That 70's Show - Season Four

Things took a rather serious turn in the fourth season of That 70’s Show. Instead of all the silly antics and occasional pop culture reference, the first several episodes of the show were centered around the relationship between Donna (Laura Prepon) and Eric (Topher Grace). In fact, the season was half over before it really started getting back to its old self. It aired between September 2001 and May 2002.

At the end of last season, Eric broke things off with Donna after she refused to accept his promise ring. It was a huge shocker to the fans of the show, even though it was sort of inevitable that the plot would require them to break it off at least once. When this season began, it was all about how Donna and Eric treated each other after the break-up. Donna wanted to still be friends, with some might consider stereotypical of young women if it weren’t so darn true, and Eric just wanted to be mean to Donna. Never mind that it was Eric who actually dumped Donna. The rest of their friends are forced to carry the show around the neverending barrage of insults between those two main players.

I think what struck me about this season is how realistically it portrayed the ups and downs of a teenage romance and how both sides act after a break-up. They still obviously had feelings for each other, but those feelings manifested themselves in different ways. The way Eric was so rude to Donna reminded me a lot of myself and how I acted after a break-up some years ago, and I think that’s why I had a hard time enjoying the show because I disagreed so much with the way he was behaving. I shouldn’t have said the things I did back then, and I didn’t think Eric should have been acting the way he was. Eric was always goofy but still a sweet kid for the first few seasons, but he really displayed a mean streak in this season that seemed somewhat out of character for him.

Just when things start to smooth out between Eric and Donna, a new character comes into the picture. Luke Wilson (Old School) comes on board for a few episodes as Casey Kelso, the older brother of Ashton Kutcher’s character. You can tell right off that Casey is wrong for Donna, but they still go out a few times and it makes Eric very jealous. It’s not until the last half of the season that it stops being so serious and goes back to its usual silly self, and I finally started laughing again.

Another big event in this season is the loss of Donna’s mom Midge, played by Tanya Roberts. In real life, Roberts left the show to tend to her sick husband. This starts out with a little more romantic drama, then allows room for a new love interest to come into the picture. Although this subplot only comes up a few times in the season, it does still work pretty well. In addition to Midge leaving, another plot device that is used several times involved Red buying a vintage Corvette and paying more attention to it than he does his wife, Kitty (Debra Jo Rupp).

One of the craziest episodes this season was That 70’s Musical, which is a musical episode based around the fantasies of Fez (Wilmer Valderrama). Fez is supposed to be singing in a school musical, and he spends the episode thinking about life in terms of musicals. Many big hits from the 70’s were performed, including Love Hurts and Space Cowboy, but all with a distinctive disco flair. Believe it or not, many of the actors actually sing in this episode, including Red (Kurtwood Smith). Not a one of them can really sing that well, either, so it makes it all the more funny. During the credits, it shows some outtakes from the performances and you’ll see that Smith kept messing up. Now that’s funny.

In the end, I thought this wound up being another great season for That 70’s Show. Although I got a little tired of the seriousness at the beginning of the season with Eric and Donna’s relationship, I still liked that it took the plot in some unexpected directions. The show lasted another four seasons after this one, so there’s still plenty of time to see how all these characters wind up.