What is this? multi-cam kidcom, half-hour (24 minute) length. Also, it's Girl Meets World so you should already know the particulars already, but I'm anal-retentive and OCD so here I continue on!
Where did it air? Disney Channel
Who stars in it? Sabrina Carpenter, Rowan Blanchard, Peyton Meyer, Corey Fogelmanis, the guys from Boy Meets World. ...ok, I'll show some proper respect, I guess, and actually type out "Ben Savage" and "Danielle Fischel."
Why are we reviewing this? Because we're seriously envious of Christian and Sean over at Girl Meets World Reviewed.
On my own blog, this episode would be referred to as a member of The D-Minus Club. It really deserves that membership after what I saw.
Dear Lord, this episode had a lot of problems. But before I start ranting about an episode that came a few weeks ago, let me put things in the proper perspective. In my opinion, Girl Meets World is the best live-action show for kids, on Nickelodeon and Disney Channel overall. I don't count Disney XD because I am very unfamiliar with a lot of the stuff there. Also, keep in mind that as we continue to develop this blog, I will start getting more acquainted with today's current kids programming. This is an area that requires more attention. But yes, Girl Meets World is far and away the best live-action stuff for kids.
Why is that? Well, GMW on its best behavior provides you with a realistic experience of what it is like to be a kid, to grow up in a world that you have to control on your own. Everybody has had those growing pains and those moments where it feels like the outside world will eat you alive. I'm one of those people, and Girl Meets World can really speak to its audience. The character relationships are some of the best stuff on this show. Riley and Maya play off of each other in a way that we have not seen in a very long time. Farkle can be very comical, but you can take him seriously at the same time because the writers knew better and gave him depth. Lucas is still a little wet behind the ears, but he is definitely starting to become a more fleshed out character. And then you have Ben Savage, who acts like Boy Meets World just recently got its eighth season because he has not missed a step. The lessons on this show are pretty straightforward, but one thing I fell in love with was that GMW was aiming higher than most shows on Disney Channel. You can expect morals to come into play, you can expect friendship values, you can expect the kids to act like real kids. Girl Meets World has a way of talking to its audience that the best Disney Channel shows have utilized and perfected. There is really something special about this little show, and hopefully, it goes on to have a long, memorable run.
Maybe ABC Family will pick it up when the kids get old enough to talk about drugs and alcohol and such and Disney Channel has milked at least 100 episodes.
But yeah, Girl Meets World. I like the show, I really do. I want nothing more than for it to succeed, and season two has been a vast improvement over season one. The characters are slowly starting to become more and more exposed to life's hardships, the dialogue is becoming less hammy, and the chemistry between the cast has been running like clockwork. Even the lessons have become less on-the-nose and more to the point. It speaks to season two's roll when this is only one of two, possibly three episodes I absolutely cannot watch again ("World of Terror 2" was not frustrating, but I just felt nothing watching it.). Along with the disgusting season premiere, today's episode completes the trifecta of season two GMW episodes that you are just wasting your time watching.
So let's just tear this to shreds. I did not watch this episode on its premiere night and I kept putting it off. The last time I kept putting off a Girl Meets World episode was with "Friendship," and that was not worth watching live. I notice that the GMW episodes I put off watching or never watch tend to be lame, and this was no exception. The main plot deals with Riley going through a crisis when she realizes that Cory and Topanga are doing a lot more for the community than she is, and is afraid that she will never be as good as them. In the subplot, a much better and wasted potential-type subplot, Lucas tries to teach Farkle how to be more athletic. In the end, Riley realizes that she will follow her own path and have her own stories, and tying in with the subplot, her friends and family will help her "round the bases" in this crazy little thing we call a world.
Let me just say that this main plot had the potential to be a lot more than what it was. Riley thinking that she will never be better than Cory and Topanga? Conflict on a plate. If you looked at the episode the same way I did, Riley is a stand-in for Girl Meets World and Cory and Topanga are stand-ins for Boy Meets World. This episode was an exercise in being meta. I'm surprised they weren't more blatant about it because this show will go there for the sake of a meta joke. For crying out loud, Riley and Maya imagine themselves being transplanted in a scene from BMW's first season. This was the one episode where we could really see how admirable Cory and Topanga are in Riley's eyes and why it scares her that she will never beat them in the game of life. But nope, everything we get is just an explanation. The opening scene sets the tone, but the rest of the episode is just Riley being sad about something, her trying to solve the thing, her solving the thing, and we will never see it brought up again. That's it. This plot could have been a lot more sophisticated and deep, but we just get the surface-level stuff. And when you tell a story like this, you need to give the viewer something to chew on. We could predict every single beat in this plot. It was so barebones, the writers probably cranked it out in a few hours when pressed for a story and submitted it as the final cut.
