That '90s Show Season 1 (2023) TV Show Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Last night I went over to my sister's place and we binged the first season of That '90s Show, the sequel series to That '70s Show (1998-2006). So that's what I'm reviewing today as we finished the entire first season. There will be some minor spoilers as I want to talk about where Eric, Donna, Fez, Kelso, and Jackie are in their lives when we see them in the season, and I wanna talk about the new characters a little bit too. So with that in mind, let's talk about season 1 of That '90s Show.

When That '90s Show was announced back in October 2021, I was excited, but nervous at the same time. That '70s Show was one of my favourite shows when I was in high school. In fact I would often skip episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-2005) to watch That '70s Show because they were on on the same night, at the same time during pretty much all of Enterprise's run on TV. So for me the prospect of seeing Red and Kitty returning to look after their granddaughter was exciting, but also pretty scary because I'd been down this road before a few times, with varying degrees of success.

In 2014, Michael Jacobs and April Kelly, the creators of the 1993 ABC sitcom, Boy Meets World (1993-2000), created Girl Meets World, a sequel to the original show with Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel reprising their roles as Cory and Topanga from the original show. And while the show was fun and it was interesting to return to those characters, particularly when characters like Eric, Shawn, Jack, and Mr. Feeny pop up from time to time, they made a mistake by having it on the Disney Channel. Meaning it couldn't talk about many of the social issues that Boy Meets World tackled in the '90s.

Then came Fuller House (2016-2020) the Netflix series that served as a sequel to Full House (1987-1995), but went too far in the opposite direction. The show was stifled by being a sequel to Full House in that it wasn't allowed to do its own thing and relied too heavily on contrivances for why Danny, Jesse, Joey, and Becky kept showing up despite the fact that they'd all moved away in the pilot episode, and for why DJ had to move back into the original house with her three boys and I stopped watching it after like six or seven episodes, though I did keep up with what was going on in the show anyways. These last two examples aren't ones I'm heavily invested in but I thought I'd still mention them anyway.

In 2020 a revival of Saved by the Bell (1989-1993) began its two season run, also under the name Saved by the Bell (2020-2021). This one I didn't care about all that much since I didn't really watch Saved by the Bell as I was only 2 years old, almost 3, at the time it aired, though I do remember seeing a little bit of it with my mom so I thought I'd look up the sequel series. It was nothing like the original, in terms of the tone of the show, feeling more CW teen drama than late '80s/early '90s NBC sitcom.

The weirdest sitcom sequel is the current iCarly series. I watched maybe a part of an episode of the original series with my sister, but the show was after my time so I never got into it the way I did Zoey 101 and Radio Free Roscoe when they were airing earlier in the 2000s. And because I never got into the original iCarly, I didn't bother with the revival series. 

As for That '70s Show, I didn't start watching it until season 4 as it began in the fall of 2001, when I was just starting high school and I'd just gotten a TV in my bedroom for the first time. To this day season 4 is still my favourite season because it had so many great episodes, like "Class Picture" which is basically a flashback episode to where the gang all met each other, and "That '70s Musical" which is the show's musical episode, because alot of shows did musical episodes in the 2000s and 2010s, but in a series of sequences in Fez's head.

 Even when season 8 aired, I wasn't as upset about the season as other people ended up being. I think it's because the writing was still decent, even if some decisions weren't great. I mean c'mon the writing on That '70s Show wasn't Shakespeare and was never going to be, so there wasn't much of a downgrade in the quality of the writing in the final season as some people think there is. They just made really bad story choices. 

I went on that really long tangent to say that I was nervous and excited for That '90s Show and that of all of the revival shows that have come out in the last nine years, this one is the best. It balanced the nostalgia of That '70s Show and the stuff with the new characters, particularly Eric and Donna's daughter, Leia Forman. I'll be talking about her in a little bit. It was such an easy series to binge, with each episode only being between 20 and 30 minutes in length. It was enjoyable too. They weren't trying to invent the wheel with this show or prove anything to an audience that largely forgot about the original show. Trust me That '70s Show, while not super popular during its original run on FOX, gained new popularity once it got on Netflix and once the Blu-ray and DVD sets started getting re-released in the 2010s. 

One of my favourite parts about this show is, like the original, the decade it's set in is only the backdrop to the story it's telling. First kisses, fitting in with friends, coming out as gay, and escaping the shadow of your parents are all themes that are explored on this show, and they're timeless themes that the original show also tackled, except that it was set in the '70s instead of the '90s. While other period piece shows like The Goldbergs and Schooled were all about the decades they were in (the '80s and '90s respectively) the people behind That '90s Show remembered that That '70s Show was about the characters, not the events and pop culture of the 1970s and so they chose to do the same thing with this show and made it about the characters, not the fact that the show is set in the summer of 1995. And like the original show, they still mentioned certain movies and TV shows. Like in one episode the kids mentioned having tickets to see Batman Forever in theatres.

One of my favourite things about the second episode is a scene that takes place in a video store. Leia and Kitty are there to rent a movie, and on the shelves you can see movies like FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Jurassic Park, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, Apollo 13, True Lies, Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and The Blues Brothers. But the tapes that I loved seeing the most were the 1988 release of Disney Sing-Along Songs: You Can Fly!, the 1990 or 1992 VHS release of Star Wars, the 1989 VHS release of The Wizard of Oz, and the 1991 and 1993 editions of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, as I either own them now or owned or rented them when I was a kid. Yes, I made a mental list of all the tapes I saw in the video store in that one scene. I'm a VHS nerd guys. Anyways it was pretty great seeing that many different movies. Normally when you have scenes set in a video store you either don't see the original slipcover or clamshell cases, just the particular rental cases, or if you do see the original slipcover or clamshell cases the camera is at an angle where you can't really tell what the movies actually are.

