How do you do,
Well, we reach the last two seasons, arguably the worst in the show. Basically, it's at this point the show jumps the shark.
In Season Seven, the fallout of Eric jilting Donna happens. Eric decides to take a year off, postponing college in the process. Donna dyes her hair blonde and becomes a more dedicated feminist. Midge returns and fights Pam for Bob. Pam eventually departs from the show and Midge follows after supposedly getting back with Bob, leaving him alone again. It's revealed that Hyde has another father and he is black. The revelation also reveals a sister, whom Kelso hits on and gets into a relationship with. Hyde and Jackie reach a breaking point, though Kelso doesn't sweep in to take her now. Jackie then graduates from high school and does many things, like setting up her own television show. Eric ravishes in being on vacation until he sees a thirty-something year old man living with his mom and decides to buck up. He then goes out and runs into Leo at a truck stop. He then decides for college, gets the credits for it, and then gets a job to get the money, which meant leaving for Africa. At first, there is some opposition, but in the end Eric goes to Africa and bids a farewell to Point Place. Jackie also moves out to Chicago while Fez moves out of his foster parents' house for a new spot. When Hyde finds her with Kelso, he disappears. Before Eric leaves, he and the other boys are finally caught red handed by Red with their drug habits. The last few episodes also introduce Charlie who is implied to be Eric's replacement, until he is killed off by falling from the water tower in Season Eight's opener.
The final season has the fall out of the drug busting and Kitty sampling it. Hyde returned married to a stripper, Fez moves into an apartment with Jackie, and Kelso is taken off the force and moves away. The gang is thus missing two members until Randy is introduced. Eric breaks up with Donna in a letter and it seems she is set up with Randy, until memories make them break. Jackie also sets sights on Fez who goes through many girls, including his crazy ex, while doing a show with Mary Tyler Moore. When she tells him how she feels, he rejects her, but eventually accepts her. Hyde eventually divorces from his wife while Red and Kitty embrace retirement and possibly moving to Florida, the latter axed when they decide to stay. Eric and Kelso return for New Years and all greet the 1980s in the series finale.
Season Seven could be surmised as "That 70s Watershed Moment in the Series". At the start, it feels like some pressed the proverbial reset button. For example, in "I Got Time On My Side", Eric comes to breakfast and gets chewed out by Red who demands to know what he is going to do with his life. Red then forces him to come up with a plan or starve. When Eric was still a minor, the action would be considered abusive, but since Eric is now of legal age it's hard to list it as child abuse (more like cruelty). In the end, Eric decides out his plan: he is going to take a year off and his departure won't be anytime soon. At least, he earned his supper that time, unless Red is going to get more crazy and say it's not good enough.
That episode alone shows the reset button. Once more Red is disrespectful of Eric (then again, he ran out on Donna at the altar) and Eric is suddenly a high schooler again. He moons a cranky old man, he vandalizes a muffler shop that Red later buys (I don't find the word "muff" funny either), and he makes out with Donna in a feminist rally called "Take Back the Night", during which a misunderstanding leads to a riot. I am aware that there are plenty of cases where people ignore the word no, but the scene is thought provoking: how many cases of abuses were just misunderstands? Or what of rapes? Well, one thing that is never shown is Donna standing up for Eric when the other girls turned on him. In the "Take Back the Night" there wasn't any other discussions: not one person suggested that women bring a dog or a friend with them when going out in the park, thereby prompting Donna to explain that no woman should have to do either one when out in the park.
Besides Eric, the teens hardly seem mature in this season. Donna does get passionate with feminism after dying her hair, as if there is something connected to the blonde hair with it. There are some times that her stances are justified, and easy to challenge, in the season. In "Surprise, Surprise", after Red has taken over the auto shop, Donna finds out calendars are being handed out with half-naked girls in them, which makes her protest. Kitty calls Donna out, as she had pranced about with some skin showing herself (I am sure there are feminists out there who would accuse Kitty of deflecting the issue by going after one's behavior) and when she went in, she attempts to let them know she is Hot Donna, the radio name she got as deejay. Of course, her own father is there. One thing I noted was Bob used the "I'm the adult" card in wanting his perverted fantasies, to which Donna says he won't have her respect. Most dads would have reformed and toss the dirty materials away at that; not Bob, he just claims it's just one more woman not respecting him.
