That '70s Show: Season 1

I've got several loosely connected thoughts on That '70s Show's first season. It's time to jump into paragraph format!

First, a quick description. For those who are somehow unfamiliar, That '70s Show was a period sitcom that ran for eight seasons and 200 episodes on Fox from 1998 to 2006. It launched the careers of current superstars Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher, and to a lesser extent, well known actors Topher Grace, Wilmer Valderrama, and Laura Prepon. And yet for being such a career launcher and lasting for so long, the show feels remarkably forgotten by the masses to me. It was never the funniest or most popular show on TV, sure, but I can't think of a single person who has so much as brought up its existence since the day it ended six years ago. Maybe I'm just way off base here, and perhaps the show is much more deserving of being a cultural footnote than I think, but I mean, this thing aired from when I was in fifth grade until two days before my 18th birthday; I "came of age" watching these Wisconsin teenagers for eight years (among other things) and yet the show seems to exist in some kind of vacuum within my own memory. I remember watching it in sixth grade, and in ninth grade, and even occasionally in my senior year, and I remember friends and peers doing so as well. But why has society at large apparently forgotten about That '70s Show? No one sees Ashton Kutcher and remarks, "that guy was Kelso for eight years!" or makes a similar observation of Mila Kunis. These people didn't just appear out of thin air in 2005. Is the show even currently airing in syndication on any of those hundreds of cable channels? Maybe I'm just being an idiot here - but can you think of a time over the past five years or so where you so much as heard a reference made to That '70s Show? I can't!

It was partially out of this confusion over the show's apparent lack of any sort of legacy that I recently purchased the first four seasons on DVD. (That the four seasons came to less than $30 total was another good reason.) I'd seen a whole lot of episodes of That '70s Show growing up, but in an era before DVR and regular viewing habits, I basically just caught the show when it aired, often in repeats, and rarely had any real sense of its continuity - not that continuity matters so much in a period sitcom. I was very surprised, then, when watching this 25-episode first season, by just how many episodes I'd already seen, either in part or in full. I always figured I'd seen - very roughly speaking - about half of the series. Yet I swear there have only been two or three episodes so far that I didn't see. Perhaps more surprisingly, though not necessarily in a  good way, was how many of these first season episodes I recalled as classics, or some of my favorites. Again, I only saw so many episodes, and the idea that so many of the good ones have already happened here in Season 1 doesn't exactly fill me with hope for Seasons 2 through 8. I figured that if anything the first season would be full of episodes I hadn't seen, but I guess that doesn't make sense given the way syndication works and all.

The other thing that really surprised me - this time in a good way - was just how quickly the show got off the ground and running. This wasn't a show that needed time to figure out how to develop its characters or anything; right away, just about every main character had been established as the archetype I'd always remembered them as being. There was the sweet and doting mother, the gruff hard-ass (but loving) father, the brain-dead good-looking guy, the cool guy with sideburns and aviators, the quirky foreign kid, the tomboy girl next door, the shallow rich girl, the super-slutty college sister, and the everyman in the middle of it all. The show wasted no time on "will they or won't they" tension, as Kelso and Jackie are dating prior to the pilot episode, and said episode ends with Donna and Eric kissing, setting up an inevitable pairing off that would occur without much teasing or dramatic interruption; I'm pretty sure they were an "official couple" by ten episodes in or so.

Another thing? Tons of seventies references. Like, I know that's kind of the show's big gimmick and all, but I was floored by just how specifically "seventies" the first ten or twelve episodes managed to be. Disco. Pong. New wave feminism. Kiss. Star Wars. The gas crisis. President Ford. I guess, in the show's defense, no one knew during those first thirteen episodes or so that the show would last for 200; might as well cram in every seventies reference while you can, right?

So, yeah. I always enjoyed this show, but I've spent the last week being particularly impressed by the strength of this initial season from start to finish. As long as things don't veer downhill fast, I could see this being a great investment. And if they do? Meh. I've logged my way through worse.