The main thing that was announced when this show was announced was the fact that Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp would be reprising their roles as Red and Kitty as part of the main cast, AND would be involved in the development and production of the series as executive producers. Cast members becoming executive producers on a revival show isn't new as Sir Patrick Stewart is an executive producer on Star Trek: Picard (2020-2023), John Stamos, who played Uncle Jesse on Full House, was an executive producer on Fuller House, half the cast of Saved by the Bell were producers on the 2020 revival series, even if none of them were executive producers, and Miranda Cosgrove is an executive producer on the 2021 revival of iCarly as well as reprising her role as Carly. So it wasn't a big surprise to find both Smith and Rupp assume that role on That '90s Show. But as soon as they appeared on screen as Red and Kitty it felt like they just fell right back into the roles. Both are retired, though Kitty decides to become the nurse at the high school once Leia goes back to Chicago at the end of the summer.

Eric and Donna also showed up in the first scene and Donna went back to being a redhead at some point as she'd been blond since season 7 of That '70s Show. She's also an author. Which is cool because she did alot of writing on the original show. Eric on the other hand is a professor at a university where he teaches a course called, "The Religion of Star Wars", because of course Eric Forman would teach a university class on something related to Star Wars since he was a huge fan of the movie in the original series. I wonder what his thoughts are on the Prequel Trilogy, since the season takes place in the summer of 1995 and the prequels had been announced the year before. Again, both Topher Grace and Laura Prepon both fell back into their roles as soon as they appeared on screen.

We only got one scene with Jackie and Kelso. Just enough to establish that they're back together despite Jackie having been with Fez at the end of the original series, and that they have a son, named Jay, who I will talk about later. Of course they had the same dynamic as they did in the original series with Jackie bossing Kelso around, and Kelso pretending to fight back, but ultimately doing what Jackie tells him to do anyway. Like I said, we don't get very much time with them unfortunately.

And then there's Fez. He's got a larger role in the new show as he's dating the woman who lives next door to Red and Kitty. In the house that used to be Bob and Donna's house. He also owns a local salon called Chez Fez. Fez was always one of my favourite characters on That '70s Show so to see him return and have as big of a role as he does is pretty awesome.

And then there's the new kids. Besides Leia Forman and Jay Kelso, you have Gwen Runck who is Leia's best friend and lives next door (Fez is dating Gwen's mom), her half-brother Nate (they have different fathers), Nikki, who is Nate's girlfriend, and Ozzie, who is basically the Fez stand-in for this show. My favourite characters from this group are Leia, Gwen, and Ozzie. I can't really relate to Jay, Nate, and Nikki, but Leia is how I was when I was in high school. Awkward, never been kissed, never done drugs or alcohol, and, if it weren't for being the only handicapped person in the entire school, I'd be as invisible at school as both Leia and Gwen feel. Ozzie is hilarious, and I love how the show handled his coming out to Kitty as a gay person too. Then again, That '70s Show handled that sort of thing pretty well for a late '90s/early 2000s sitcom on FOX, so it wasn't all that surprising that this show would tackle those kinds of things. What was surprising was that it was a main character who is gay on this show. Since whenever That '70s Show dealt with that, it was a guest character. Plus, Ozzie is short, like me.

And also, like Leia, I not only found my people when I was 14 going on 15, but I had a group of friends up at the cottage when I stayed at my grandparents for a few weeks one summer, which was probably the summer of either 1996 or 1997. And if I arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's house by early afternoon, I'd walk over to my friends's house (they were all siblings) and say hi. If I got there after dinner or right as dinner was being made then I'd wait until the next morning. I continued doing that well into adulthood, and only stopped when I stopped going up to the lake in 2016. Big life changes happened that year. My point is I could relate to Leia Forman the most, just like I related alot to Eric during the original show's run. 

I do think it took a few episodes for the chemistry of the six teenagers to really kick in. With the exception of the actress who plays Gwen, I think this was the first major role for these kids so it was a bit awkward with them on screen for the first two or three episodes. By episode 4 though they were firing on all cylinders, which was great to see. Especially these days where it's more common for actual teenagers to play teenagers on TV, and in movies. Which was only kind of the case when I was growing up in the '90s and 2000s. And only on family shows like Full House and Boy Meets World. 

Overall season 1 of That '90s Show was alot of fun. I really hope it gets renewed for a second season because apparently the creative team has a plan where each season is going to be set during the summer of each year of the '90s from 1995 to 1999, which will give us a total of five seasons if it gets renewed. Which will be awesome. If you're a fan of That '70s Show, I highly recommend watching That '90s Show, if you haven't already. 

That my friends is it for me for today. I will be back soon with more reviews. Hopefully one of those reviews will be season 2 of Stargirl, but I have a dental appointment on Thursday and the season 2 premiere of How I Met Your Father drops on Tuesday so I'll be reviewing that this week as well. So there probably won't be a comic book review this week, unless I decide to pull one out of my longbox tomorrow or Wednesday, since I won't have time for any blog posts on Thursday. Regardless, you'll hear from me at least twice this week with two TV show reviews. So until then have a great night and I will talk to you all later. Take care.