Hyde gets a job with his father, and he basically lives out what Charles Buckowski wrote of. Even with the job, he is willing to help the other guys in a toy caper, in "Winter", something that makes Jackie wonder if Hyde would grow up out of. Fez also gets a job shampooing women's hair, and some how that keeps all gay jokes to a minimum. Quite frankly, I don't know how those men in the salons pampering the women be gay, unless the whole thing is just for show. Fez's shampooing of women gives a fantasy for nice guys who are friend zoned, particularly when one Danielle, played by Wilmer Valderama's then girlfriend Lindsay Lohan, appears in "Mother's Little Helper" and lays out her feelings of her date to Fez, then dumps her date for him. It turns out, she was going to Kelso, and another love triangle forms. This time, however, Fez gets the girl because she prefers bossy sorts (which throws the plot out the window). As to Kelso, well, all I'll say is if he wasn't very dumb previously he gets even dumber in Season Seven. He also hooks up with Hyde's sister, providing an interracial relationship for the show.
It's also a season of retconning a few things. For one, Hyde learned his father wasn't his real father and this season is when we are introduced to William Barnett, and he's African American. The retcon on Hyde's origin out of the left field and has no establishment, other than stereotypes. Hyde thinks it's logical that his father would be black because of his hair style and his disdain for the Government (neither of which really means anything: you can have a redneck uncle who also taught you to despise Uncle Sam and most people with the Afro hair style are just imitating the blacks for the sake of fashion). Too bad they didn't do a thorough test on that.
Besides the obvious, much of the revelation is meant to tackle the racism of the decade, though it misses the point. I mean, it's inconsistent in the show to have a black preacher for marriage councilor in Season Six and have everyone okay with it, yet turn around in Season Seven and have everyone awkward about Hyde's father being black. Not only that, but the show had to make him the cool dad once more and join in with the teens during Circle Time. He also comes in to make Bob insecure when he and Midge talk at Kitty's party, causing a fight that leads to Midge departing from the show for good.
Hyde's relationship with Jackie replaces Donna and Eric's in this season as the central couple, though they break up when Jackie decides to pretend to be engaged to Fez in a wedding reception, because she wants a wedding. If there is one thing to learn, fellas, when your girlfriend wants something out of the relationship, best have something long term in mind because leaving the girl hanging will upset her. Eventually, she'll think you are wasting everyone's time and will break it off, leaving you feeling like you lost something. That's what Hyde learns in this season when after Jackie's actions, Hyde keeps back while wanting to get back with Jackie, who is wanting an answer on marriage. Near the end, Jackie decides to go to Chicago, after waiting for Hyde to propose to her. He does, going all the way there to do so, but it turns out Kelso went with her. Frustrated, Hyde leaves again.
If there are few good things to come with Season Seven, its that Eric eventually snaps out of his year off approach, though the episode "You Can't Always Get What you Want" shows how Eric has the freedom for such decisions unlike his father who could only take what could and do things because the world demanded of it. The way he does so is in "On With the Show" where he finds someone with his likes and it turns out he is a thirty year old man who lives with his mom. To me, it's based on expectations of age that came to him, seeing how it's normal for teens to be with their parents, while thirty something adults doing so are oddities (even though the idea of thirty year olds being independent of parents was actually very recent in human history, and at one time was restricted to men of property). My beef with it is if the sight of someone in his thirties living with his parents makes Eric snap out of it and actually grow up, what does that say to other situations? Would it lead to less of the outrage culture, or young people saying how offended they are, or the thing with triggers, and so on, if old people did all those things in sight of the young? It's a controversial thought; we have actors who pretend to be teenagers at age thirty, yet they get paid millions for that. We also YouTube personalities who do the same. In fact, I have seen plenty of men in their thirties on that site and think of how it will be they stay that way in thirty years, or the feminist reviewers if they talk the say way at age seventy as they do at twenty. Rather or not they may behave in that description in then is up to them, but can you image a woman turning away from feminism after seeing a forty year old make videos and blog posts on it? Or a couch potato remaining so after seeing an older man in the same position? Eric's reform implies those scenarios.