First of all, Riley is in junior high. Her life has barely even started yet. Cory and Topanga are fully realized adults. Of course they do more for their community than her, they have to. Also, the way this plot is executed makes very little sense to me. Riley learns that she is just like Cory and Topanga when they were as old as her, so she can be her own person? Nooooooooo. For the rest of Riley's life, she will be compared to Cory and Topanga even more because she is just like them. The viewers know that Riley has to be their kid, but now that she realizes it, that will be one of her significant traits. "She's both of them." How will Riley ever become better than her parents or even match their success if she is forever linked to them? She's nothing more than their seed, a copy of them without an individual voice. What kind of lesson is that? Who wrote this anyway?
Right, it was Joshua Jacobs, Michael Jacobs' son. Nepotism. It's the wrong thing to do.
There was no reason to even attempt this plot if the execution was going to be so weak. In this one episode alone, we see that Topanga the Shark Lawyer is back. Apparently, she can defend anybody and come out on top because she's Topanga the Shark Lawyer. In the immortal words of Nas, "Why shoot the breeze about it, when you can be about it?" Topanga being this excellent lawyer is almost never brought up unless it is used solely as a plot device. This show has been on for more than a year and we still have to hear the characters talk about how Topanga is a killer lawyer and protector of the good? The writers are treating her like she's Batman or something. We never see Topanga in court, we never see any of her clients talking to her, we never see her have any sort of stress over a case she might lose. We never get any development with this woman, and we are expected to hold her up to a high standard? Topanga is the one character that the writers have really dropped the ball on. By the time this show ends, Lucas will be a more fleshed out character than she is right now. And that is just obscene. I guess Michael Jacobs and company have no idea what to do with her anymore. That's more than enough that I can say for Topanga, or Cory's wife.
Also, Cory teaches clowns. Or something. I don't know, this episode is garbage. Unknown, if you want, you can take the floor.
Grade: D
MVP: Peyton Meyer, because Lucas had the funniest line in the entire episode. Lucas, of all people, made me laugh the most ("Don't you mess up America's most favorite thing with America's least favorite thing!")
EXTRA THOUGHTS
-Riley realizes she is unique.........because she is just like Cory and Topanga. How do you pitch that idea, write it in your script, and actually put it out there for people to watch? A little more time to fine tune your work goes a long way. THE LESSON KNOWINGLY SHOOTS ITSELF IN THE FOOT AND YET WE ARE SUPPOSED TO FIND THIS COOL.
-Riley and Maya going into the BMW scene and seeing Cory and Topanga as kids was..........very underwhelming. Family Guy did something very similar to this and, um........the results were ten times more satisfying that time. The first time they do it, we see Cory trying to teach Topanga about basketball. Riley sees that she is as goofy as Cory was. Wait, what? Topanga was a lot weirder than him in that scene. Cory was just being a kid. If you want to see Cory be a special kind of goofy, go to the season four episode "B & B's B n' B" where he has this overwhelming desire to see him and Shawn get punished for their latest scheme. No, seriously, that is Cory being the Cory we know and love. He even enjoyed being spanked as a little kid because he thought he always deserved it.
-Then, because someone realized that scene was stupid, they go back to the BMW episode to let us know that Riley is like Topanga too. It took an imaginary trip back to Boy Meets World before it really found itself to let us know that Riley is like Cory and Topanga. Good to know.
-The subplot with Farkle and Lucas meant absolutely nothing outside of that one hilarious line. It was purposefully set up to service the main plot. You can tell that the plot meant nothing because it was absolutely rushed. Everything that happened in this plot was contained within a few minutes. That is an absolutely horrible way to write a story. You just go from scene to scene without bouncing from and back to the main plot? This is all we get to see? Ridiculous. Also, is it me, or does Farkle act more like he actually has Asperger's Syndrome here? You know, a week after the episode that was about him potentially having it. All that stuff about comparing sports to physics..........I don't know, it just seems like he was off. Also, this plot could have been a lot more improved if we find out that Farkle actually likes sports. Like, him and Lucas could go back and forth about their favorite baseball players or who they think has the best shot at winning the Super Bowl this season. He could just be inept at actually playing any sports. That would be a much more interesting plot and help develop Farkle's cool side more. We see that he is just another one of the guys. But nope. Farkle is just an emotionless robot when it comes to sports and sees them as pointless. The lesson of the plot was that YOU DO NOT HAVE TO KNOW HOW TO PLAY SPORTS TO BE A FAN. Did anybody proofread this script to make sure it made sense and had......you know, coherence?
