Can you ever really go back?
Or in the case of sequels to much-loved shows go forward whilst also going back?
It’s a huge question and one increasingly being asked as streaming platform scour the televisual and cinematic past for properties that might have a shot at another life in our current age of digital entertainment overload.
While no one can be absolutely sure what the definitive answer is, the release of That ’90s Show on Netflix, the follow-up to That ’70s Show which screened on Fox for eight seasons from 1998-2006, goes a considerable way to delivering a great, big, emphatic, draped in glowing neon “YES”.
Relying very much on a traditional sitcom model of rapid fire jokes delivered by teen characters who are wise and clever beyond their years – even when they are meant to be dumb bros of which there are two entertainingly present in the show’s cast – the 1995-set sequel delivers handsomely on the craving we all have to get our nostalgia itch scratched while still striding forward somewhat into the gloriously fun what-ifs of sequels.
Much of its success in delivering ten taut and amusing episodes comes down to two key factors.
First, That ’90s Show manages to balance a need to be returned to somewhere we know and loved, in this case Point Place, Wisconsin, and to spend time with characters who made our late ’90s/early-Noughties viewing happier and brighter, while also asking what might have happened next.
It’s a tricky road to travel because while we often want to know what’s happened to the characters that ceased to make us laugh and care sometimes decades before, we don’t want them to have changed too much although we know, of course, that’s all but inevitable.
The good news in this case is that of the previous show’s characters who return, they have moved on but not so much that they feel like strangers to us; this is crucial because who wants to catch up with characters only to find they bear no resemblance at all to our beloved onetime TV watching companions?
It’s a bit like meeting up with friends you haven’t seen in years, hopeful you can pick up where you left off only to find they have changed so much they might as well be people you’ve just met.
Thankfully, when we see Kitty and Red Forman (Debra Jo Rupp and Kurtwood Smith respectively), arguably the heart and soul of both decades-nomenclatured shows, it’s as if no time has passed at all.
The Formans aren’t frozen time and have adjusted to life as grandparents and older retired Americans with Red appearing to be perfectly okay with sitting back and reading the paper while Kitty clearly wants back in the world, embracing a chance to return to work and look after a new generation of teens finding their way in life, including granddaughter Leia (Callie Haverda), daughter of Eric and Donna, played by Toper Grace and Laura Prepon respectively (and yes, she is named after that Star Wars character, fulfilling a vow Eric made in That ’79s Show to name his kids after his favourite franchise’s lead characters).
They are as they once were and not all at once, but they are very much the characters we adore and it’s their essential red and Kitty-ness that makes That ’90s Show come alive so beautifully.
When it becomes clear that Leia would like to stick around for more than just one weekend after she meets Gwen (Ashley Aufderheide) the daughter of the Formans’ next neighbour Sherri (Andrea Anders), and her gaggle of friends including half-brother Nate (Maxwell Acee Donovan), his girlfriend Nikki (Sam Morelos), Nate’s bestie bro Jay, played by Mace Coronel, who’s the son of Michael Kelso and Jackie Burkhart (Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis respectively) and openly gay Ozzie (Reyn Doi), and realises she found the misfit friends that her home city of Chicago has never provided, That ’90s Show kicks into high gear with Kitty thrilled to have the basement, and her greatly diminished world, filled with kids, laughter and “ham” again (somehow ham becomes the code word for pot which once again makes the scial wheels go round.
In many ways then That ’90s Show follows much the same pattern as its predecessor, delving deep, or as deep as a sitcom of just ten episodes can go, obviously working on the premise that if it ain’t broke, why fix it?
The thing is though that That ’90s Show doesn’t feel like some tired sequel retread.
It’s far more knowing with the show’s basement residents reflecting the fact that as the internet age dawns – there are some gloriously funny scenes where Kitty learns to navigate the Formans’ first PC and red discovers you can bring up Racquel Welch out of the pixelated depths of the ‘net – and these kids are more sassy and somewhat more together than their folks.
However, they are still teens, and much of the show is taken up exploring first love, with all its anxiety-inducing missteps and inconsistencies, what the future looks like and why its simultaneously scary and thrilling at once, and what it means to be gay in a world that’s just waking up to the fact that not everyone is straight and heteronormatively inclined.
It’s no great social treatise – what sitcom is? – but it does take time, in amongst all the witty banter and sometime obvious jokes, to reflect on what life is like as a teen and as a a parent, lending the show a lovely emotional muscularity and thoughtfulness to go with its quick-flying oneliners.
The show also wisely doesn’t overdo the nostalgia element.
While we are treated to the return of almost all the kids, we get to also see — SPOILER ALERT — pot-soaked hippie Leo (Tommy Chong), Bob Pinciotti (Don Stark) who’s now related to the Formans much to Red’s chagrin, Fez (Wilmer Valderama) who’s now a celebrity hairstylist in Point Place and even Fenton (Jim Rash), Fez’s rival, and all in doses that answer the heart’s need for nostalgic fun while not overstaying their welcome.
All of them are as they were and yet not, with the team behind That ’90s Show keeping the balance taut between making the most of what we love about these characters and keeping them relevant and modern, new and freshly interesting.
It’s a tricky balancing act that the show pulls off with aplomb, delivering up the nostalgia hit the doctor ordered without ending up mired, desperately and unfunnily in the past, and ensuring that our return to Point Place is warm, funny, delightful – much of that thanks to Kitty who is adorably and wonderful comedically three-dimensional – and very much in the here and now, a sequel that knows where it comes from but which is also happy to move beyond that, delivering up a show that is a masterclass in going back and not living to regret it.