Potential Future Seasons Of That '90s Show Will All Feature Time Jumps, For A Pretty Good Reason
"That '90s Show" hasn't even premiered yet, but the writers reportedly already have a plan for future seasons in the event that the Netflix show gets renewed. "That '70s Show" creators Bonnie and Terry Turner spoke to Variety about the new sequel series they're co-creating alongside Gregg Mettler and Lindsay Turner, and revealed that the entire show is meant to take place during a very specific time in its teen friend group's lives: summer vacation.
"Setting it only during the summer gets the whole school and having-to-go-to-class thing out of the way, which we discovered on the original show, that wasn't where it was interesting," Terry Turner explains. "It's more interesting in the basement." Assuming it continues beyond its first season, the new series will incorporate time jumps between each season, as Eric (Topher Grace) and Donna's (Laura Prepon) daughter Leia (Callie Haverda) visits her grandparents Red (Kurtwood Smith) and Kitty (Debra Jo Rupp) every summer. This also seems to give the series an unstated but obvious shelf life, as it begins in 1995 and will therefore run out of '90s summers before its sixth season.
As a major fan of both "That '70s Show" and coming-of-age stories in general, I think this is a fantastic idea that has the potential to inspire some poignant moments. Another great 2000s teen show, "Friday Night Lights," incorporated a similar annual time jump, as its episodes only took place during the high school football season each year. The result was a series of premieres that were endlessly surprising, exciting, and heartfelt, as still-maturing characters transformed — emotionally, physically, and interpersonally — in major ways during the time jumps. Ann Brashares' "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" novels also used the summer break plot device, with similarly profound results.
Summer break forever
The Turners are well aware of the character implications of a recurring time jump in a teen-centric show, as their disinterest in the school setting clearly isn't the only reason for the time jump. "People change where they go away," Terry Turner says. "They come back nine months later and when they're teenagers, sometimes there's a radical change, sometimes not. But sometimes people have decided to go a completely different path." Press materials describe the core cast as a dynamic bunch from the start, with a Riot Grrrl, aspiring filmmaker, and an openly gay teen among them. If the show continues beyond its first season, it'll be interesting to see how the kids evolve (or regress) as they face the inevitable ups and downs of growing up.
"They physically change, they emotionally change, their lives have changed, their goals have changed," Bonnie Turner tells Variety when describing the summer break reunions. She calls the decision "great story fodder," and it is, but if executed well, it also has the potential to lead to some memorable, truthful moments. The original series followed its core cast of Point Place, Wisconsin stoners through high school and young adulthood, and turned out to be surprisingly honest about the aimlessness, heartbreak, and thwarted dreams that sometimes accompany coming of age — along with the triumphs. Hopefully, any time jumps in "That '90s Show" will help tell a similarly sweet, sincere, and funny story.
In the meantime, though, "That '90s Show" looks like a party in the making. The first teaser for the series just dropped, featuring Leia and her friends just saying "whoa" to drugs while Kitty and Red offer up treats and scowls, respectively. "That '90s Show" will debut on Netflix on January 19, 2022.