At least he matures. He goes back into trying to get out of his parents' thumb, going into a travel documentary, then tries to find a new job. Eventually, he picks teaching, but has to pass PE because it was incomplete (and how did he graduate again?). He gets that done by doing one chin up. Then to get into college, he takes a job that sends him to Africa. Red is okay with it, but Kitty and Donna are upset. Eventually, they come around and Eric is given his well wish away.
Before Eric exits, however, he and his friends are caught red handed in the Circle Time by Red, after years of it being hidden and being told of it in Season Three. The yelling that Red and Kitty give is humorous to watch (I mean, Red wishes he had "two thousand feet" so to kick those four each with five hundred of them), and Red can't think of a good punishment for Eric than to send him to Africa, ironically letting his dream come true.
Season Eight is the worst. First it has a promising start, being that it deals with the aftermath, which involves Kitty getting some of the drugs too. The problem with this, however, it gets dropped by "Somebody To Love". Speaking of dropped, a new character named Charlie was introduced in the last few episodes of Season Seven, originally as the one teenager Red would like, but is later rewritten as another he hates, especially after the incident in the beer storage building. He then is implied to be Eric's replacement when the latter leaves. However, in "Bohemia Rhapsody", he falls off the water tower and dies, whereas Kelso falls off repeatedly and survives. This always bothered me. They should have known the tower was a danger when Kelso and Hyde fell off it and got hurt, yet they took Charlie up there and he got killed. The prank they did that resulted in could be considered murder. Not only that, was the show trying to show that Kelso's feat can't be imitated in real life, because they are eight seasons late on that.
Kelso also leaves the show, after two episodes. The reason for Eric and Kelso leaving is both Grace and Kutcher wanting to move on to other projects. Grace went on to be Eddie Brock in Spider Man 3 while Kutcher went in the thriller Butterfly Effect before taking on comedy films. Hyde comes back married to a stripper named Samantha, who is only present for a few episodes. Remarkably, Jackie is okay with this. Jackie and Donna are still there, with Jackie joining a television show of Christine St. George, played by the late Mary Tyler Moore (watch for the homage to her namesake show at the end of "Sweet Lady"). The set up is similar to Mary Tyler Moore Show, which went off the air two years before the setting of the episode, though while Mary makes it through seven seasons, Jackie is fired in four episodes.
Fez also returns, though going into the comic foreign guy who still does shampoo massage for women. He lives in an apartment after his foster parents kick him out (because he is no longer a minor) which is owned by the man who gave Eric the engagement ring, Feltman, shown to be a gay landlord now. On that matter, in an attempt to draw in the Gay community, they had an episode where two homosexual men visit the Foremans. Red doesn't get disturbed at their orientation than he does with their, to use the expression "root for the other team." They are out at the end of the episode, however. Along with Red and Kitty, Bob returns, as does Leo, who returned in Season Seven after being absent, because the actor playing him had troubles with the law.
A new character comes in, Randy, the guy with long hair. He acts as a combination of Eric and Kelso, even getting a relationship with Donna. However, we all know Randy is just an attempt to garner new ratings with new characters. It happens on television, sometimes it works (like with Law and Order where the best episodes of the series' run feature Detective Lennie Briscoe) and sometimes it doesn't. In the case of That 70s Show, this is the latter. Even Fez feels challenged by him.
Even the episodes seem strange, especially "Fun It" where the kids steal Fatso the Clown from the Fatso Burgers, which was never shown before but is the mascot of the place and Point Place's landmark. Not only that, these characters are suppose to be college age people, some of them having jobs and living on their own, yet they are willing to hang in the Foreman basement and pull a prank as though they were teens? Again, this could be social expectations talking.
Two redeeming factors come for Season Eight. One, Jackie eventually realizes she loves Fez, though the latter is willing to see other girls, including his crazy ex, before going to her. I have said plenty on Fez, considering how he had gone from the foreign geek, to cool guy, to creep, to an oblivious object of affection over the course of eight seasons, switching between embodiment of friendzoned guys, other times there to point out racism. All the while, Jackie finally seems to stop being self-centered and goes to someone caring, after dating a narcissist idiot like Kelso or a roguish bad boy like Hyde.
