It's Been A Long, Strange Trip (General Discussion Thread) #9
 

Thanks for the new thread!

You're welcome! :D

From the J/H (Zen) thread:

True retcons include how many people Kelso cheated on Jackie with. It was increased greatly, retroactively, in season 6.

Another is Kelso describing in season 4 a specific event between him and Jackie -- that never happened on-screen or was even mentioned in passing -- in order to paint Jackie negatively and to justify Kelso's cheating on her. Which is wrong on so many levels. I'm pretty sure I've written a meta or two about that on tumblr. :lol:

Another is when Eric and Donna's friendship/love began. In "That '70s Pilot" (1x01), we learn they were close since at least four-years-old -- and Donn basically admits she loved him even then -- which means they probably knew each other as toddlers. But "Class Picture" (4x20) shows Eric and Donna meeting as six-year-olds. Eric experiences insta!love while Donna bullies him.

"That '70s Pilot" also makes clear that Jackie and Kelso haven't been dating all that long. Jackie even suggests breaking up if Kelso isn't happy being with her. That shows how new their relationship is. In a cut bit (that remains in the British version of the pilot), we learn they'd been dating only two weeks. But "Class Picture" has Jackie and Kelso together since they were quite young.

I'm sure there are others, but those are the ones off the top of my head.

Yeah, the consistency was never a strong side of T7S writers, to say the least.
And during my current rewatch it annoyed the hell out if me cause i mean, hello, seriously? You're a writer, that's your job! How hard it is to keep track at least once in a while? I understand that working on a long-running show is no easy task and i also absolutely understand that on a project like this, with a high number of seasons, a lot of things and details ought to be forgotten, changed or overlooked but keeping in mind basic stuff about characters backgrounds and established events in the plot - meaningful ones - wouldn't hurt. Even when me and my friends for a few years were busy on a fanfiction project about our favorite tv show we spent days and nights making sure we are true to the canon, we do characters from said show justice and we give our original ones strong personalities and with every new chapter do not contradict what we've written before.
In case with T7S most of the time it felt like they didn't even try.

:( Sadly, that rings true. I get that the writers might forget about details and accidentally mess something up, but some of those examples Lisa listed are more than that.

Level of laziness next to some soap writing :shrug:

Dasha! :hug: Always nice to see you.

And, yes, T7S should've had someone keeping track of character details, history, and development. Other shows do, so it's not an impossible task. The worst part is character drift, when characters are written against their established personalities -- without a well-substantiated reason.

For example, Hyde in season 6 should've reacted far differently to Pam Burkhart's return than he does. His childhood history was a vital part of his behavior in the ep where Kelso wanted to be "off the hook" on being a parent to his kid. So why wasn't it incorporated/remembered when, a few episodes later, Pam Burkhart came back to town?

Because the writers wanted to go for laughs and thought ALL the guys being attracted to Jackie's mom was funny, even Jackie's boyfriend -- who had supported Jackie after Pam had abandoned her. :rolleyes: Makes no sense at all.

Lisa, thanks. Feeling is mutual. :)

Agree with everything you said. And they also played for laughs a lot of quite disturbing stuff. I guess i wasn't paying much attention to some details first time around. Maybe my mind was somewhere else, maybe i was more focused on other things back then. Idk, but either way i didn't feel very uncomfortable. Now though? Almost every ep makes me cringe somehow. Especially when it comes to Fez. How can it be funny when a guy constantly hides under the beds of his female friends, steals their underwear, takes their pictures, makes disgusting comments? That boy needed help. Serious help. And in a real life no girl (or no guy, for that matter) would continue a friendship with a person like that.
Season by season writers just destroyed a very good character. Yeah, Fez was always a bit of a creep, but in S1 he wasn't a twisted pervert. Just a teenage boy with a lot of potential to do a great stuff. A bit naive, a bit sweet, a bit weird, but overall normal. And look what happened couple of seasons later.

:love:

Like you said, Fez's character was written worse and worse as the series went on. With Jackie during seasons 2-3, he suffers from Nice Guy syndrome. And later on, he has no sense of boundaries at all toward Donna and Jackie (e.g., snapping a picture under Donna's skirt in season 5), and his disrespect of teenage girls is played for laughs. :rolleyes:

And even while he disrespects women, he himself is continually disrespected by the writers, who use him as a punchline-giver and a punchline. His character was both perpetrator and victim during the series.

That's a whole other conversation. :goof:

Well, T7S writers and respect almost never traveled down the same road, if you ask me. :shrug: What bothers me the most is that a lot of stuff that apparently supposed to be funny in their minds is actually quite annoying and immoral.

Yeah, quite a bit of the humor was sexist and xenophobic, among other -ists and -phobics. :pout:

T7S was at its best when it focused on character and character development and let the humor arise organically from that.

Nicely put. :lol:

Thank you! :lol:

Sometimes I think about how lamenting these writing issues might be pointless since maybe That 70s Show never strived to be the kind of show with quality writing. :shrug: