Netflix Keeps That '90s Show Nostalgia Alive With A Season 2 Order

Netflix prematurely cancels a lot of promising TV series, but so far "That '90s Show" isn't one of them. Barely two weeks after the first season dropped, Netflix announced (via Variety) that the show has been renewed for season 2. What's more: they've upped the episode count to 16, adding six more episodes than the debut season. If you were expecting the failure of "That '80s Show" to repeat itself, you're out of luck, because the future of this spinoff still seems promising.

"We're thrilled that the incredibly funny stories from Point Place, Wisconsin continue to resonate around the world, no matter the decade," said Netflix's vice president of comedy series to Variety. The spinoff landed comfortably in Netflix's Top 10 upon debut and doesn't seem to be sliding off it any time soon.

The spinoff series focuses on Leia Forman (Callie Haverda) as she spends the summer in Point Place with her grandparents, Red and Kitty, who have not changed a bit since the '70s. She quickly finds herself a new group of friends, all of whom resemble a member of the original gang in some way or another. Jay Kelso (Mace Coronel) may be much smarter than his father was, but luckily Nate (Maxwell Acee Donovan) is there to play the dumb jock role. The clearest parallel is Leia herself though, who is 100% believable as Eric's awkward daughter. 

Most of the original cast members made at least a cameo in season 1, and we hope we get to see even more of them the next time around. However, maybe what the show needs most of all is to dedicate more time to the new characters. Red and Kitty are still great, and Eric, Donna, and Fez are a lot of fun to see interacting with each other as full-grown adults, but if season 1 had one big weakness, it was the kids. 

Some of this is inevitable, after all. When watching the first few episodes of "That '70s Show," there are plenty of moments that feel a little awkward, like the show hadn't quite yet figured out what the group dynamic would be yet. Most notably, there was a Hyde/Donna/Eric love triangle that was abandoned early on, as well as the fact that Donna had a younger sister in the pilot who was never mentioned again. But the first season still worked as well as it did because the focus was mostly on the kids. There was plenty of time given to work out the kinks.

But whereas the original show only needed to balance itself between two generations of characters, "That '90s Show" has had to balance three, and the teen characters have suffered the most from this. While we can't complain about all the old characters returning and delivering on the nostalgia this show promised us, we hope season 2's longer episode count allows the teen characters some time to come into their own.