The first season ofThat ’90s Showhas arrived on Netflix, and with the follow-up toThat ’70s Showcomes many answers to questions that fans have had about that characters from the original show. Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp are featured as recurring characters with the series set in the same Point Place home featured inThat ’70s Show. Meanwhile, several cast members from the original series also make special appearances, including Topher Grace and Laura Prepon as Red and Kitty’s son and daughter-in-law, Eric and Donna.
Meanwhile,That ’90s Showprimarily follows a new cast of younger characters, led by Callie Haverda’s Leia Forman. In the series, it is explained that Leia is the daughter of Eric and Donna, making her Red and Kitty’s granddaughter. But according toa fan theory on Reddit, however, Eric is not Leia’s biological father. The theory suggests that the timeline of the series that’s established in the spinoff makes it improbable that Eric would be Leia’s father, making the case that it would instead probably be Randy, played by Josh Meyers inThat ’70s Show’s final season.
The Redditor, bored_bingewatcher, points out that the series is set during the summer of 1995. During the season, Leia turns 15 years old, meaning she would’ve been born in the summer of 1980. However, the series finale ofThat ’70s Showreveals that Eric was away in Africa until New Year’s Eve in 1979, so the only way he could have fathered Leia is if she had been born months prematurely. That’s not impossible, but as the Redditor argues, it’s more plausible that Donna’s previous boyfriend is the biological father:
“But if you remember the ending to That ’70s Show, Eric returns from Africa at New Year’s Eve of 1979/1980, so Leia would have to be conceived immediately after the final episode and even still she would have to be born early. However, Donna did break up with Randy only two episodes earlier. So Occam’s razor tells me Leia is probably Randy’s (child) and Donna lied about it to Eric. I think Kitty is aware of it, being a nurse and having followed Donna and Randy’s arc begrudgingly in season 8, but she won’t say anything to keep her son blissfully ignorant and she likes to be a grandma.”
Related:That ’90s Show: All 10 Episodes of Season 1, Ranked
It Wasn’t Long for Fan Theories to Come in for That ’90s Show
Of course, fan theories are nothing new, common among fanbases for pretty much every popular movie and television series. It may have been a matter of time before these kinds of theories emerged forThat ’90s Show, which premiered on Netflix earlier this month. The absence of certain characters who appear in the original series has left the door open for fan speculation withThat ’90s Show, as far as what has since happened to those characters, especially as characters like Randy, Hyde, and even Kelso’s daughter Betsy were not so much as mentioned once. Speaking of Kelso, some fans are also wondering how Michael (Ashton Kutcher) and Jackie (Mila Kunis) had a son Jay (Mace Coronel), who’s also that age, suggesting that perhaps there was more happening between Kelso and Jackie off-camera in that final season.
You can stream all ten episodes ofThat ’90s Showon Netflix. It’s not yet known if the series will return for a second season.
