Stream It Or Skip It: ‘That ‘90s Show’ On Netflix, Where A New Generation Of Teens Get Stoned In Kitty And Red’s Basement

There’s a reason why That ’70s Show ran for so long — 1998 to 2006 — on Fox and why it has done so well in syndication ever since, and it’s not nostalgia. It was a stellar cast aided by sharp, character-based writing. So now that we’re returning to Point Place, Wisconsin for That ’90s Show, with a lot of the creative team from the original show returning, will that continue to be the case?

THAT ’90s SHOW: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “Point, Place, Wisconsin. July 3, 1995. 11:47 AM. Location: Kitty Forman’s Kitchen.” We pan across and see Kitty Forman (Debra Jo Rupp) is dancing to “Groove Is In The Heart” while making sandwiches. Her husband Red (Kurtwood Smith) comes in and joins her.

The Gist: Kitty and Red are looking forward to seeing their son Eric (Topher Grace), daughter-in-law Donna (Laura Prepon) and granddaughter Leia (Callie Haverda), who are coming in from Chicago for Independence Day. Eric, the same Star Wars-loving dork he was in the ’70s, is excited that he and and Leia will be going to space camp during the summer, but Leia doesn’t want to go.

Eric, of course, tries to put his foot down, and Red is reveling in the payback for all the difficulty Eric gave him, mostly by not being manly enough for him. Leia hears someone next door singing badly to Alanis Morisette and meets Gwen Runck (Ashley Aufderheide). The two of them hit it off, and Gwen introduces Leia to her brother Nate (Maxwell Acee Donovan) and her friends: Nate’s girlfriend Nikki (Sam Morelos), lothario Jay (Mace Coronel) and sardonic Ozzie (Reyn Doi).

When the local liquor store mistakenly loads a keg into Nate’s truck, the group tries to figure out how to get a tap so they can drink while watching the fireworks at the water tower.

Leia has so much fun with the group that she decides that she wants to stay with her grandparents for the summer. Eric objects, but more because Leia is becoming her own person, something he confesses to Donna. He eventually relents, after taking a page out of Red’s playbook and threatening to “put my foot in your ass,” which Red was very proud of.

But with Leia spending the summer in Point Place, Kitty decides that she’d rather have her granddaughter and her new friends hang out in their basement, like Eric and his buddies did in the ’70s. Of course, Red complains that they were done with having the “dumbasses” in the house, but we all know he’s powerless when it comes to what his wife wants.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? As you might have surmised, That ’90s Show is a sequel series to That ’70s Show.

Our Take: The creative team behind That ’70s Show is mostly back for That ’90s Show — specifically, Bonnie and Terry Turner, along with their daughter Lindsay Turner and showrunner Gregg Mettler — and it shows when it comes to scenes involving the original cast.

Smith and Rupp, also EPs, are going to be the constants, but we’ll also see Grace, Prepon, Kunis, Ashton Kutcher and Wilmer Valderrama pop in from time to time (but not Danny Masterson, for obvious reasons). We’ll also see Tommy Chong as Leo and Don Stark as Donna’s father Bob (but not Tanya Roberts as Donna’s mom, since she passed away in 2021). Whenever any of them are on screen, the show is as funny as the original, mainly because the Turners did such a great job of creating characters with contradictions that generated big laughs.

But when the teen cast dominates a scene, we feel like we’re being transported to a cringeworthy Nickelodeon sitcom from the ’90s or ’00s. Generic, one-dimensional characters, flat gags, over-the-top performances. Say what you will about the TV trope of adults playing teen characters, but 25 years ago, when every one of the original show’s teens — save the 15-year-old Kunis — were 18 and above, there were subtleties to their performances that these actual teens don’t have. After two episodes, there is nothing about any of the teen characters, including Leia, that sticks with us.

We also see the difference when veteran sitcom actress Andrea Anders appears in the second episode as Nate and Gwen’s mom Sherri. Her scenes with Smith and Rupp are funny and crackle with energy; whenever any of the teens share a scene with Rupp and Smith, the comedic load falls fully on the veterans and it shows.

Are we being too tough on the young cast? Maybe. But we also put this squarely on Mettler, the Turners and their writing staff. They’re the ones who made both the teens and adults in the original show actual characters that could generate funny lines from their personalities instead of gags. Kutcher’s Michael Kelso might have been dumb, but you knew he had heart underneath his pecs; it’s the reason why he and Kunis’s Jackie hooked up early on. Eric is a dork but he manages to be charming enough to attract Donna. Red may seem tough but he also secretly likes having these kids around.

We don’t see any evidence of this with the “next generation” characters. Perhaps by the time this 10-episode first season is finished, we will. But the shift between the old characters and new is so jarring in the first two episodes we’re not sure they’ll be able to pull it off.

Sex and Skin: Nothing overt; it may be a bit more risque than the original show, which aired on Fox, but not by much.

Parting Shot: Gwen finds a bag of 20-year-old weed in some of Eric’s old stuff, and she says they’re going to have “the best summer ever.” Leia smiles, then seriously asks what’s in the bag.

Sleeper Star: Of the teen stars, we did like Haverda and Aufderheide the best, but both characters still need more development before we can really endorse either of them.

Most Pilot-y Line: When we find out who Jay’s parents are, the studio audience (or laugh track) applauds so loudly and for so long, we rolled our eyes. We’re of the Larry David school of sitcom audience reactions: We want laughter, not applause.

Our Call: STREAM IT. We think there will be enough of the original cast on screen to make watching That ’90s Show worthwhile. But we’re not sure if audiences are going to want to sit through the broad scenes featuring the teens to get to the good stuff.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.