- More mundanely, it could just be life got in the way and they drifted apart.
- Alternatively, Hyde led a fulfilling life and career for himself during the 80s, only to die tragically. His death is what ultimately broke up the group. His grave will be a place of strife and reconciliation for his friends.
- His name will turn out to be Michael Jackson Kelso, named after Michael and Jackie.
- Mostly an argument from silence, but consider the following:
- While Kelso and Jay make reference to the latter's mother, at no point does either of them name Jackie as such.
- Jackie neither confirms nor denies Jay is her son.
- Jay did not attend Kelso and Jackie's second wedding.
- If we're being pedantic about continuity, Jay is too old to be Jackie's son as the latter would have been dating Hyde at the time.
- Kelso's daughter Betsy was conceived during a random hook-up, and Kelso only found out about her later. It's possible that Jay's mother was another girl with whom Kelso had had a casual hook-up.
- The cost of living in the mid 90s wasn't nearly as out of control as it is now, and presumably, Eric and Donna went to university before those costs skyrocketed in the mid 1980s too and wouldn't be in as much student debt (even with Eric's MA or PhD). It's not at all impossible that an adjunct professor and a published author would make a decent living in a house that they purchased in the 1980s for comparably nothing, especially if they're in a suburb of Chicago and not in the city proper.
- Eric has only just made adjunct professor, meaning he has at minimum a Master’s degree, possibly even a doctorate in a related field, most likely mythology. He may have been an extremely popular guest lecturer working a circuit before being hired full-time in Chicago, and likely has at least one successful book of his own covering the material of his course. Especially as the late 80s and 90s saw a boom of pop-culture related elective courses in universities.
- Donna's writing could be connected to her day job. She could be a tenured professor (it's not hard to imagine her and Eric both being in academia, but Donna being far more successful) whose research lends itself well to publishing commercially.
Fez doesn't mention how long he and Jackie were together when they went on vacation, so it's possible it was fairly soon after the end of T7S. Additionally, Fez only says he caught Jackie "on the phone" with Kelso, without stating what the conversation was about. This very well could be innocuous, and Fez is just irrational and jealous ... or Jackie called Kelso because she found out she was pregnant during the vacation.
Jackie did say at the end of T7S that she felt that Kelso was her soulmate, and while she could have gotten pregnant well before she and Fez got together, Fez may not have believed that. Maybe Jackie cheated, maybe she didn't, but Fez believes she did, and he broke things off with her when he found out she was pregnant.
- Michael and Jackie might appear more than once, perhaps to show some bonding with Jay.
- Laurie will return (obviously being played by a new actress) and becomes either a cool or mean aunt to Leia, perhaps having her own children to bring with her
- Hyde will be alluded to but without name-dropping him, like “that rebellious dumbass friend of yours”.
- Hyde will return, but played by a new actor who looks barely like Danny Masterson, or not at all. Lampshaded by some dumbass saying "Boy, did you age badly", or "I've heard time on the inside can really change a guy" Once an Episode.
- Ozzie will prove to the gang that Etienne is real, but they will be preoccupied with a different issue.
- An episode where Eric and/or Donna are directly involved with whatever is going on with Leia.
- Jay and Nikki will find out about Leia and Nate almost kissing.
- Betsy Kelso will appear.
- There will be a Take That! to That '80s Show.
- Leo will make several more appearances, and continue to refer to Leia as "Patricia" (she'll correct him, he'll forget, and eventually she'll start answering to it)
- I hope the old gang managed to meet the new gang for the first time. I can see the old gang telling them stories of what they did in the '70s. And probably smoke weed together.
- Society as a whole was less accepting than it is now, but most teenagers were pretty open. It's true that things like using "that's so gay" as a pejorative were common, but it was generally without any real malice. A group of teens in 1995 accepting their friend being gay is really not all that surprising.
Depending on how much Fanon Discontinuity one cares to apply, Hyde was revealed, despite appearances, to be biracial. After his marriage ended, he engaged in a number of flings, including with Sherri. After his record store went out of business (because he spent more time getting high than actually managing the place), Hyde became a long-haul trucker, so he could be a drifter and get paid for it. As sometimes happens with lighter-skinned African Americans, the pigmentation skipped a generation.
The old gang meeting together onscreen for the first time in over a decade for a high school reunion and judging what Fez said about his break-up with Jackie (it honestly awfully sounds like Fez, Donna, Hyde, and Eric finally decided to cut ties with Kelso and Jackie), they ended up having a huge fight to the point of blows.
Also, season 2 could go Darker and Edgier, with an episode dealing with homophobia and Red might actually physically assault someone for a very good reason.
Also long shot, but I'm sure they might mention Columbine in a future episode. Time will tell, though.
As the show is set in July 1995, and it could go up to December 1999, what movies/TV shows/video games/musicians/celebrities/Real Life events will the show bring up as the show moves forward?
- 1996 Election, Bob Dole and Ross Perot
- Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal
- Eminem, N.W.A, Snoop Dogg, Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G.
- Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine
- Michael Jackson
- Prince
- WWF, WCW and the Attitude Era (the NWO, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock)
- Columbine Tragedy (highly unlikely...)
- Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls
- 1996 Olympics
- Whitney Houston
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Final Fantasy VII, Doom, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter
- Family Matters
- Full House
- Boy Meets World
- Sabrina the Teenage Witch
- The Simpsons
- Married... with Children
- Rugrats (1991)
- A Goofy Movie
- Space Jam
- Disney movies (e.g. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney), Pocahontas, The Lion King (1994))
- Independence Day, 1996
- The Phantom Menace and Eric's reaction
- Backstreet Boys and other Boy Bands
- Dawson's Creek
- Batman & Robin
- Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series.
- X-Men: The Animated Series and Spider-Man: The Animated Series.
- The Death of Superman
- Knightfall
- The Clone Saga
- All That, Kenan & Kel
- The Fugitive
- Pokémon
- Kurt Cobain and Nirvana
- The Mask
- Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
- Home Improvement
- Reservoir Dogs (and the infamous scene)
- Pulp Fiction (also has an infamous scene)
- Titanic (1997)
- Fight Club
- Toy Story
- Dragon Ball Z
- AKIRA
- Neon Genesis Evangelion
- Men in Black
- The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Will Smith
- Home Alone
- Animaniacs, Tiny Toon Adventures, Pinky and the Brain, Freakazoid!
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Northridge earthquake
- Twin Peaks
- Cheers and Frasier
- Seinfeld
- Tom Cruise
- Nicolas Cage
- The Smashing Pumpkins
- Usher
- K-Mart, Toy R Us, Blockbuster, Circuit City, Sears
- Ellen DeGeneres
- Star Trek: The Next Generation
- The X-Files
- Scream
- I Know What You Did Last Summer
- Sailor Moon
- MC Hammer
- Vanilla Ice
- Armageddon
- Twister
- Aerosmith
- Garth Brooks and perhaps Chris Gaines
- Boris Yeltsin
- Post-Cold War Russia and Red's reaction
- Saving Private Ryan
- The "Macarena"
- Scooby-Doo, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, ThunderCats (1985), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987), The Transformers, G.I. Joe, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Looney Tunes and other old cartoons that the kids likely grew up with.
- Perhaps even flashbacks to the '80s during each kids' childhood and all the 80s things that they remember.
- Clarissa Explains It All
- It will be a Take That! towards the show. Maybe in one episode, Leia will try to become a musician, which prompts Red to compare her to "[his] dumbass nephew from San Diego."
- A more positive reference with Glenn Howerton actually reprising his role as Corey.