Fox ran That ’70s Show for eight seasons and 200 episodes, from August 23, 1998, to May 18, 2006. Mark Brazill and Bonnie and Terry Turner created it. It is a teen sitcom about six friends in the fictional town of Point Place, Wisconsin, and it opens in May 1976.
The premise is small on purpose. Eric, Kelso, Jackie, Hyde, Donna and Fez spend most of their time in Eric’s basement, avoiding their parents and dealing with out-of-control hormones. The show’s own synopsis promises they get by with a little help from their friends. That is the whole engine, and it ran for nearly a decade.
Trailer, via Mill Creek Entertainment.
Point Place, Wisconsin, and the Basement
The ensemble is the reason it worked. Topher Grace plays Eric Forman, the group’s leader and straight man — slender, clumsy, with a fast wit and a deadpan sense of humor. He is obsessed with movies, Star Wars in particular, and for seven seasons he is in a relationship with his neighbor Donna Pinciotti, played by Laura Prepon.
Ashton Kutcher is Michael Kelso, the dumb pretty boy who hopes to coast through life on his good looks. Mila Kunis plays Jackie Burkhart, the youngest of the group, introduced as pretty, spoiled rich, selfish and often annoying. Danny Masterson is Steven Hyde, whom Eric convinces his parents to take in, making Hyde like a brother. Wilmer Valderrama is Fez. Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp play Red and Kitty Forman, the parents who make the basement possible.
Red is frequently hard on Eric and casually insults him. That dynamic runs through the whole series, and it gives the Forman house a weight the basement scenes do not carry on their own.
A Timeline That Does Not Hold
The show’s calendar is a mess. The series stayed in 1977 for two full seasons. Near the end of season three it moved to 1978, where it remained until early in season six. The remaining episodes take place in 1979.
The finale ends abruptly during a New Year’s Eve party, as the characters reach “one” in a countdown to January 1, 1980. After the credits, the license plate from Eric’s Vista Cruiser shows the year “80.” That is the show telling you the decade is over.
The continuity problems are real. One year is implied to pass with each season, yet the characters stay high school age from the beginning of the series until the end of season five. Characters also listen to albums that had not been released when the episode is set. This has given the show a certain notoriety.
Two Remakes and a Breakup
In 1999, the show was remade for the ITV network in the United Kingdom as Days Like These, using almost verbatim scripts with minor changes to cultural references. A sequel series, That ’90s Show, set in 1995 and focused on the children of the original main characters, ran on Netflix from 2023 to 2024.
Inside the show, the cast turned over. Topher Grace left at the end of season seven to teach in Africa, appearing in seasons 1 through 7 and returning uncredited as a guest in season 8. Ashton Kutcher is credited for seasons 1 through 7 and as a special guest in season 8. Josh Meyers joined as Randy Pearson.
Eric is mentioned at least once in every episode, but he does not appear during the final season until the end of the series finale. That is a strange shape for a show about a group of friends: the leader gone, the audience told he is still out there.
What the Cast Did After Point Place
| Performer | Character | Seasons |
|---|---|---|
| Topher Grace | Eric Forman | 1–7; uncredited guest, 8 |
| Ashton Kutcher | Michael Kelso | 1–7; special guest, 8 |
| Mila Kunis | Jackie Burkhart | Full run |
| Danny Masterson | Steven Hyde | Full run |
| Laura Prepon | Donna Pinciotti | Full run |
| Wilmer Valderrama | Fez | Full run |
| Josh Meyers | Randy Pearson | Season 8 |
Two of the show’s biggest names left before the final season, and the replacement arrived into a room that had already lost its center.
Jackie’s arc is the one the show follows all the way through. She starts as the spoiled rich girl handing out thoughtless, superficial advice that occasionally turns out to be correct. Then her father, a crooked politician, goes to jail, her fortunes reverse, and she becomes more genuine. She and Donna become better friends. By the end of the series, Jackie has dated three of the four guys in the group: Kelso, Hyde and Fez.
That is a real character arc, and it belongs to Kunis, who was the youngest member of the cast.
The Verdict on That ’70s Show
That ’70s Show earns its 7.9 out of 10. The basement scenes are the reason. Six teenagers, one house, and a decade of jokes about platform shoes and puka shells should not have lasted 200 episodes. It did because the ensemble worked and because Red Forman’s insults gave the comedy a spine the nostalgia alone could not.
The timeline is the part that does not hold up. Jumping to 1978 near the end of season three and staying there into season six is not a slip, and the album anachronisms are the same problem wearing a different shirt. A viewer who cares about the calendar will be annoyed. A viewer who does not will never notice.
What matters more is the ending. The finale stops mid-countdown, on “one,” at a New Year’s Eve party heading into 1980, and then shows the Vista Cruiser’s plate reading “80.” It says the decade is done and so are these kids, without a speech.
The final season is where the show loses its footing. Grace’s exit to teach in Africa removes the straight man the whole group was built around, and the last year has to carry on without him. He is mentioned in every episode. He shows up at the very end. That is not a comeback.
So the score sits at 7.9 out of 10. High enough to honor eight seasons of a sitcom that knew exactly what it was, low enough to account for a final year that did not. That ’70s Show is a great hang and an imperfect series, and the difference between those two things is one missing guy in a basement.
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