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© St. Petersburg Times, published January 23, 2002
The '80s Show is less a spinoff than a franchise extension. Like NBC's Law & Order, '80s Show takes different characters in a different setting but shares a format and title.
Placed in San Diego, the series apes That '70s Show's setup, focusing on an idealistic young guy (Glenn Howerton's Corey) who works in a record store and pals around with a wacky group of friends that includes an Alex Keaton-style young Republican greedmeister (Eddie Shin's Roger) and his acerbic boss, Margaret ('80s comic Margaret Smith). Corey's former girlfriend Sophia, a twentysomething bisexual who broke up with him to chase his sister, Katie (Tinsley Grimes), is played by Gainesville native Brittany Daniel.
Corey's big life crisis: whether to join in the lucrative, yet soul-deadening work of marketing his dad's "Gut Whacker" exercise machine or return to his record store job, presaging a '90s trend: the directionless slacker.
Like That '70s Show, '80s makes an unimpressive debut. It's burdened with ham-fisted references that seem torn from John Hughes movies and Miami Vice episodes (one guy turns to his pal in a nightclub and asks, "Is my nose bleeding?" in a clumsy cocaine reference).
It's an ephemeral premise that's so inconsistent, a few beyond-'80s punch lines sneak in (one girl tells Corey, "I'm so not going to the prom with you" -- which is so not the way we talked in the '80s).
You can't help wondering if producer/creators Terry Turner, Mark Brazill and Linda Wallem sketched this wafer-thin plot on the back of a cocktail napkin during their 20-year high school reunion.
There's so little substance to this show, even the press releases are vague. They list no last name for the characters, no explanation of why Corey's best friend lives with him and his family, and no explanation of why no Hispanic characters are in a show set 17 miles from the Mexican border.
If '70s Show is any example, the Dynasty and Black Flag references should thin out by the end of the first season, making room for the characters to populate a more or less traditional sitcom.
But if Turner and Co. don't give Daniels and the other actors more to sink their teeth into, they may be stuck with what they've got now -- an empty idea masquerading as social satire.
That '80s Show debuts at 8 tonight on WTVT-Ch. 13. Rating: TV-PG. Grade: C.