The other factor is the return of Eric, coming in in "That 70s Finale", along with Kelso, because we all need to see everyone take their last bow. During the season, Eric and Donna have a long distance relationship, yet they have Eric break up with Donna off screen (a clue to it is his quick phone call with Donna vs his prompt calling of his mother). For a time, Donna is with Randy, until the latter reminds her of Eric and she dumps him. Eric returns and we never get to see if Eric and Donna will get back together. In fact, the show ends on midnight of Jan. 1, 1980, where the seventies finally come to an end.
There was a series called That 80s Show, but it's not really a spin off and has nothing to do with the show. So, we basically end That 70s Show with a great many loose ends and some disappointments.
One vital reason why these two seasons are terrible is because by the time we come Season Seven, the novelty has worn off. It gets worse with Season Eight where it appears the teens are stuck in some kind of time warp that keeps them from aging. By the show's time period, they should all be in college right now, yet they are still at home like they were kids.
I find it interesting how the show was steeped in pop culture of the decade, yet the last two seasons didn't mention anyone seeing Close Encounters With a Third Kind or Alien. The Recession was dealt with in the early seasons, but I wonder why we heard nothing about the upcoming 1980 election or the Iranian Hostage Crisis, or the Camp David Peace Accord? For Eric being such a Star Wars buff, we don't hear his opinion on the Holiday Special, and we are not going to see his reaction to The Empire Strikes Back's great revelation (I can imagine him freaking out over it). I also believe now that the show's beginning in the middle of the decade instead of the start was what messed everything up, because it would have been useful to see how Nixon's resignation affected everyone, rather than have it be remarked on. Hopefully, that will be something that this new show about the seventies, The Kids Are Alright will avoid when it comes out.
I am thinking about making some blog entries on that when it comes out, though I make it a policy to not review television shows that currently airing. I'll mostly be commenting on one episode that deserves it and it might be finished sometime in late fall, if not in winter. Not only that, there is no telling, even if the show does seem to have potential, but they could always cancel it after a few episodes. The eight seasons of That 70s Show that are out there now has the comic side of the second half of the story, yet the real story of the seventies is yet to be told.
As to the possibility of reboots, I certainly hope not. We have other decades to tell stories on when it comes to shows, so we can let the seventies rest in peace on that. But, if they were to revisit Point Place, my recommendation is either set up a prequel series showing how everything we see in "That 70s Pilot" came to be, or create a spin off show where we see how the gang is doing now that they are Red and Kitty's age and living in a world of the internet, safe spaces, and Dreamers. They could call it "That 70s Generation" if they'd like. But, for the most part, given how prequel series and reboots don't have the same flavor as the original one, and lately it seems most people are using them as megaphone for political agendas, I don't recommend they remake That 70s Show.
Quite frankly, I hope they don't because I don't want to make a review and commentary of that either.
The final season has the fall out of the drug busting and Kitty sampling it. Hyde returned married to a stripper, Fez moves into an apartment with Jackie, and Kelso is taken off the force and moves away. The gang is thus missing two members until Randy is introduced. Eric breaks up with Donna in a letter and it seems she is set up with Randy, until memories make them break. Jackie also sets sights on Fez who goes through many girls, including his crazy ex, while doing a show with Mary Tyler Moore. When she tells him how she feels, he rejects her, but eventually accepts her. Hyde eventually divorces from his wife while Red and Kitty embrace retirement and possibly moving to Florida, the latter axed when they decide to stay. Eric and Kelso return for New Years and all greet the 1980s in the series finale.
Season Seven could be surmised as "That 70s Watershed Moment in the Series". At the start, it feels like some pressed the proverbial reset button. For example, in "I Got Time On My Side", Eric comes to breakfast and gets chewed out by Red who demands to know what he is going to do with his life. Red then forces him to come up with a plan or starve. When Eric was still a minor, the action would be considered abusive, but since Eric is now of legal age it's hard to list it as child abuse (more like cruelty). In the end, Eric decides out his plan: he is going to take a year off and his departure won't be anytime soon. At least, he earned his supper that time, unless Red is going to get more crazy and say it's not good enough.
