Jared Strange

The uneasy musical blend is characteristic of the show itself, which, like the town of Hill Valley’s clock tower, finds itself weirdly stuck in time, trying to please generations of fans while simultaneously making something “new.” You can see it in how the writers try to hit the funny bone. Jokes that landed in the ’80s—when 1950s Doc learns that the future president is “Ronald Reagan, the actor,” for example—are still there, but are now especially dated considering that future came and went some 40 years ago. (It also seems quaint considering the caliber of celebrity we’ve had in the White House since.) On the other end of the spectrum efforts are strained to make the piece ironically contemporary, as when Doc Brown returns from the year 2020 heralding a world with no war, no hunger, and (wait for it) no disease. Cue groans from last Thursday night’s crowd.