That ‘90s Show
Lip Smackers Season 1 Episode 3 Editor’s Rating «Previous Next» « Previous Episode Next Episode
That ‘90s Show
Lip Smackers Season 1 Episode 3 Editor’s Rating «Previous Next» « Previous Episode Next EpisodeSomething to remember about That ’70s Show is how performer-driven it was. The writing wasn’t necessarily weak — how bad could it be, with Will Forte contributing jokes? — but what makes the show memorable and endearing is the sometimes-complementary, sometimes-contrasting performance styles, like Topher Grace’s sardonic geekiness paired with Laura Prepon’s deadpan, or Ashton Kutcher’s bombastic, deep-voiced physicality bumping up against Mila Kunis’s spiky, high pitch. That youthful energy was rounded out by the steadfast professionalism of Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp, who hit their intended marks so precisely that their caricatures feel more real than they probably should.
Smith and Rupp are still hitting those marks decades later, and the younger cast of That ’90s Show may well have similarly grabby performances in them. But so far, any promising acting is only developing in fits and starts. Callie Haverda has put some nicely awkward spins on her lines; in “Lip Smackers,” it’s funny to hear her accidentally confess her inexperience in the area of kissing by referring to tongues caressing uvulas (“The u-spot,” she adds). Of her friends, though, only Reyn Doi feels like he’s doing something approaching originality: When Ozzie belligerently describes his possibly fake French-Canadian boyfriend Etienne as “real as hell,” then pronounces “Montreal” with emphasis on the first syllable, he gets laughs almost entirely by making those lines his own.
Nate and Nikki, meanwhile, can only uphold the legacy of Jackie and Kelso by furiously making out. This sparks the revelation that Leia has never been kissed — like in that great ’90s movie My Girl. Gwen proposes an immediate solution: Head to the mall and “knock this out.” Cue the montage of Leia trying and failing to mack on the male population of the food court, intimidating an ice-cream scooper and accidentally hitting on a tall 9-year-old (“Hey, sexy, you eating grapes?”). Gwen (who has no trouble locating a rando to snog) then proposes an alternate solution: Leia should just kiss Jay.
Leia attempts to engineer a romantic moment with Jay, who surprises her, and defies his “man-whore” reputation, by deferring their romantic connection. “I don’t want to be some meaningless hookup,” he tells her, affirming her specialness and giving her a self-esteem boost in the process. Back at the mall, Gwen grouses that she told Leia the exact same thing, but it didn’t sink in until it came from a boy; Leia gives it the ol’ fair enough, and more than ever the show feels like it could be setting up a not-especially-surprising romantic switcheroo. That’s a problem with mapping new characters onto old ones: They become defined either by how they fill those same prescribed roles or how they flip those expectations. A Leia-Gwen hookup would do both: The ’90s equivalent of Eric Forman would once again be finding romance with the girl next door while simultaneously defying expectations of another heterosexual relationship.
Still, right now the characters aren’t fully formed enough to feel any type of way about any prospective hookups. The fun of “Lip Smackers” is Leia’s romantic flailing, paid off in the episode’s “Shoop”-scored final moments where she downs a bunch of breath mints and plants one on the ice-cream guy, then takes a slo-mo victory strut with her friends.
Meanwhile, the grown-ups are doing all they can to stop kissing: Sherri is dating Fez and wants out, but his seductive power is such that she keeps having sex with him instead. Volunteering to help, Kitty makes an appointment at Fez’s salon; he’s remade himself in the image of a sexy stylist that seems equally inspired by Wilmer Valderrama’s dating history and You Don’t Mess With the Zohan. Instead of convincing Fez to let Sherri go, Kitty is touched by the exposition he delivers, filling in the details of what happened after That ’70s Show ended with Fez and Jackie as a couple. (Although summed up, it’s not much we couldn’t glean from Kelso and Jackie’s appearance back in the pilot: Jackie left Fez for Kelso.) Moms everywhere agree: Fez is a catch! Too much of a softie to participate in Fez’s heartbreak, Kitty subcontracts out of her job and asks Red, who has spent much of the episode feeling uncharacteristically zen because of a Sharper Image massage chair, to let Fez down not so easy.
A breakup by proxy isn’t exactly fresh territory, and the punch line to Fez’s temporary sadness — despite his infatuation and dedication, he has no idea that Sherri carries with her the baggage of teenage children and also being his age — is as much a shrug as it is a joke. Mostly, this story line produces relief that it’s over, and looks unlikely to continue the extended-pilot vibes into the next episode. This cast needs some breathing room before Sherri becomes a Bob-and-Midge–style recurring nuisance — or romance, in some form or another, takes over the friend group.
Hangin’ Out
• After the wobbly construction of the previous episode, it’s nice to see That ’90s Show mastering some silly sitcom basics: callbacks and funny buttons, like the scene revealing that Ozzie’s boyfriend, Etienne (whose last name is St. Bernard, and who attends school at St. Bernard’s), may in fact be real. At the very least, Ozzie was speaking French on the phone while wearing a Phantom of the Opera sweatshirt that Gwen thought might not exist.
• I confess that it is difficult for me to buy into Mace Coronel as a viable love interest, not just because he’s playing a Kelso (and a Forman linking up with a Kelso seems too engineered to torture poor Eric and Donna), but because I know Coronel primarily from his role as Dicky in the Nickelodeon quadruplets sitcom Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn, which my young daughter has watched at least twice through. (Also, Coronel peaced out partway through that show’s final season; maybe that prepared him to play a Kelso, as Kutcher’s character left That ’70s Show a few episodes into its final season.)
• ’90s reference watch: This one had fewer movie and TV references afoot, but the whole mall setting of Leia’s kissing disasters had nostalgic kick through its mere bustling existence.
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