A lot of people know That 70s Show as the show where Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher met and would eventually fall in love years later. The show was on the air from 1998 to 2006, and jumpstarted the careers of many of its stars, including Ashton Kutcher (Kelso), Mila Kunis (Jackie), and Laura Prepon (Donna). Reruns seem to be on all the time on Comedy Central, the episodes are a perfect binge-length of 20 minutes each, and there are 200 episodes to watch, so it would be a great show to commit to for the long-haul.

Overview:

That 70s Show takes place in Point Place, Wisconsin, which is a fictional suburban town that’s supposed to be close to Kenosha and Milwaukee (that probably doesn’t mean anything to people living on the East Coast, but it was kind of cool for me because I live in the Chicago area near where everything in the show is happening). The show follows Eric Forman (Topher Grace), Donna Pinciotti, Jackie Burkhart, Michael Kelso, Steven Hyde (Danny Masterson), and Fez (Wilmer Valderrama) as they grow up and learn to navigate the second half of the 1970s. They are basically an average group of teenagers who hang out, drink beer, and smoke weed in Eric’s basement, but the show is still funny in a classic 90s-sitcom kind of way.

Why I Binge:

The show was really easy to get into because of how short the episodes were and how many there are, but I really liked it because I got to watch the actors grow up along with their characters. It’s also generally pretty funny, and a lot of scenes from the show are quoted in memes and on social media. However, while That 70s Show is one of my favorites, because it was filmed in the 90s, sometimes the writers relied on sexism, racism, and general stereotypes for the show’s humor, which can get a little cringe-y at times. Overall, though, this is a great show to watch and rewatch to pass the time in the same way that people rewatch Friends or Seinfeld.

Why You Should Start It:

This is a really easy show to get into and sucks you in right away. It’s kind of fun to see actors like Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis so young and before they really learned how to act well, and it’s cool to see the

whole cast grow up from Season One to Season Eight. Also, because the show is focused on teenagers, even though it takes place in a different time period and it dramatized for TV, the things that the characters go through, like figuring out college and what they want to do with their lives, is relatable. Even though all the characters make mistakes and can be extremely frustrating to watch, in general they’re all pretty likable and make you want them to turn out okay. The short episodes make it easy to watch an episode here and there without too much of a time commitment, but it’s addictive enough that you may end up watching a season in one sitting without realizing it.

Where to Watch:

Netflix