REVIEW: ‘That ’90s Show’ Is A Totally Rad Reboot

TV has had a lot of reboots and spinoffs over the decades. Sometimes you get Frasier or Picard, but most of the time, it seems you get a total mess. I watched a lot of the early seasons of That ’70s Show on reruns growing up and in college. I didn’t enjoy it because I got the ’70s references, or because I thought it was cool they were getting high all the time (I genuinely didn’t even know that’s what was happening as a kid). I simply thought it was a really funny show with characters you fall in love with instantly over the vast range of emotions they hold as teens wishing so badly to be adults. So when I tell you That ’90s Show is a great reboot of the series, believe me that this praise does not come lightly.

Most importantly of all, I laughed harder watching That ’90s Show than I think I have laughed at any TV show in a long time. The show takes place during the summer of 1995 as Eric (Topher Grace) and Donna (Laura Prepon) stop by Point Place to visit Red (Kurtwood Smith) and Kitty (Debra Jo Rupp) with their daughter Leia (Callie Haverda). But what starts as a short visit with grandparents becomes a whole summer of hanging out in the basement as Leia meets the new next door neighbors Gwen (Ashley Aufderheide), her quick best friend, and her brother Nate (Maxwell Acee Donovan). She also meet’s Nate’s girlfriend Nikki (Sam Morelos), his BFF Jay Kelso (Mace Coronel), and Ozzie (Reyn Doi). The six of them get into plenty of shenanigans over ten episodes and all of it makes for great TV.

I love all of these characters, but I will admit that sometimes I feel like the kids are acting too hard to seem like they’re on a sitcom. Haverda and Aufderheide in particular, for as much as their characters and their arcs endear me, feel like they stand out as trying to be characters where the rest of the cast blends together. Except for maybe Ozzie, who is very much the Fez (Wilmer Valderrama) counterpart in That ’90s Show. He has an accent and his flamboyancy is half his personality. It was rather disappointing at first when this was all his character was, until he does begin a few episodes in to be treated as a whole character, including a saga about coming out as gay to people other than his friends, who refreshingly already know and don’t think twice about it, including Leia, who only just met him.

What does work well about the cast as a whole though is that, besides Ozzie, I never feel like the characters are trying too hard to be one-for-one matches to the original show’s cast. Nikki and Nate start off the show already in a relationship like Jackie (Mila Kunis) and Michael (Ashton Kutcher), but Nikki is super smart and cares about school, and Nate is very much not a player. Jay may look exceedingly like his dad, but his soft side is as strong as his hairdo. Leia is a lot like both her parents, but she’s definitely her own person, and so is Gwen, who has big Donna energy but also plenty of Hyde. Ultimately, they’re very much their own people, who get into similar situations as their predecessors and the show makes an abundance of callbacks, but if you never saw That ’70s Show, nine times out of ten you will go the whole season without feeling like you’re missing out on a joke.

Absolutely unchanged though, are Red and Kitty. First of all, holy cow they look amazing for 79 and 71 respectively, especially Smith. That ’90s Show would, quite simply, not have worked were they not just as much co-stars as they were the first time around. The comedy they bring, the acting chops, the heart, and their ripening with age provided many of my absolute favorite and laugh-out-loud moments all season long. I so appreciate that they’re not second fiddles or side characters cordoned off into making referential jokes ad nauseum. They do plenty of that too, but more importantly, they play a central role in most episodes somehow or another.

My biggest disappointment is the brevity of the show. Even the new theme song, a 90s punk version of the original, is double the speed. Trying to run a show with the same arc of emotional and romantic development over ten episodes that a show once did in more than twice as many per season is an impossible task. I decry that the streaming age has robbed us of getting to see more of Leia’s summer in Point Place, and not only because it ends on a cliffhanger but because I truly loved this show, I fear that the current pattern of rapid streaming series cancelations means I may never get to spend another summer with these characters again. The second the final episode’s credits rolled, I yelled at the TV and swore my wrath if the show was canceled before it got a chance to fulfill the same kinds of satisfaction from its characters’ long-term growth That ’70s Show got to enjoy over several seasons.

I loved nearly everything about That ’90s Show. From its legacy cast and cameos to its new crew of wayward teens, the acting wasn’t always perfect, but the comedy was top-notch, its emotional points had me crying, and its message about doing the same old thing with your friends down the street are all in excellent form. Do not let the fear of the imperfect reboot deter you; That ’90s Show is a great continuation of the classic.

That ’90s Show is streaming now on Netflix.