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That '90s Show impressions megathread
I get the feeling that a lot of people will watch at least some of this series due to the double nostalgia for That '70s Show and the actual 1990s. Share your impressions here!
I get the feeling that a lot of people will watch at least some of this series due to the double nostalgia for That '70s Show and the actual 1990s. Share your impressions here!
It's very telling that people like the throwbacks to the old characters but not really the rest. That's about the first episode. Like others have said it probably has a lot to do with my own age and nostalgia. I've watched 3-4 episodes and it's just not great and feels outdated as a concept. The jokes and writing in general are just not good. If you're going make a sitcom today using the same formular from when (laugh track) sitcoms were king you at least have some great writing. Red especially feels weak.
The parts with the legacy characters are great! The parts with the new characters... I just don't know. Is this what That 70s Show looked like to adults in it's initial run?
I am interested to go back and watch That 70s Show to compare
I'm three episodes in, and this is how I feel too. The throwbacks and classic character scenes are a lot of fun. But I find myself wanting to skip past the insipid storylines featuring the new kids.
Is that what the original show was like? Probably it was. But my tastes have changed, and possibly the common palette has as well. A laugh track was considered the norm when That 70's Show aired, but is harder to stomach today.
I'll probably finish the first season out. After that, it may be up to reviews.
The term "laugh track" implies artificial laughter added in post. This show has a live audience.
Ah, I didn't know it was a studio audience - though I have suspected at times since it sometimes goes on for an inappropriate length of time.
The older cast may have experience working in that environment, but for the younger cast it's likely a very new experience. I'll give them points for being very natural in front of an audience.
Live sitcom audiences are not like regular audiences, they are usually highly dedicated fans and very happy to be there. There's also some crowd work going on to pump them up. And some things are simply funnier live.
That said, I noticed a few jokes on this show that were clearly supposed to get a laugh and didn't, and I applaud the producers for not "sweetening" the laugh in and just letting them bomb instead.
"Sweetening" is the practice of artificially increasing or intensifying the laughs of a given joke over an otherwise genuine live audience response. By it's very nature, "sweetening" is very hard to identify with certainty.
You'll have a hard time finding shows with artificial laughter throughout after the 1980s, and even sweetening seems to have gone completely out of fashion.
In this version the performers are much younger. The main actress is actually 15, playing character that is 15. That's not that common.
This is glossed over too easily I think. We've been used to actors being way older than their characters age and therefore probably more mature in their appearance and acting. All the while complaining that it's just not realistic. Now we have realism in that sense it suddenly seems weird and unauthentic.
I think this is a problem inherent to having legacy characters around. They had 8 seasons of growth, which most of the new show's audience is presumably familiar with. All the new characters are starting from scratch and will always feel under-developed in comparison.
They checked a lot of my boxes (raves, dial up internet).
But it lacked that "friends, hanging out across the street" vibe.
And I think it tried too hard to appeal to everyone. Sitcoms, and TV in general, aren't popular with the twenty-something crowd, and the actors are too young for the original shows forty-something crowd.
That's interesting because, actually, I first watched That 70s Show as a teenager alongside my sister and my then 45-year-old mother. We all loved it, and still do to this day.
Back in the 90s, live audience sitcoms where the jam!
Nowadays, not so much. New generations don't really understand live audience sitcoms. A lot of them think they're the same as 1960s and 70s formulaic shows with canned laughter, which is disheartening. There seems to be a perception that live audience equals bad which is absurd. When performing to a live audience, there's an element of theater that is rich and complex and artistically valuable.
But I digress.
You're essentially right, but I don't think that the young cast is the big problem for older folks like me. Bad writing is the problem.
I was imprecise. It's not the just age of the cast. It's a coming of age comedy. I've seen it all before.
Which isn't bad. It just makes it less appealing. They could have focused more on the original cast. Like Eric & Donna feeling like hypocrites for coming down hard on their kid for smoking weed. Or Eric asking his mum for parenting advice and Kitty saying "oh darling, we had no idea what we were doing, we still don't, ha ha ha ha!" and Red chipping in "you just kick them in the ass, if may not know exactly why you kicked them in the ass, but they sure do."
But then it would be less interesting to the younger folks.
I understand. But I gotta be honest with you, I don't think that your feelings about those kinds of stories are as universal as you think. I am in my 40s, and coming-of-age comedies are still something I enjoy immensely. When they're well made, of course. Which doesn't happen often. I remember how it was, I can relate. What drives me away from those are the same things I avoid in every story -- bad writing, bad acting, etc.
Also, this show takes place in a formative era for me.
I think coming of age stories can be done well (eg. the film The Way Way Back springs to mind). It is however very easy to make them over-reliant on tropes. The "will they, won't they?" trope in particular drives me nuts, especially when the characters are so new that I just don't care yet.
I've watched the whole show now. I agree the writing is the biggest problem - not the era, or the themes, or the acting. Episode 9 in particular bothered me because of how little the premise made sense, and how the characters acted. I get that teenagers are often hormonal and irrational, but it didn't feel believable to me at all. The situations felt contrived and invented.
That said, I do actually like how easy the show is to watch. It's easily a "second monitor" show for me, and it's nice to have one of those around. But even still, I'd like to see some greater depth explored. There ought to be a reason when a characters acts in a way that's not consistent with their established motivations, other than "because plot".
Quick comments.
minor spoiler
His best moments were in the episode where he came out of the closet to Kitty, it was very true and emotional.After watching the entire season, that's my evaluation: not great, but not bad enough to easily dismiss. It shows promise and deserves a second season. But they'll need to greatly improve on multiple fronts if they wish to remain in production, or even come close to the original.