11/13/01

This episode had flashes of what I used to like about it, but not very many of them. It used to be funny because it was full of well-drawn characters and witty dialogue. Last season when Donna was mad at Eric and he thought she was over it because she said she was but Kitty knew she wasn't, that was funny! The dialogue used to be clever and rarely had those cheesy, sitcom-y one-liners that make me change the channel. Unfortunately, that seems to have changed. I don't know how much longer I'll watch it, but I did see it this week.

Eric and Donna have broken up, but he had to go to the Pricemart Ball with Red & Kitty and she had promised to go months before, so she went with him. He acted like a jerk once they were there -- he pulled out her chair for her and then yanked it away as she sat, for example -- and she kept talking about how she wanted to be friends again. It WAS funny when she said she wanted to be friends like him & Hyde, and Eric pointed out that he never touched Hyde's fun parts. (It was also funny watching Kitty get drunk at the open bar.) But the rest of it, despite a few good lines, was just not up to par. Or maybe that's the new standard for this season. And where was Jackie? She was only in it for about 3 seconds at the end. More Jackie and less Leo would help a lot.

A few inspired moments, however, have convinced me to tune in again next week.

5/22/2001 - SEASON FINALE

Eric and Donna broke up! If they don't get back together immediately next season, I'm going to be very sad. He bought her a promise ring and she thought it was really nice until she realized that it meant she was promising to be with him for the rest of her life, and then she returned it. Well, first she wore it around her neck on a chain instead of on her finger, and that's what tipped Eric off that something was wrong.

By the way, can someone fill me in on a "promise ring"? I got the gist of what it was from the show, but I've never heard of it before, is this something other people know about?

As usual, Jackie made me laugh a lot. She kept waiting for Kelso to give her a ring and told Donna that she told him if he was going to buy her a ring he should hide it in food. I love that she has instructions for everything.

They definitely use too much Leo on the show, though, I didn't get the whole selling-rings-underground thing. I don't get most of what they use Leo for, although he has his moments. And Donna's "Let's Make A Deal" nightmare, while funny, suffered from the usual problem of having people who were actually around in the 70s play themselves: Monty Hall looks 25 years older because he IS 25 years older.

Basically, it was, you know, okay. Without the suspense of wondering if they'll get back together next season, it would have been pretty flat. This show isn't entertaining me the way it used to.

5/15/2001

Okay. I love that Howard Hesseman, better known as Dr. Johnny Fever from WKRP (and Ann Romano's boyfriend on One Day At A Time), plays the sleazy drug-addled radio station guy. Nice touch. But this week the whole gang was ecstatic over free Ted Nugent tickets. Ted Nugent? Was he EVER someone that normal people liked?

And this is also the problem with having guest stars who were around in the 70s show up. They did it with Shirley Jones last season and had the same problem: it's supposed to be the 70s, and these people look 25 years older than they did back then. The only one that mysteriously worked was Charo, who looks exactly the same. Of course they kept the camera angles pretty wide.

But it was funny when Donna went backstage and Ted said, "Who ordered the redhead?", then introduced her to the other groupies: "This is blonde girl, blonde girl, tall girl, and tall blonde girl." I don't quite know why Donna thought it was important to interview him by taking notes on a piece of paper, since she works at a RADIO station, but whatever. She was funny. And she should have apologized to poor Eric, who waited ages for her and couldn't even use his own car because Kelso & Jackie were having sex in the back seat.

And can someone tell me when the standards changed in terms of depicting drug use on television? I remember reading a lot of articles when the show started about how they don't actually mention pot, but you sometimes see curls of smoke behind them when they're in "the circle". Now it's completely out in the open that that's what they're doing. I love it, but I'm amazed they get away with it. Good for them.

Good show, though. I especially enjoyed Kelso's exuberant suggestion to Jackie in the car: "I know what we can do. . .IT!"

5/8/2001

Okay, so it was better this week. The Canadian jokes were much dumber than they had to be, but it was almost worth it for the Dave Thomas & Joe Flaherty cameos. (Note: I said almost.) But if Fez forgot his green card, it wouldn't be the Canadians stopping him, it would be the Americans. Canadians would have let him out of the country, it's the Americans who would stop him from getting IN. Oops. I still think the show is funny, they're just getting more contrived as they go along. I fear a future of signature tag lines for each character, and more canned laughter -- and it's completely unnecessary because the actors are great and the show is normally great too.

Red & Kitty were funny with the their first VCR -- I'm old enough to remember getting a Betamax -- and the one thing better than Jackie's stint at the modeling agency were the fantasy magazine covers she imagined for herself after her new fabulous career took off:

5/1/2001

This show used to be a lot funnier. I just want to preface my review with that.

Two brand new episodes in one night and I didn't like either one of them. Without deranged Caroline, and Jackie & Kelso and the pool about their first fight, there would have been nothing redeeming about the whole stupid Fez-and-Donna-pretend-to-be-dating story. The plot was contrived & silly and I never in my life have actually known anybody who pretended to date somebody for display purposes. It's in movies all the time and it's just about the cheesiest sitcom plot around. Fez pretends to date Donna with madcap, hilarious results! Not.

The other show was, um, worse. Eric read Donna's diary, and because of something he read in it, he got a tattoo. And Jackie overheard Kelso talking in his sleep, wanted to know what he was saying, so she kept trying to get him to go back to sleep and resume his own internal conversation -- which he did. Which was stupid. I'm sorry, but both of these shows kind of sucked.

BUT. . .on Wednesday they showed a re-run of one of my favorites. I normally hate Valentine's Day shows but this one was really funny. Kitty and Red were funny, Donna & Jackie were excellent -- Jackie's always excellent -- and I liked Donna's explanation that telling Eric she was fine really meant she'd be fine if he kissed her ass for two weeks. And Fez & Caroline at "Play Misty For Me", I liked that too. I just don't understand why the writing's getting so crappy lately, when they have such a good history. Hope to see some improvement soon or I might have to give this one up. I'm worried that its popularity is going to make it suck from now on.