde and Fez altering it in his sleep, and the next morning, Kelso looks like Hitler and has to be shown it (at least he sees it as a "good burn", how did he not see it when getting ready that morning?). Topping it all is how he thinks having sex standing up determines the sex of the baby he has spawned.
The final change to complete is Eric and Donna heading to marriage. Through Season Six, they pull it through, and there is even one point that Bob begins to come around while Red appears to be sabotaging the marriage with taking away money and job. At one point, back in Season Five's "Battle of Evermore", when Red asks why Eric didn't do anything about the hubcaps, he says, "You took away my keys so I can't drive. You took away my job so I can't afford a new hubcap. You took away my self-esteem so I have no pride in my job or my possessions." Even when Eric takes on adulthood, there is still no respect. Eric tries out the household chores with Red watching, with two reactions. One, Eric takes delight in having Red be the one to hold the flashlight for a change, and two, Red never thinking Eric's skills are good enough. "Young Man Blues" has him fixing a lawn mower and testing it out, and it works. However, Red doesn't believe him.
Kitty, on the other hand, eventually comes around, though not before making a big deal out of it. That thing of her needing something to take care of leads to Red getting her a dog name Shotzi (and a fish in an earlier episode), though the dog disappears for a while. When Donna has her bachelorette party, we get more of Kitty's rivalry with Donna over generations where she said hers was when she had her first sip off wine. Donna and Jackie, however, bring Kitty to a strip club to show that this is suppose to be Donna's last wild night (which makes me point out the hypocrisy in the male gaze philosophy, where the complaints of women being objectified are done by the sex industry, yet the feminist Donna is willing to oogle a bunch of men stripping without raising a fuss. I mean, male strippers are as human as their female counterparts, and suffer the same abuses and standardization as well).
However, the one thing to undo it is what is considered normal, the pre-wedding jitters. I have yet to meet anyone who never got those, not any of my friends seemed to have had them. Donna and Eric get them and it leads to them thinking of bailing. In the end, it's Eric who bails while Donna shows up at the wedding. This after a season of build up to the day with opposition from parents and some problems within. In "Baby Don't Do It", Donna uses the pregnancy scare and marriage counseling to decide to abstain from sex, and like a typical television male Eric gets upset because in the television world men are suppose to be eager for sex. Eric doesn't last long, especially when Pam comes in and gets him horny. Finally, in "Happy Jack", Eric is caught masturbating in the bathroom by Donna and he claims his needs have risen to Fez's levels. In the end, Donna also inadvertently admits that she can't hold back either, and she also indulges in the solitary act.
Eric also sees Donna's dress and winds up ruining it. Fortunately, Donna has a back up. Yet, these are nothing to compared to the jitters. When Eric leaves, it's one great disappointment, but at least Midge returns. The season finale "The Seeker", Donna and Eric finally meet again and they agree they aren't ready for marriage.
Despite the flaws, there are a few good things in these two seasons, particularly as the changes transform the place. For once we are in 1979 and the teens are allowed to grow up and graduate. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, these two seasons are the high water mark of the series. In the next part, we come to both the watershed season and the worst season.
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