That ’70s Show 10 Most Hated Storylines

That ’70s Show had a lot of great moments, and not too long after the series aired it turned into an instant classic. We started to enjoy doing “the same old thing we did last week” inside Eric Forman’s basement, and we found ourselves wanting to spend more time with these goofy characters.

Many A-list actors started their careers on this sitcom, including Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis (who are now happily married) as well as Wilmer Valderrama and Topher Grace. While the series had a lot of wonderful moments, there were also several instances that fell totally flat. Here are 10 of the most hated storylines on That ’70s Show.

10 BIG RHONDA

Rhonda, referred to rudely as “Big Rhonda” by the gang, played Fez’s love interest on the show. One of the main purposes of her character was to be the butt of the joke because of her weight. The main characters were constantly making fun of her for not being a size zero and they thought she was some sort of monstrous mutant creature when really she was just an average person who carried a few more pounds than the others. All the storylines involving Big Rhonda were quite challenging to watch because of how mean they were being to this kindhearted girl who wouldn’t hurt a fly.

9 FEZ AND JACKIE’S RELATIONSHIP

The fact that Fez and Jackie were end game left a lot of fans feeling infuriated. For one thing, this relationship seemed to come completely out of nowhere. Nothing was building up to these characters getting together. Another reason fans were not happy with this pairing was due to the fact that we invested so much time in Jackie’s other relationships, including her relationship with both Kelso and Hyde.

Those romances were enormous factors throughout the show and it felt as though we were investing so much time into those love stories only for Jackie to randomly choose Fez, because why not? It’s still one of the most confusing and nonsensical pairings in the history of TV.

8 ERIC LEAVING FOR AFRICA

Television shows are almost never the same after the main character leaves the series. It happened when Michael Scott left on The Office, and it most definitely occurred when Eric Forman left for Africa. When he left, everything went up in smoke and the writing got so lazy and dry that most of us had to tune out for good.

It would be one thing if they simply removed Eric from the show, but they instead thought it would be a good idea to replace him with a forgettable character named Randy Pearson who fans seemed to get little enjoyment from.

7 KELSO AND THE LIBRARIAN HAVING A BABY TOGETHER

The idea of Michael Kelso being in a relationship with a valedictorian librarian is simply laughable. Sure, it’s a sitcom, and crazy things happen. It’s not unusual to see the “opposite’s attract” trope portrayed in the wonderful world of television, but their relationship seems way too out there and implausible for us to take it seriously. If there was enough chemistry between them than sure, we’d buy it, but there simply wasn’t. Kelso ended up getting her pregnant and they had a child together, but we just weren’t invested in their relationship enough to really care about this additional element.

6 HYDE’S MARRIAGE TO SAM

During a terrible storyline where high school kids get married all the time, the gang goes to Las Vegas and has a wild night out of partying and drinking. Hyde ends up marrying an erotic dancer named Sam, and she follows him around like a one-dimensional puppy dog because they’re supposedly newlyweds.

The storyline was incredibly unrealistic and the way he treated her was even worse. It was a plot that we could have easily done without.

5 THE DARKROOM SWITCH

Throughout the series, Fez reveals the dirty tricks up his sleeve that will supposedly help him jump into bed with all the ladies he lusts after. Yet some of his “tricks” are downright deceiving as well as degrading. When Kelso is bugging over how to properly break up with his girlfriend Angie, Fez suggests they play “the darkroom switch.”

“The darkroom switch” would involve Kelso making love to Angie in a dark room and then when she couldn’t see, he and Fez would switch places and he’d “finish the job” for Kelso by sleeping with her without her knowledge or consent. This is a blatant example of sexual assault. The fact that there’s a roaring laugh track after Fez suggests “the darkroom switch” makes everyone’s skin crawl. Just what exactly were the writers thinking?

4 HYDE’S BIOLOGICAL FATHER

One of the strangest and most poorly organized storylines was the one involving Hyde’s family genetics. He discovers the fact that his father isn’t his real father, and his actual dad is an African-American man. This makes Hyde biracial.

This would all be fine and good if it wasn’t for the fact that the actor who portrays Steven Hyde, Danny Masterson, is not biracial. He goes on to make a bunch of racist jokes that he assumes are permissible considering he’s biracial. It’s just a poorly written disaster and it wasn’t handled thoughtfully in any way shape or form.

3 ERIC’S GAY PANIC

When the episode “Eric’s Buddy” guest-starring Joseph Gordon Levitt aired, it was a pretty big deal (and not just due to the fact that a big-name actor was joining the show.) The reason the episode caused such a ruckus was due to the fact that the episode showed the first male to male kiss on primetime TV in North America.

Yet the way it was portrayed was not only cruel to the LGBTQ community but also completely tasteless and lightyears from funny. Eric was revolted after Buddy leaned in to kiss him, and he spent the remainder of the episode trying to prove his masculinity. No. Just. No.

2 EVERY STORYLINE INVOLVING LAURIE

Laurie couldn’t seem to catch a break on That ’70s Show because no one wanted to take her side (with the exception of Red, strangely enough.) Perhaps the reason Laurie adopted a mean-girl attitude throughout the series was due to how poorly everyone treated her, acting like she was the spawn of Satan simply for having an adventurous sex life.

Meanwhile, no one criticized Kelso for being just as promiscuous. Nothing involving her character ever brought any sense of joy or wit to the screen and any scene she entered was just painful to watch.

1 ANY STORYLINE INVOLVING RANDY PEARSON

And finally, fans couldn’t stand any storyline that involved the newly added character Randy Pearson due to the fact that fans couldn’t stand Randy Pearson in general. His character was added in the final season, and fans simply weren’t looking for any new characters to be introduced at this point since it was all so late in the game.

The actor who plays Pearson was originally meant to be Eric Forman’s replacement, but they decided to eliminate this idea. Instead, they made his character a mixture of Kelso and Eric considering both actors who played those characters had left the show to focus on other projects. It just wasn’t a good time watching the writers fumble with bad material for this character that none of us really cared to know.