Note: This review has been horribly delayed due to two universal constants — both real life and the Post Office will try their hardest to prevent you from getting on with things. Apologies to the DVD Lounge’s executive boards, and on we go”¦
Created by
Bonnie Turner
Terry Turner
& Mark Brazill
Cast:
Tommy Chong”¦.Leo
Topher Grace”¦.Eric Forman
Debra Jo Rupp”¦.Kitty Forman
Mila Kunis”¦.Jackie Burkhart
Ashton Kutcher”¦.Michael Kelso
Danny Masterton”¦.Steven Hyde
Laura Prepon”¦.Donna Pinciotti
Kurtwood Smith”¦.Red Forman
Don Stark”¦.Bob Pinciotti
Wilmer Valderamma”¦.Fez
The Show:
Television comedy has been undergoing something of a renaissance in recent years. Programs like The Office and Peep Show in the UK, and Arrested Development and Curb Your Enthusiasm in the US, tickling the intellect of the critics as much as the funny bones. It seems that there is no place for the traditional three-camera format in this post-Friends world – as anybody who watched Joey would readily agree. Hell, at this point even the word ‘sitcom’ appears to be SO last century and, well, that’s where That ’70s Show belongs – in both setting and production.
Fortunately, T7S is fuelled by all things retro. Sitcom connoisseurs looking for the next big thing were clearly never going to find it here and promptly moved on. With a bit of luck they have moved on into the path of a speeding bus to rid the world of their pompous and ridiculous selves. A lack of originality is by no means always a symptom of inferiority. Indeed, this show embraces it and proves to be quite entertaining as a result, chronicling the moderate rises and glorious falls of a group of teenagers growing up in the Wisconsin suburbs. Regrettably, this does occasionally involve shaking up the format with “the flashback episode” and “the ‘what if’ episode” and even, dear lord, “the musical episode”, but for the most part it’s just people mocking one another in the basement.
The main character, Eric Foreman (Topher Grace, soon to be Venom in Spider-Man 3), is a devotedly average high school geek who longs for a better life. His best chance of getting one is with the girl-next-door, Donna Pinciotti (Laura Prepon, who would later provide the world’s first hair-based Jump the Shark Moment when she sadly dyed her pretty red hair blonde), who is clearly out of his league but adores him anyway. The two grew up as neighbours and their relationship provides the core of the show, which was left oddly hollow at the end of season three when they broke up. For the record, he dumped her – a point that, quite rightly, nobody can quite believe.
This has set up season four to explore the new ground that Eric and Donna are trying to find whilst coming to terms with their new status as ‘just friends’. It seems as though they might never again reach ‘best friends’ territory, which leaves Donna shut out of her regular comfort zone after her parents get divorced and her mother moves to California. Instead, she turns to the bad boy charms of Casey (Luke Wilson, i.e. not the one secretly married to Ben Stiller), skips school, starts drinking and makes illicit rendezvous to seedy motels. This probably sounds a lot more intense here than it actually is on-screen, where it is tempered by the comedic styling of the rest of the kids, namely:
– the cool guy, Hyde (Danny Masterton, whose older brother Christopher, the eldest son on Malcolm in the Middle, appears in a couple of episodes this season)
– the dumb guy, Kelso (Ashton Kutcher, hereafter forever typecast)
– the whacky foreign kid, Fez (Wilmer Valderamma, last seen touching Lindsay Lohan at some point)
– the drama queen, Jackie (Mila Kunis, a.k.a. the voice of Meg on Family Guy)
Jackie and Kelso are having relationship problems of their own. This is hardly a surprise considering they have been either dating or fighting or combining the two in inventive ways ever since the pilot. Now, after having gotten back together again, Jackie’s wealthy father has cut off her ample allowance as punishment for continuing to date the guy that cheated on her. The significance of the sacrifice that the high-maintenance Jackie made, choosing to work in a cheesemongers just to be able to date him, is all but lost on the dim Kelso. He’s too busy trying to figure out whether they should be together at all anymore. This all culminates in the season finale, when the unsettled Kelso and Donna…
Well, that would be telling. Let’s just say that Kelso’s Van O’Love is involved and leave it at that.
While the kids might be alright, the real fun actually comes from the parents. Eric’s overbearing mother Kitty (Debra Jo Rupp, the mother of Phoebe’s triplets on Friends) is as sweet as they come but she is saddled with Eric’s father – the equally overbearing, yet far grouchier, Red (Kurtwood Smith, the bad guy from Robocop). As with all good, intelligent men of a certain age, all Red wants in life is for everybody in the world who isn’t his wife to just shut up and leave him in peace and quiet to enjoy the finer things in life, such as newspapers, the big game on TV, or some cold beers. Regrettably, this rarely happens, especially with a teenage son in the house.
Red has become something of a cult hero to me and my flatmate whilst watching this series. He certainly steals the show on most occasions, whether it’s the look on his face when forced to listen to Eric unleashing his inner angst about Donna, his excellent parenting skills.
Eric: I love you, dad.
Red: Go to your room.
Or his wonderful assertion of what manhood entails for Hyde after his 18th birthday – “It’s time to start being a man. And the first rule to being a man is you gotta spend your life doing crap you don’t wanna do.”
It’s a supremely brilliant performance by Kurtwood Smith, and a shame, albeit an understandable one, that more people won’t be inclined to check this show out in order to learn from Red. After all, why waste time disengaging your brain to this when there could be something cutting edge on elsewhere? Well, fair enough, but just remember one of the main lessons from T7S – there is always time for something blunt.
There – and I didn’t even mention the nostalgia factor.
The DVD
Video
Full frame with a 1:33:1 aspect ratio. It’s a Fox TV show, what do you expect?
Audio
Glorious Dolby Surround. Again — you ain’t buying this for the technical expertise.
The Extras:
“Season 4 in 4 Minutes” featurette – a chance to watch clips of things you’ve just watched. ARE WE SO VAIN?
“A ’70s Flashback” featurette with, alternately, Laura Prepon and Mila Kunis. These are, again, more clips of the fourth season. At least this time they are interspersed with retrospective comments from the two actresses, although they are far too brief to be particularly interesting. Still, it’s clear that Prepon gets quite emotional talking about her time on the show. Also, it’s good to know that Kunis’ regular voice is nowhere near as irritating as that of Jackie Burkhardt or Meg Griffen. Macauley Culkin is a lucky guy.
Yikes, now that was a sentence in need of some sarcasm…
Commentaries by director David Trainer on three episodes – “Eric’s Depression”, “Class Picture” and “Hyde’s Birthday”. Trainer is dry and alternates between Stating The Bloody Obvious and Boring The Pants Off You, so be warned. Still, he did direct every single episode of the show’s seven seasons (bar the pilot), which is worthy of respect.
There’s also an option to watch promo clips of each of the episodes. You know, instead of watching the actual episodes. This is a selling point so uniquely stupid that, along with the other limited and tame extras, it makes a mockery of the DVD package.