That episode alone shows the reset button. Once more Red is disrespectful of Eric (then again, he ran out on Donna at the altar) and Eric is suddenly a high schooler again. He moons a cranky old man, he vandalizes a muffler shop that Red later buys (I don't find the word "muff" funny either), and he makes out with Donna in a feminist rally called "Take Back the Night", during which a misunderstanding leads to a riot. I am aware that there are plenty of cases where people ignore the word no, but the scene is thought provoking: how many cases of abuses were just misunderstands? Or what of rapes? Well, one thing that is never shown is Donna standing up for Eric when the other girls turned on him. In the "Take Back the Night" there wasn't any other discussions: not one person suggested that women bring a dog or a friend with them when going out in the park, thereby prompting Donna to explain that no woman should have to do either one when out in the park.
Besides Eric, the teens hardly seem mature in this season. Donna does get passionate with feminism after dying her hair, as if there is something connected to the blonde hair with it. There are some times that her stances are justified, and easy to challenge, in the season. In "Surprise, Surprise", after Red has taken over the auto shop, Donna finds out calendars are being handed out with half-naked girls in them, which makes her protest. Kitty calls Donna out, as she had pranced about with some skin showing herself (I am sure there are feminists out there who would accuse Kitty of deflecting the issue by going after one's behavior) and when she went in, she attempts to let them know she is Hot Donna, the radio name she got as deejay. Of course, her own father is there. One thing I noted was Bob used the "I'm the adult" card in wanting his perverted fantasies, to which Donna says he won't have her respect. Most dads would have reformed and toss the dirty materials away at that; not Bob, he just claims it's just one more woman not respecting him.
Hyde gets a job with his father, and he basically lives out what Charles Buckowski wrote of. Even with the job, he is willing to help the other guys in a toy caper, in "Winter", something that makes Jackie wonder if Hyde would grow up out of. Fez also gets a job shampooing women's hair, and some how that keeps all gay jokes to a minimum. Quite frankly, I don't know how those men in the salons pampering the women be gay, unless the whole thing is just for show. Fez's shampooing of women gives a fantasy for nice guys who are friend zoned, particularly when one Danielle, played by Wilmer Valderama's then girlfriend Lindsay Lohan, appears in "Mother's Little Helper" and lays out her feelings of her date to Fez, then dumps her date for him. It turns out, she was going to Kelso, and another love triangle forms. This time, however, Fez gets the girl because she prefers bossy sorts (which throws the plot out the window). As to Kelso, well, all I'll say is if he wasn't very dumb previously he gets even dumber in Season Seven. He also hooks up with Hyde's sister, providing an interracial relationship for the show.
It's also a season of retconning a few things. For one, Hyde learned his father wasn't his real father and this season is when we are introduced to William Barnett, and he's African American. The retcon on Hyde's origin out of the left field and has no establishment, other than stereotypes. Hyde thinks it's logical that his father would be black because of his hair style and his disdain for the Government (neither of which really means anything: you can have a redneck uncle who also taught you to despise Uncle Sam and most people with the Afro hair style are just imitating the blacks for the sake of fashion). Too bad they didn't do a thorough test on that.
Besides the obvious, much of the revelation is meant to tackle the racism of the decade, though it misses the point. I mean, it's inconsistent in the show to have a black preacher for marriage councilor in Season Six and have everyone okay with it, yet turn around in Season Seven and have everyone awkward about Hyde's father being black. Not only that, but the show had to make him the cool dad once more and join in with the teens during Circle Time. He also comes in to make Bob insecure when he and Midge talk at Kitty's party, causing a fight that leads to Midge departing from the show for good.
Hyde's relationship with Jackie replaces Donna and Eric's in this season as the central couple, though they break up when Jackie decides to pretend to be engaged to Fez in a wedding reception, because she wants a wedding. If there is one thing to learn, fellas, when your girlfriend wants something out of the relationship, best have something long term in mind because leaving the girl hanging will upset her. Eventually, she'll think you are wasting everyone's time and will break it off, leaving you feeling like you lost something. That's what Hyde learns in this season when after Jackie's actions, Hyde keeps back while wanting to get back with Jackie, who is wanting an answer on marriage. Near the end, Jackie decides to go to Chicago, after waiting for Hyde to propose to her. He does, going all the way there to do so, but it turns out Kelso went with her. Frustrated, Hyde leaves again.
