"Home Economics": Gay and Straight Siblings Obsess over Money.

 That 70s Show ended 15 years ago.  The cast is now in their 40s.  Are you as shocked as I am?   Ashton Kutcher, who played prettyboy Kelso, has retained his youthful vitality and hunkiness, but Topher Grace, who played central character Eric Forman, looks surprisingly craggy and...well, old, and not in a good way (don't get excited, this is a parody CGI.).

His character narrates the story of Home Economics, with the conceit that it's part of a novel he's writing.  It would be a very hackneyed novel; it begins with "This is the story of...."

This is the story of three siblings.  Although they grew up with the same life chances, and they all live in San Francisco and have wives and children, they differ tremendously in economics.

1. Connor (Jimmy Tatro, left), the youngest, is also the richest, having invented a world-famous app.  He moved into Matt Damon's old house with his daughter and housekeeper.  Divorced, he's rich, muscular, and insecure, always looking for love in the wrong places.

2. Matt (Topher Grace), the oldest, is middle-class.  Formerly a best selling author, he has fallen on hard times.  He is forced to accept ghost-writing gigs and to ask his little brother for a loan.  His wife gave up her law practice to be a stay at home mom. Wait -- why doesn't she just go back to work?  Matt can struggle with writer's block while being a stay-at-home dad.

3. Sarah (Caitlin McGee), the middle child, is poor (tv poor, which means living in a huge, elegant apartment).  She is struggling to find work as a child therapist.  Her wife Denise is a teacher, but doesn't make enough money to support them. They obsess over coupons and thrift stores.  Really?  Teachers on other sitcoms make enough to live in the mansions that pass for middle-class on tv.

Let's take another look at Jimmy, since he provides the only beefcake in the regular cast: Matt, Connor, three ladies, and their kids, who are preteens or babies, no surly teen hunks wandering around. 

The title of each episode is a consumer product with price:

Wedding Dress, $1,999

Bounce House, $250

Opus 1 Cabernet, 4500

The Season 2 Episode "Bottle Service, $800" caught my eye.  Is that the price of a bottle of booze?

Connor wants to find a girlfriend, so he invites all the siblings along to an "East Side" club called Noice (ok, San Francisco doesn't really have an East Side.  Its neighborhoods are Mission, The Presidio,  Noe Valley, the Castro, and so on).   Matt complains about the music being too loud, his wife finds someone (Matthew Law) to help in her feud with another mom, and Denise complains that "this is the densest concentration of heterosexuals I've ever seen" (apparently she's never lived on the Plains), so she and Sarah set out to find some gay people.  They latch onto a butch-femme lesbian couple, but they are way young and way too into partying for the 30-something oldsters.

Meanwhile Tom and Matt are cruised by a group of about 30 girls.  Tom keeps insulting Matt so he will look better and get laid.  Finally he orders them an $800 bottle of booze.  But they are turned off by his bragaddoccio, and leave.  

Tom thnks he took Ecstasy, and freaks out, then becomes the life of the party.  He also has a run-in with the bouncer (Jenson Cheng)

Connor manages to find a girl, in spite of his insecurities (well, being muscular and rich probably helped).

Yawn.

There was really nothing wrong with the episode: some gay representation, a couple of cute guys, nothing offensive.  It was just very predictable.  All of the plot points were obvious from the start: insecure guy tries too hard; uptight guy loses his inhibitions; old people can't return to their youth. I think I'd rather watch Difficult People.