-That scene with Riley, Maya, and the clown was just painful to watch. The worst part is that Maya and the clown know exactly what will happen when Riley looks at the flower. We know what joke is coming. I get the joke is that Riley is too naive to understand what is happening, but they drag it out. It's like they're dealing with a five-year-old eating dirt and they try to teach the kid a lesson by letting them eat as much dirt as they want. Then they reuse a joke from earlier about how Riley should be intimidated by Cory since he's her father. Why is this whole episode acting like Cory and Topanga are the most awesome people in the world? As characters, absolutely, we adore them, but as people, there is hardly anything that separates them from other people making positive changes in the community. Plot devices. Plot devices everywhere. Also, really lame attempt at being meta. This whole episode is just another reason why Girl Meets World is so schizophrenic with self-awareness.
-Kill. The bay. Window. We get it, it means something to Riley and Maya but why are they trying to make this a big thing? They sit near the bay window in the Matthews house as if it has or ever had actual meaning. They keep shoving it down our throats and drowning it in Hennessey and vinegar. NOBODY CARES ANYMORE. I liked the bay window in season one when it was acknowledged as this cool thing that the girls gravitated to. Now it's supposed to be all godly and have spiritual meaning and create sociopolitical change and help lead the fight against breast cancer, AIDS, police brutality and human trafficking. In 2017, when police brutality and racial profiling finally come to an end, we can all thank the bay window because......in the words of Mr. Enter, potatoes.
Next review: Something from Nickelodeon or maybe a collaboration with Unknown.
Why wait? ;) You don't mind I add my own words here right? BTW I might want to come up with something a bit different or unique than "Unknown." It's a little bit on the awkward side to refer to me as Unknown. Now, The Unknown, that's a different story and like something out of Star Trek but, nah, too much nerding out from me.
BTW feel free to contribute to any of the other reviews, especially the Jessie review down below. She's just kind of hanging there by herself right now! I think I finally set up all your permissions to go completely to town on this blog if you want. As for Nickelodeon shows, there are two Dan Schneider shows that aired just today, and I know his shows are well acquainted with your D-Minus Club (thought we might need to start renaming the the Yawn Club after a while). We're also getting some rave reviews already: one guy called us, and I quote, "a sad attempt to recapture the amazement of GMWReviewed."
I think the biggest problem with Cory and Topanga is how front-loaded it is. We get to, like, what, 2/3s of the episode's total run time before we even get to the first frame of Boy Meets World reused footage? Establishing that Riley has a lot to live up to isn't hard to do. We've had not one but two whole series establishing the shoes she has to fill, let alone all the viewer expectations that could've been rolled into this meta-style (maybe that's what they intended, but they kind of failed). You have a five-minute classroom scene just to establish the basic premise of the episode, you can still have your little thing about Riley and Maya walking past the orphanage (I suppose I shouldn't be shocked in a world where electing a guy like Jefferson Davis Graham apparently is a popular choice, but what kind of evil corporation is evil enough to buy out a freakin' orphanage? Aren't there zoning laws that prevent that?) and the circus, and then BAM! it's Trials and Tribble-ations time (again with the Star Trek references! You can Google that one if you have no idea what I'm talking about, but basically it's the Star Trek version of this episode). It's not like it's such an expensive effect that they have to be conservative with their footage - Disney Channel has this show called Liv and Maddie that's basically This Special Effect: The Series. You guys got no excuse when my POS Toshiba can do this with an ancient copy of Photoshop and pre-installed WMM.
Another thing I can't help but noticing is the specific episode they used. Yeah, the GMW Guys already pointed out that this has almost nothing to do with Cory and Topanga actually being Cory and Topanga, it's just them playing sock basketball, but I just find it interesting that they used one of the episodes Disney Channel aired back in '14 to the lead-up to GMW. I don't remember if the other one they used made it to that run, though I don't think it did. I'm just wondering if Disney Channel has some sort of weird mandate that they can only use flashback scenes from those episodes that aired on Disney Channel, or why did they have to use that episode when they've got something over 150 to choose from.
