Netflix’s That ’90s Show wants to be a warm, nostalgic hug. It mostly delivers on that promise, but the embrace comes with a hitch: the show is too eager to please everyone, and the result is a sitcom that plays it safe rather than taking risks. The series, created by Gregg Mettler, Bonnie Turner, Lindsay Turner, and Terry Turner, premiered on January 19, 2023, and ran for two seasons across 26 episodes, ending on August 22, 2024. It follows Leia Forman, the teenage daughter of Eric and Donna, as she spends the summer of 1995 with her grandparents Red and Kitty in Point Place, Wisconsin.
The premise is simple. Leia, played by Callie Haverda, bonds with a new generation of Point Place kids while Red and Kitty look on with a mixture of amusement and horror. The show leans hard on the familiar tropes of the genre: sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll, but with a ’90s twist. It is a sequel to That ’70s Show, and it borrows its setting, its tone, and its ensemble approach from that earlier series.
Trailer, via Rotten Tomatoes TV.
The Premise
Leia is the daughter of Eric Forman and Donna Pinciotti, played by Kurtwood Smith as Red and Debra Jo Rupp as Kitty. She arrives in Point Place for the summer, and the show spends its runtime tracking her relationships with the local teens. Ashley Aufderheide plays Gwen Runck, Mace Coronel plays Jay Kelso, Reyn Doi plays Ozzie, Sam Morelos plays Nikki, and Maxwell Acee Donovan plays Nate Runck. The adults are there to provide comic relief and moral grounding, but the action belongs to the younger cast.
The show is at its best when it lets the kids breathe. The chemistry between the young actors is genuine, and the writers know how to stage a scene where teenagers talk about feelings and music and crushes in a way that feels lived-in rather than scripted. The problem is that the show never quite commits to being either a pure comedy or a drama. It hovers in the middle, which means it rarely lands with the force of either.
Release Timeline
The show premiered on January 19, 2023, and its first season covered the summer of 1995. The second season extended into 1996, though the show’s final episode aired on August 22, 2024. The cancellation came in October 2024, and Kurtwood Smith confirmed that the show might be shopped to other streaming platforms.
That timeline is worth noting. The show spent nearly two years between its premiere and its finale, and the pacing shows it. The first season was released on Netflix in full, but the second season arrived in two parts, with the first part coming on June 27, 2024, and the second part arriving on August 22, 2024. That staggered release meant viewers had to wait almost a year between the first half of the second season and its conclusion.
The Good Stuff
The show’s strengths are its character work and its ability to capture the texture of a specific moment in history. The ’90s are rendered with care, from the music to the fashion to the slang. The show also benefits from a cast that is uniformly competent. The adults are played by actors who have been doing this for decades, and their presence grounds the show in a way that the younger leads sometimes lack.
Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp both bring a warmth to their roles that is essential to the show’s success. They are the anchors, and the show knows it. Their scenes together are often the best ones, even when the plot around them is thin. The younger cast also finds moments of genuine connection, particularly in the early episodes of the first season, when the show is still figuring out its footing.
The Weak Stuff
The show’s weaknesses are structural. The episodic format means that each episode is self-contained, but that also means there is little room for long-term character development. The show introduces problems and resolves them within the hour, which can feel shallow. The result is a show that is consistently pleasant but rarely memorable.
The show also leans heavily on nostalgia as a crutch. References to ’90s culture are plentiful, but they are often deployed as jokes rather than as meaningful storytelling. This can work for a while, but it wears thin over the course of two seasons. The show also struggles with pacing. The second season, in particular, drags in its middle stretch, with episodes that feel padded and unearned.
Ranking the Seasons
If you are deciding whether to watch That ’90s Show, the answer depends on what you want from it. The first season is stronger than the second, but neither reaches the heights of its predecessor. Here is how the two seasons stack up:
- First season (1995): Strong setup, strong performances, strong chemistry.
- Second season (1996): Weaker pacing, more padding, less urgency.
- Overall: Pleasant but forgettable.
The show is at its best when it focuses on character and relationship. Its worst moments come when it tries to be clever or ironic, and those attempts often fall flat. The show is not bad, but it is not essential viewing either.
The Verdict
That ’90s Show is a competent, occasionally charming sitcom that never quite reaches its potential. It is a solid entry in the Netflix catalog for fans of the genre, but it will not win over anyone looking for something bold or innovative. The show is a sequel, and it plays that role well enough, but it never becomes its own thing.
The show’s cancellation is a shame, not because it was great, but because it could have been. With a sharper focus and a willingness to commit to its characters, it might have found a home elsewhere. As it stands, it is a show that is easy to watch but hard to recommend.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