If there are few good things to come with Season Seven, its that Eric eventually snaps out of his year off approach, though the episode "You Can't Always Get What you Want" shows how Eric has the freedom for such decisions unlike his father who could only take what could and do things because the world demanded of it. The way he does so is in "On With the Show" where he finds someone with his likes and it turns out he is a thirty year old man who lives with his mom. To me, it's based on expectations of age that came to him, seeing how it's normal for teens to be with their parents, while thirty something adults doing so are oddities (even though the idea of thirty year olds being independent of parents was actually very recent in human history, and at one time was restricted to men of property). My beef with it is if the sight of someone in his thirties living with his parents makes Eric snap out of it and actually grow up, what does that say to other situations? Would it lead to less of the outrage culture, or young people saying how offended they are, or the thing with triggers, and so on, if old people did all those things in sight of the young? It's a controversial thought; we have actors who pretend to be teenagers at age thirty, yet they get paid millions for that. We also YouTube personalities who do the same. In fact, I have seen plenty of men in their thirties on that site and think of how it will be they stay that way in thirty years, or the feminist reviewers if they talk the say way at age seventy as they do at twenty. Rather or not they may behave in that description in then is up to them, but can you image a woman turning away from feminism after seeing a forty year old make videos and blog posts on it? Or a couch potato remaining so after seeing an older man in the same position? Eric's reform implies those scenarios.
At least he matures. He goes back into trying to get out of his parents' thumb, going into a travel documentary, then tries to find a new job. Eventually, he picks teaching, but has to pass PE because it was incomplete (and how did he graduate again?). He gets that done by doing one chin up. Then to get into college, he takes a job that sends him to Africa. Red is okay with it, but Kitty and Donna are upset. Eventually, they come around and Eric is given his well wish away.
Before Eric exits, however, he and his friends are caught red handed in the Circle Time by Red, after years of it being hidden and being told of it in Season Three. The yelling that Red and Kitty give is humorous to watch (I mean, Red wishes he had "two thousand feet" so to kick those four each with five hundred of them), and Red can't think of a good punishment for Eric than to send him to Africa, ironically letting his dream come true.
Season Eight is the worst. First it has a promising start, being that it deals with the aftermath, which involves Kitty getting some of the drugs too. The problem with this, however, it gets dropped by "Somebody To Love". Speaking of dropped, a new character named Charlie was introduced in the last few episodes of Season Seven, originally as the one teenager Red would like, but is later rewritten as another he hates, especially after the incident in the beer storage building. He then is implied to be Eric's replacement when the latter leaves. However, in "Bohemia Rhapsody", he falls off the water tower and dies, whereas Kelso falls off repeatedly and survives. This always bothered me. They should have known the tower was a danger when Kelso and Hyde fell off it and got hurt, yet they took Charlie up there and he got killed. The prank they did that resulted in could be considered murder. Not only that, was the show trying to show that Kelso's feat can't be imitated in real life, because they are eight seasons late on that.
Kelso also leaves the show, after two episodes. The reason for Eric and Kelso leaving is both Grace and Kutcher wanting to move on to other projects. Grace went on to be Eddie Brock in Spider Man 3 while Kutcher went in the thriller Butterfly Effect before taking on comedy films. Hyde comes back married to a stripper named Samantha, who is only present for a few episodes. Remarkably, Jackie is okay with this. Jackie and Donna are still there, with Jackie joining a television show of Christine St. George, played by the late Mary Tyler Moore (watch for the homage to her namesake show at the end of "Sweet Lady"). The set up is similar to Mary Tyler Moore Show, which went off the air two years before the setting of the episode, though while Mary makes it through seven seasons, Jackie is fired in four episodes.
Fez also returns, though going into the comic foreign guy who still does shampoo massage for women. He lives in an apartment after his foster parents kick him out (because he is no longer a minor) which is owned by the man who gave Eric the engagement ring, Feltman, shown to be a gay landlord now. On that matter, in an attempt to draw in the Gay community, they had an episode where two homosexual men visit the Foremans. Red doesn't get disturbed at their orientation than he does with their, to use the expression "root for the other team." They are out at the end of the episode, however. Along with Red and Kitty, Bob returns, as does Leo, who returned in Season Seven after being absent, because the actor playing him had troubles with the law.