I don't think I can add any substantive stuff anymore, so here I go:
Grade: Is there a grade for meeeh? Oh, wait, there is, C. The concept was actually pretty nice, the execution was just, well, meeeh to the three-e degree. Would I watch this episode again? I'd probably just tune out everything until the flashback shows up again, then watch it for the novelty, then when the 4 minutes are up just tune it out until whatever show is next (unless it ends up being something like Meets Gravity, in which case it's time to catch up on Public Morals - no, I don't just spend all my time watching kiddie shows. Yes, I do come pretty close anyway).
Episode MVP: Easy call: Ben Savage and Danielle Fischel. Circa 1994. Also, too late, they already did mix up America's Most Favorite Thing with America's Least Favorite Thing, it's how they created Girl Meets World in the first place (I kid, I kid).
Liv & Maddie uses special effects in a way that makes this episode look like Full House when they used it to enlarge Michelle's feet. God, those special effects were awful. But it was 1995, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Girl Meets World? Nah, this show doesn't get a pass when the same network has another show that uses special effects as their bread and butter, and they do it perfectly. I'm serious, when the show first got promotion, I thought Dove Cameron had a twin sister. Then I realized that she is just that good of an actress. Liv & Maddie is going on my list of shows to check out.
It's funny how Ben and Danielle get your MVP, because when I watched the episode, I thought the funniest scene in the whole episode was when Cory said to Topanga, "Are you going to be one of those girls who doesn't shave their legs?" This episode made me laugh my head off during the flashback. And this was when BMW was still in its infancy. Do the writers feel good? Do they feel good about all of this?
I'm not a Trekkie, but feel free to make a reference. I love quoting and referencing shows, even the stuff that's just regular conversation. And I'm willing to bet that episode was ten times better and was more complex and interesting than this one.
They really are obsessed with season one, aren't they? Look, I know that revisionist history is Michael Jacobs and friends' signature style, but nothing really happened in season one. Outside of Cory and Topanga's first kiss and Shawn's epic cherry bomb moment, no one really regards season one as classic BMW because nothing ever happened in it. It was the show getting its feet wet. The writers know that season three (or even season two, if you want to be generous) is when BMW really started and became the legendary show we talk about today. It's like when Jay-Z kept telling us that Reasonable Doubt deserved more recognition. In that case, Jigga was right because Reasonable Doubt really is Jay-Z's best album. But this? Nope, I'm not buying it. Season one of Full House is more classic than this. That season had charm and whimsy coming out of its ears.
And about the anonymous comment, it is what it is. No one here's trying to take away from Christian and Sean's work. It's great work, but at one point, they were just like us. They had to work hard to boost their readership and get people to notice. Hell, I still have that same problem with my adult animated sitcom on FanFiction after three years. But I have to keep going because the only way people will appreciate my work and discuss it is if I put it out there. I'm not going to lose anything of value because I love writing. This is not Girl Meets World Reviewed. Do I admit I'm a fan of the blog? Yes. But I'm a fan of Me Blog Write Good, Full House Reviewed, The Mysterious Mr. Enter (my true inspiration for blogging in the first place), PieGuyRulz, etc. I even go to the A.V. Club for a good discussion. Unknown (maybe I could call you Captain Who or the Bad Guy, if you want), you and I have the potential to take this blog to the same heights as GMW Reviewed. I'm not out to be compared to them. But if we can supplement their work with our own, that's fine by me. The blog game could use more players, and as you and I both know, hardly anybody is doing what we or Christian and Sean do. So it's time to crack our knuckles and waste everybody. In a positive way, I mean.
Oh, I only bring up the anonymous comment as a bit of self-depreciation humor. I guess it must come from watching Jessie way too many times: "The Fort Tavey Gazette said I was, and I quote, entirely adequate."
It's sad I can recite that perfectly.
But yeah, Christian and Sean really do great work. This blog wouldn't exist if they didn't. We've gotten way, way more supportive comments than just the one. I'm not even bothered by the negativity of the comment as so much as the anonymity, I guess even small stuff stings more when there's no accountability behind it. I'm not going to take away anonymous posting though, and that's the last I'll bother to bring it up unless I think it's worth the cheapshot at myself.
Liv and Maddie is a good show and Dove's talent is a big part of it. It also matters a whole bunch who's behind the camera. Andy Fickman, one of the executive producers and one of the show's "go-to" directors, has had tons of experience in television and movies. A lot of them are good, a lot of them are honestly, um, not so good. But I'm willing to bet if you go back and look at even some of his not so great works you can't really fault the directing that much. And even so, it still means he's had much, much more experience in terms of sheer volume and even reputable quality than other Disney Channel go-to directors who in many cases have been stuck their entire lives doing second-tier multi-cams or even never having been beyond the network much.
