Netflix Cancels Sequel Series And No One Is Surprised
That 90s Show has been officially canceled by Netflix after its second and third installments had lackluster performances on the streaming site. The show followed the format of other revival series like The Upshaws and The Conners, which carried on the story of a show that had started a decade or more earlier. Unfortunately, this type of sequel series hasn’t been an easy fit for Netflix, and the show hasn’t drawn the kind of audience they expected.
That ’90s Show Canceled
Bringing back Kurtwood Smith as Grandpa Red and Debra Jo Rep as Grandma Kitty, That 90s Show aimed to tap into the nostalgia of the original series, That 70s Show.
The first season of the show included performances from Ashton Kutcher, Topher Grace, Mila Kunis, and Wilmer Valderrama reprising their original roles from the series.
But despite the wild popularity of That 70’s Show, That 90s Show failed to connect with the audience in the same way.
Story Couldn’t Stitch Together
If That 90s Show failed, it certainly wasn’t because of the cast who, led by Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rep, created a satisfying return to Point Place, Wisconsin to draw audiences in.
With all their hard work, though, the sequel series just doesn’t quite hold up, creating a rather vague idea of the 90s rather than a well-thought-out snapshot of the decade.
Despite hilarious moments and a talented cast, the series didn’t stitch the story together all the way, making it seem disjointed and a little bland.
90s Nostalgia Should Have Played
Even with all the Beanie Baby and Zima references, there was a failure to establish a deeper connection with the story of That 90s Show.
90s nostalgia is popular right now, so making a sequel series to That 70s Show seems like a no-brainer, but while the characters in the series sport some oddly perfect 90s outfits, there’s no sense of the greater context of the 90s included.
While the show makes a lot of 90s references, That 90s Show doesn’t make you feel like you’re watching people from the 90s, but rather like you’re watching people from now do a parody of the 90s.
Multi-Camera Sitcoms Don’t Work
One of the big problems for That 90s Show is that multi-camera sitcoms just aren’t doing very well in general right now.
Partly because audience preferences have shifted and partly because streaming has changed the way that shows are made, traditional sitcoms with an ensemble cast are harder to make now than they used to be.
The pressure that series like That 90s Show are under to immediately become breakthrough hits makes it hard to succeed at making a long-running sitcom that builds an audience over time and finds its mark through some trial and error.
Another Netflix Show Canceled
With the writer’s room increasingly restricted by time and budget constraints and studios choosing to lean on past successes rather than breaking new ground, it’s not surprising that That 90s Show suffered the same fate as other sitcoms of a similar ilk, like Fuller House and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
As the size of the writer’s room shrinks, with mini rooms becoming more common for TV shows, the institutional knowledge of how to tie a plot together and tell a compelling story on a sitcom’s 22-minute timeline has deteriorated. That 90s Show, like every other TV series created recently, is impacted by these changes as well.
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