That 70s Show Season 8 Was an Abject Failure Heres Why

That ’70s Show Season 8 Was an Abject Failure – Here’s Why

That ’70s Show was brought to an abysmal conclusion by several prominent absences and a host of baffling decisions that spoiled the fun.

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That 70s Show Season 8 Was an Abject Failure Heres Why

That 70s Show had excellent writing, a well-defined cast of characters and subtle period-appropriate references that only added to its charm. The decade-based sitcom left so much of an impression that a spinoff with some original stars is coming to Netflix. But even the most diehard fans loathed its final season — preferring to write off the remaining 22 episodes as little more than a bad trip.

Loaded with bizarre writing and baffling character direction, and with core cast and crew members missing, Season 8 of That 70s Show felt entirely divorced from the rest of the series. A huge blow came when Topher Grace announced he wouldn’t be returning as Eric Forman. As the show’s central character, one half of its main couple and a pivotal dweller of its iconic basement, Eric was much beloved and critical to the series. It was all downhill from there.

That 70s Show Season 8 Was an Abject Failure Heres Why

Grace took the role of Venom in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, with Eric’s departure explained by him taking a teaching job in Africa. This left the character’s relationship with longtime sweetheart Donna Pinciotti in jeopardy, and That ’70s Show botched that relationship by having a rushed, off-screen breakup between the two. And while Ashton Kutcher stuck around, the actor’s developing film career meant his character Michael Kelso only turned up sporadically. Losing these two key performers also diminished the dynamic fans had come to love.

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Screenwriting duo Jeff and Jackie Filgo were also notably absent for the final season after serving as executive producers for over 170 episodes. The Filgos were also a prominent fixture on the show’s writing staff for the first six seasons, and were responsible for the fan favorite pairing of Jackie Burkhart and Steven Hyde. While romantically linking the two seemed disastrous at first, their relationship eventually served to better both characters, similar to How I Met Your Mother’s unlikely pairing of Valentina and Charlie. But the couple was forcibly split apart in Season 8.

That 70s Show Season 8 Was an Abject Failure Heres Why

Hyde was impulsively married off to a stripper named Samantha. The plot point would’ve served far better as a season-long arc wherein Jackie and Hyde eventually reconciled or Hyde learned to love Samantha. However, after only eight episodes and a painful plot contrivance, That ’70s Show never mentioned Samantha again. Furthermore, Jackie and Hyde reverted back to their bitter Season 1 dynamic with little to no mention of a courtship that spanned seasons. Even more baffling, however, was Kelso’s decision to propose to Jackie despite the fact that they’d been over for a while.

While the existing characters felt like they were in poorly written fanfiction, the new ones were even worse. In order to compensate for the exits of Grace and Kutcher, Josh Meyers joined the cast as Randy Pearson. Given an instant flirtation with Donna and fast friendships with the rest of the cast – including Eric’s parents – Randy was clearly intended to be an amalgamation of Kelso’s charm and Eric’s sweetness. The character was so disliked by viewers, however, that Meyers’ image was removed from all DVD copies of the season.

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That 70s Show Season 8 Was an Abject Failure Heres Why

The most confusing part of That 70’s Show’s final season was what it did with Fez, the quirky character played by Wilmer Valderrama, who would later go on to star as Agent Nick Torres on NCIS. Fez was defined by his obsession with candy, his charming awkwardness and his mysterious international origins. In Season 8, most of these traits were all but forgotten and his tendency to have his perplexing nature mess up his romantic pursuits was completely reversed.

With the characters having zero on-screen chemistry as a romantic couple, the Jackie and Fez pairing was collectively despised. Valderrama told TODAY in 2021 that both he and Kunis were surprised by the decision to have their characters date, and that it felt like the most random thing the show could have done. “We kind of ran out of everything,” he laughed.

That ’70s Show ended not with a bang but with an agonized whimper, losing many of the concepts and people that made the series successful and replacing them with storylines and characters that went directly against what had already been established. Now that Netflix has ordered That ’90s Show, fans have hope that what happens next in Point Place will be better than the misery of Season 8.

Link Source : https://www.cbr.com/that-70s-show-season-8-failure/

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