I was recently rewatching Season 8 and noticed something that I had previously paid less attention to.

Is it just me or did almost all the main characters (the actors) especially Jackie, Fez, Hyde and even Donna age considerably when the show transitioned from Season 7 to Season 8? It's almost as if there was a 5-6 year gap in real life between when Season 7 and Season 8 were shot, that's how noticeable it was to me. I can't imagine there was a siginficant gap between the date the last episode of Season 7 and the first episode of Season 8 were shot. I don't know if it's the makeup or their hairstyles or the footage quality that was obviously better in 2006 as opposed to the early 2000s but all of them suddenly looked like they were in their mid even late 30s as opposed to previous seasons where they could pass off as being in their mid to late 20s. The only one who didn't age much is Kelso and he just makes a handful of appearances. I'm not sure if this was done on purpose by the writers for whatever reason, either way that entire season obviously felt at times like I was watching an entirely different show. It's also quite obvious that most episodes were written by people who either never watched the show or never liked the show otherwise there wouldn't have been all these changes nobody asked for (Randy, Samantha, Fez ending up with Jackie).