And then there are the creators themselves, Ron Hart and John D. Beck, who have had tons of experience doing multi-cam comedies everywhere including According to Jim which I understand is just as much wholly theirs as Liv and Maddie is. Granted According to Jim might not have been the greatest thing of all time but again it's clear it's still experience that counts. They've also done Shake it Up which again tends to be more divisive than other shows but it's still a beloved show from the tail end of Disney Channel's Golden Era and Pair of Kings which was also regarded as being of good quality.
Now you compare this to some of the other crews of other shows. Like on A.N.T. Farm, where some of the biggest creative forces behind that show have worked on such groundbreaking roles on such groundbreaking series as being a scriptwriter or producer on The Jaime Kennedy Experiment (just in case my sarcasm doesn't get through - no, it's a show I don't think anybody remembers) before going straight to Disney Channel for practically the rest of their careers. Or - do you remember back in the late 90s when FOX was desperately clawing for air and they aired a conspiracy theory special about the Moon or the Illuminati or they had - I'm not kidding - Weird Stuff On X-Rays about every week? Yeah apparently some of the A.N.T. Farm writers and producers got their start on that too. It really comes through when they try to break out of Disney Channel and end up creating Richie Rich for Netflix, which is almost universally regarded as the worst show possible by man. I've seen Richie Rich. It's no exaggeration. It's amazing this show ever got greenlit and I can't fathom someone not getting fired over it.
That's a bit of digression and I need to revisit the topic by itself later.
And since you insist I bring it up - Trials and Tribble-ations is kind of a controversial episode because it's the same treatment to The Trouble with Tribbles, probably the most beloved episode in the entirety of Star Trek history way back in, what, 1964 or something. A lot of people love it, a lot of people just feel like it was a cheesy cash-in. The episode was made to commemorate the 35th anniversary of Star Trek or something along those lines, so it's not like they ran out of ideas and wanted to throw something together or wanted to show the audience, "hey! We remember the original series too!" (Star Trek had already been back on the air for about a whole decade by that point). By the way, Deep Space Nine absolutely was a groundbreaking sci-fi series of its time and even today seems to be vastly under-appreciated. It paved the way for series like Battlestar Galactica in more ways than one - Ronald D. Moore, executive producer and creator of the new Battlestar Galactica, was an executive producer and scriptwriter of Deep Space Nine first. But again, I can save it for its own blog entry.We might even review Trials and Tribble-ations just to see an example of this kind of show revisiting and older show by way of CGI insertion plot.
Yeah, you got exactly why I gave Ben and Danielle MVP. I'm not going to lie, the flashback time travel scene felt like a treat. It was a gimmicky as hell treat but it suckered me in. Ben and Danielle might not have been the best actors at that age (I think we can all agree Ben's career is entirely owed to Fred) and both Sabrina and Rowan are probably far, far better actors from a technical standpoint but I thought those scenes had a genuine authenticity that have absolutely survived the test of time. Hell it's aged fine wine at this point. When you watch Cory and Topanga, there is no Ben or Danielle, just Cory and Topanga. Riley/Rowan and especially Maya/Sabrina pull that off. Peyton Meyer, not so much. And that's the problem. It's hard to come up with a coming-of-age story without romance. Yes, there is a big movement out there to get teen/young adult fiction of all media to be less reliant on the idea of needing a man (or woman) to feel complete but too bad, it is a big part of the human experience whether you like it or not. There's all sorts of groundbreaking and legitimately good coming-of-age stories from the LGBT perspective if that makes you feel better but the most successful coming-of-age or just teen/young adult stories period tend to have a romance element. It's beyond just sexual attraction - it's a very easy yet very effective way to make the characters and readers feel a part of something bigger than just his or her own life, to be a part of another person's life. That's why Boy Meets World was such a success. Even in that scene you got a sense that Cory and Topanga are in this journey together. Cory and Shawn were in this journey together. Cory and Eric were in this journey together. Cory and Turner and Feeny were in this journey together, except Turner and Feeny got to relive their own experiences and guide Cory, but they were just as much caught up in Cory's life as Topanga or Shawn.