A new character comes in, Randy, the guy with long hair. He acts as a combination of Eric and Kelso, even getting a relationship with Donna. However, we all know Randy is just an attempt to garner new ratings with new characters. It happens on television, sometimes it works (like with Law and Order where the best episodes of the series' run feature Detective Lennie Briscoe) and sometimes it doesn't. In the case of That 70s Show, this is the latter. Even Fez feels challenged by him.
Even the episodes seem strange, especially "Fun It" where the kids steal Fatso the Clown from the Fatso Burgers, which was never shown before but is the mascot of the place and Point Place's landmark. Not only that, these characters are suppose to be college age people, some of them having jobs and living on their own, yet they are willing to hang in the Foreman basement and pull a prank as though they were teens? Again, this could be social expectations talking.
Two redeeming factors come for Season Eight. One, Jackie eventually realizes she loves Fez, though the latter is willing to see other girls, including his crazy ex, before going to her. I have said plenty on Fez, considering how he had gone from the foreign geek, to cool guy, to creep, to an oblivious object of affection over the course of eight seasons, switching between embodiment of friendzoned guys, other times there to point out racism. All the while, Jackie finally seems to stop being self-centered and goes to someone caring, after dating a narcissist idiot like Kelso or a roguish bad boy like Hyde.
The other factor is the return of Eric, coming in in "That 70s Finale", along with Kelso, because we all need to see everyone take their last bow. During the season, Eric and Donna have a long distance relationship, yet they have Eric break up with Donna off screen (a clue to it is his quick phone call with Donna vs his prompt calling of his mother). For a time, Donna is with Randy, until the latter reminds her of Eric and she dumps him. Eric returns and we never get to see if Eric and Donna will get back together. In fact, the show ends on midnight of Jan. 1, 1980, where the seventies finally come to an end.
There was a series called That 80s Show, but it's not really a spin off and has nothing to do with the show. So, we basically end That 70s Show with a great many loose ends and some disappointments.
One vital reason why these two seasons are terrible is because by the time we come Season Seven, the novelty has worn off. It gets worse with Season Eight where it appears the teens are stuck in some kind of time warp that keeps them from aging. By the show's time period, they should all be in college right now, yet they are still at home like they were kids.
I find it interesting how the show was steeped in pop culture of the decade, yet the last two seasons didn't mention anyone seeing Close Encounters With a Third Kind or Alien. The Recession was dealt with in the early seasons, but I wonder why we heard nothing about the upcoming 1980 election or the Iranian Hostage Crisis, or the Camp David Peace Accord? For Eric being such a Star Wars buff, we don't hear his opinion on the Holiday Special, and we are not going to see his reaction to The Empire Strikes Back's great revelation (I can imagine him freaking out over it). I also believe now that the show's beginning in the middle of the decade instead of the start was what messed everything up, because it would have been useful to see how Nixon's resignation affected everyone, rather than have it be remarked on. Hopefully, that will be something that this new show about the seventies, The Kids Are Alright will avoid when it comes out.
I am thinking about making some blog entries on that when it comes out, though I make it a policy to not review television shows that currently airing. I'll mostly be commenting on one episode that deserves it and it might be finished sometime in late fall, if not in winter. Not only that, there is no telling, even if the show does seem to have potential, but they could always cancel it after a few episodes. The eight seasons of That 70s Show that are out there now has the comic side of the second half of the story, yet the real story of the seventies is yet to be told.
As to the possibility of reboots, I certainly hope not. We have other decades to tell stories on when it comes to shows, so we can let the seventies rest in peace on that. But, if they were to revisit Point Place, my recommendation is either set up a prequel series showing how everything we see in "That 70s Pilot" came to be, or create a spin off show where we see how the gang is doing now that they are Red and Kitty's age and living in a world of the internet, safe spaces, and Dreamers. They could call it "That 70s Generation" if they'd like. But, for the most part, given how prequel series and reboots don't have the same flavor as the original one, and lately it seems most people are using them as megaphone for political agendas, I don't recommend they remake That 70s Show.
Quite frankly, I hope they don't because I don't want to make a review and commentary of that either.
No comments:
Post a Comment