I rarely watch this program, but I remember catching it back in 1999 when they did a whole episode about the premiere of the first Star Wars movie (1977). Do you mean to tell me its 4 years later and they have only aged a year? Does this show only go a week forward for every episode? How do they explain their aging?
Just hoping someone can explain to me how time works on this show, cause I just assumed it would be 1981 by now…
Welcome to the TV time warp, Alzarian.
Does anybody know if this is the show’s last season? They’re graduating.
I saw Topher Grace on a late night talk show (Conan, I think), and when he was asked about the show moving forward in time, to the 80s, he said he really doubted it, and brought up the outright failure of “That '80s Show.” So they’ll grow up, go to college, get married, but never wear neon windbreakers.
Didn’t they make a big deal about it turning 1980 on the show?
I seem to remember some promos that played up the joke that something terrible was coming and it was… the 80s…
But it wasn’t a promo for That 80s Show because it featured the cast of the 70s show.
Chyler Leigh of That 80’s Show was hot, especially when she had her spikes up.
It was a look into the future supposing Donna and Eric never got together. It was pretty funny.
Heck, its only May/June 1978 on the show. They were a week or so away from graduation in the episode previous to this week’s.
The series won’t be ending. Fox ordered a few years worth of new episodes awhile back. As for next season, it’ll still be 1978 :). Lest they pull something in the last few episodes of this season, Eric & Donna will be moving to Madison. Fez, Hyde, & Kelso all have jobs and seem destined to stay behind in Point Place. Not sure if Jackie has magically caught up in age with the gang or if she’ll still be in high school next season. We’ll just have to wait and see what they come up with…
They showed that in syndication earlier today.
Oh, and I didn’t know Jackie was younger than the rest of them.
Originally Jackie was a sophomore and all the rest were juniors. And the plate at the end of the early shows said 76. There moved throught 77 and are at 78 now. But don’t try and make sense of it cause you wont.
I’ve only watched some chapters of the show (im a non captive fan), but I wouldn’t mind about the time inconsistencies of it.
It would be pretty cool if they just deal with 70’s events, no matter the year they are in. A kind of Twilight-Zone-intervention in any episode, would work fine for me. No need for historic precision, anachronisms welcome.
In the end it could turn into The Brady Bunch Movie.
Well, considering there are about 26 episodes to a season and only a day or two passes per episode, I don’t have a problem with them spreading out a year’s time over a few years.
Question, while we’re all talking about the show…
I saw the episode where Donna heads off to California in syndication. Unfortunately, the next episode had her right back in Point Place with no explanation, so obviously they aren’t being aired in order. Can someone tell me what happened after she (presumably) got to California and how she came back and what all happened?
If they bump it up to 1979, they’d have to deal with video games. 1978 it was possible to ignore…have they had them at all in the series?
Eric was waiting in her bedroom to tell her he loved her when she ran away. After he found out she ran away Eric when to California to tell her he loved her and bring her back and back she came. This was all to the great displeasure of his parents. The main consequence of this was that her father was so angry he put Donna in an all girl school but other then that things returned to normal.
The Formans do have Pong. In fact Kelso got so good at it that he decided to take it apart and fiddle with the insides to make smaller paddles. Kelso and Red bonded over the task and they did succeed in getting smaller paddles.
I remember one episode that featured Pong, and I think there have been arcade games.
More disturbing to me than the way the show deals with time is the way they deal with space. I watched this show fairly regularly during its first season, partially because I went to high school in Wisconsin and there were occasionally some good Wisconsin jokes and references. But I think whoever they had on their writing staff who knew about Wisconsin…or even owned a map of Wisconsin…must have left, because when I’ve caught the show over the past few years it’s been full of inconsistencies and inaccuracies.
Early episodes established the fictional town of Point Place as located somewhere south of Milwaukee. It’s close enough to Kenosha that the kids were excited to hear about a disco opening there, and close enough to East Troy for them to go skiing at Alpine Valley (now an outdoor concert venue, but it did use to be a ski resort). It’s even far enough south that they could make a casual trip to a club in Chicago. But later Point Place becomes far enough north that Donna and Jackie can go to Sheboygan and back twice in one episode. Heck, it’s even farther north than that, because (in the same episode, IIRC!) the boys can easily drive up past the Canadian border to buy beer!
And don’t get me started on the weather. Red has a Veteran’s Day cookout every year? In Wisconsin? And people hang around in the yard in their shirtsleeves? Yeah, right.
“That 70s Show” . . . “That 80s Show” . . . God damn it, when are they going to give us something worthwhile, like “That 60s Show”? Yeah! Now that would be a creative challenge! A funny, lighthearted sitcom about 17-year-old New Left revolutionaries!
I don’t really watch this show, but I saw that episode. Why did they even need to drive to Canada, because in '78, the drinking age in Wisconsin was 18. And wouldn’t you have to go through the UP or MN to get to Canada? Wisconsin does NOT have a land border with Canada.
I don’t care what year they stay in, I love this show! It never fails to make me laugh and that’s what it’s meant to do. The writers are great, you can tell the actors love what they do and obviously enjoy working with each other.
I was a little confused about the last scene in last night’s show being that it was the seasons cliffhanger, but I am looking forward to next season and am hoping to attend a live taping, or two, or three.