This is what Riley and Maya are supposed to be be about, but I'm not convinced they are. Actually, come to think about it, I think there's too much interference from other people to allow Riley and Maya to share their life's journey. Everybody wants to butt in and be part of the ride too. Riley or Maya and Lucas can't do it because frankly Peyton doesn't have the acting chops. but the show keeps shoving it in our faces anyway. There's a whole goddamn three-episode story arc coming up of the show shoving Lucas into our face while at the same time serving a heaping helping of Texas stereotypes, as if we haven't had enough Disney Channel shows about that. Riley and Maya and Farkle can't do it because I think until recently the show didn't even know what to do with Farkle beyond gravely misunderstand who Minkus was in the original show (and it's Minkus, not Stewart Minkus!) Not to mention the show often wants to insist it's Riley and Maya and Farkle and Lucas. Boy Meets World was a show about Cory and Shawn with Topanga, or Cory and Topanga with Sean - one of the three just sometimes had to take a backseat. And Alan and Amy and Turner and Feeny and Eric were the support system. Sure, they had their limelight, but they were also the support system. Like how Girl tried to awkwardly state in Meets Gravity, they were in orbit around Cory, Shawn and Topanga. On Girl Meets World, it's Riley, and Maya, and Farkle, and Lucas, and Cory, and Topanga, and whoever the guest spot of the week happens to be. Hey it's Shawn, and Turner, and Harley, and Joshua, and Auggie, and Evelyn Rand, and Jessie, and Austin, and Ally, and Random Boy Meets World Extra #223423.
In the comments on GMWReviewed I've talked about how overly bloated the cast is on Girl Meets World, even compared to the Disney Channel standard. And now they have Zay, and now they want an LGBT character as a semi-regular, which is fine, except that if Zay is any indication we'll be seeing this LGBT character all of 12 minutes from the total 624 minute runtime of a 26 episode season. This is getting ridiculous and just stupid. And it's never Maya and Riley growing up together, or even a part of their support system helping them along the way, it's someone from the outside swooping in to the rescue. All Evelyn Rand has done in her entire existence as a character (save for the pilot when even the show itself literally didn't know who she was) is swoop in from the outside to the rescue at the last minute, which is exactly why for all I like Jackee Harry I despise this character to the core. When Farkle was out of control with his muffin-shaped sugar cubes Evelyn Rand swooped in to the rescue to fix everything by giving Farkle a stern talking-to lecture to make him feel bad and make him think about what he's done - and when I say lecture I mean she might as well be staring at the camera and say "I'm Jackee Harry and being greedy is bad" and then Farkle steps in and says "I'm Corey Fogelmanis who plays Farkle of Girl Meets World and being greedy is bad, and you have seen how Farkle has learned his lesson." And again in Meets Demolition, the whole episode is resolved by the Evelyn Rand cavalry coming to the dramatic rescue at the last minute by having Evelyn deliver another one of her stupid lecture speeches to make Aubrey feel bad and make her think about what she did wrong. "I'm Jackee Harry and being greedy is bad." "I'm Debby Ryan of Jessie and and being greedy is bad, and you have seen why Aubrey is bad and how she learned her lesson." Plus Astronaut Horse. And it's the same damn lesson both episodes! Micheal Jacobs, if you want to write a good episode with Evelyn Rand in it, it involves the Rand Building being surrounded by an Occupy Wall Street picket line.
And it happens all the time, just with characters who aren't quite as blatantly bad as Evelyn Rand. As much as I liked Meets the New Teacher,it's Turner who swoops in to rescue the girls. In Meets Flaws, it's Harley who swoops in to rescue Farkle. In the Mr. Squirrels trilogy, it's Eric who swoops in to rescue the girls. I think this is the biggest problem with the role reprisals too, it's them swooping in to the rescue, not to actually add to the Girl Meets World standalone legacy, which as of right now is virtually nonexistent because it's too busy propping up the Boy Meets World legacy. I have to give credit to Meets Rileytown, it actually is Riley and Maya saving themselves.
Wow, that was a much longer rant than what I was expecting of myself. But yeah, I think that sums up a lot of the problems with Girl Meets World. Liv and Maddie isn't burdened by having to accommodate all these ridiculous demands as a part of its legacy and own show culture. Even Jessie wasn't burdened by having to accommodate all these ridiculous demands as a part of its legacy and own show culture, at least back when it was good. Wizards of Waverly Place, Good Luck Charlie, Lizzie McGuire et all weren't burdened by being some sort of weird simulacrum of an exquisite corpse of a bygone era (and if you have no idea what I'm talking about or that I don't know how I'm using those words watch this video - see it's not just limited to TV shows, people.)
Anyway, I think I've said all I can about this.
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