Just to be clear I'm doing this because Mike said, and I quote, I just want to say that if Ray sees this at some point and never gives his two cents, it would have all been for nothing.
If you want to read the original review, it's here, but I'm also just going to copy-paste the entire thing down below (with my commentary, in red of course)
Now I know not to watch this again. And knowing is half the battle.
It all started when our grand pappy Shannon loaned their grand pappy Prescott a corn picker... (yeah I'll go with this quote for an opening why the hell not)
I just want to say that if Ray sees this at some point and never gives his two cents, it would have all been for nothing. Yes I'm being excessively comprehensive when I'm reposting this lock, stock and barrel.
I say that because you would expect Ray to review an episode of Jessie, not me That's true but...more on that later. But I figure it was time for a change of pace from talking about Dan Schneider shows and avoiding the Thundermans write-ups for several months, long after people have already forgotten about the existence of the series (I just need to find the last couple episodes and I'm straight) Yeah, a change of pace isn't bad really, plus I haven't even seen the last eps of Thundermans either. The good news is, this episode has a lot to talk about and unpack. The bad news is, most of the discussion today will be negative so it's almost like unpacking an enormous beehive and hoping you won't get attacked. It's not good for me or anyone else who reads this to try rolling that dice, but I have to roll them anyway.
I mean...the thing about unpacking an episode is, at least when it comes to multi-cam comedies and especially ones aimed squarely at tweens, is that you can legitimately argue it's rarely for good reasons. Jessie isn't trying to be say True Detective where unpacking it is part of the viewing experience. If you're finding yourself with things to unpack...yeah probably something went terribly wrong.
Terribly, terribly wrong.
But that's not to say you can't unpack an episode of Jessie for good reasons. But we'll get to that too.
So at this point, we're all aware of what Jessie is, right? I don't need to bring anybody up to speed? *raises hand* Great. The thing is, even though I remember it, and I remember being a fan of it, I don't remember it being one of my favorite shows. I always thought it was decent, but I was more interested in Good Luck Charlie and A.N.T. Farm, mostly because they were better shows with more entertaining characters.I'll agree with that. I keep telling people, A.N.T. Farm had some really great episodes. The Black History Month episode (just regular episode, not special) is legitimately one of the greatest episodes in the entire history of the network - at least when it specifically comes to these live-action multi-cams (incidentally, I would also rate That's So Raven's Black History Month special as among the top too). Fun fact: I actually tweeted this to Dan Signer back in the day and he tweeted back a huge thanks along with a comment about how hard the crew worked on it (and it shows). ConfinemANT is also a really good episode, in fact it was one of the things that made me fall in love with the network in the first place, being one of the first of these multi-cams I ended up watching. It's just that those got lost with a lot of really, really terrible ones (especially Season 3 which...to be brutally honest here is almost unspeakably bad). In fact, speaking of which, I make the same case with Jessie all the time. Though, Good Luck Charlie, I feel, is just pretty objectively really good. At least for Disney Channel, if nothing else. Also, I used to have a big crush on Bridgit Mendler so that might have played a role in it too Ha!. Eventually, I became less interested in Jessie, mostly because it went from decent to mediocre after a certain point that point being November 2013 though you can argue a month or so earlier - if not, in fact, this very episode we're reviewing being that turning point - but I like to think 2013 was overall a high year for the show and the network as a whole and it was never something I was that interested in to begin with. It also doesn't help that the show was surrounded by much better competition, and the fact that I was becoming disinterested in both Nickelodeon and Disney Channel as I was getting deep into high school. I remember thinking the series finale was mediocre generous assessment, and then instead of letting these characters die, they gave them a spin-off at a summer camp. And believe me, if I ever review that show, it will be a sign that I'm no longer getting enough oxygen. At least it's over haha.
I saw that this episode was on TV the other day so I decided to give it a shot. I remember a lot of people hating it when it first aired because the characterization was off which is true, especially from the kids doubly true. I didn't think much of the episode either, but it had been a long time since I had watched it. Maybe things would be different this time?
And they were. They definitely were, because this episode is much worse than I remember it being.
The plot here is that Jessie takes the kids with her to her father's military base in Texas Fort Tavey, if you really want to know - obviously *not* a real military base but named for Shari Tavey, one of the crew of laughing joking numbnuts producers that I kinda blame for, as Mike put it, this show going from at least decent to mediocre for the weekend. Jessie sees it as an opportunity to make peace with the old man after she ran off to New York to pursue an acting career. While in Texas, she finds out that her father is not only getting married again, but he is marrying his commanding officer, who just so happens to be the mother of Darla Shannon, Jessie's greatest enemy. Meanwhile, Emma finds love when she falls for Darla's brother Caleb, and Bertram has his own plot that's not worth getting into because the episode would pretty much be the same without it.
There's a saying the three of you or so who will every bother reading this are probably already familiar with - Don't Meet Your Heroes. I have to say, from my own personal experience it seems to be unfortunately more often true than not.
But it also applies to plot points. Not fictional characters, plot points. For the exact same reasons, now that I think about and type it. See, you build up all expectations of your heroes and you find out...they're only human.
You have all these great expectations of what plot points that have been alluded to during the whole show's mythos since the beginning and you find out...this is still a multi-camera KidCom limited by the shoestring budget and demands of Disney Channel.
For emphasis' sake of what I'm getting at with this network-mandated budgetary restriction and really the heavy sense of apathy I get from this imposition, especially after as Mike keeps getting at watching the decline of Jessie and now in 2019 the decline of the network as a whole, and in hindsight - the salary Nickelodeon was giving just to Miranda Cosgrove was greater than the top dozen Disney Channel stars combined.
Which is to say now over half a decade later, I'm really disappointed with how meeting Jessie's surviving family (yes surviving family) ended up being like. There's only so much they can do for the dad, yeah, but...to this day we still have no clue what happened to her mom. But, I mean, they could've done better. I don't mean as far as casting goes the actor was fine. But give him meatier material. It's the dad of who was then the most beloved character on the whole freakin' live-action network (yes more than Bridgit, sorry Mike, although by a very narrow margin and I'm sure Bella and Zendaya still probably gave Debby a run for her money as far as popularity's concerned).
But then we do get into casting with Darla. I mean, the actress they went with was fine, she's certainly not untalented and I mean if you want to go that direction she's certainly pretty but...I mean, it's hard for me not to make it sound like I'm shitting on the casted actress but still it feels like a missed opportunity, just because in my mind just the person they would end up casting as Darla as they inevitably finally reach an episode where we see her ended up being one of those "Don't Meet Your Hero" moments. I was really hoping it was going to be Brenda Song for obvious reasons, not the least of which it really seemed like they were trying to make Darla out to be London 2.0 (oh and we'll get into that part later), or barring that, then Sarah Hyland, who is one of Debby's friends IRL and also a popular actress more or less under the Disney wing (it was only until relatively recently that I even learned that Modern Family was actually made by FOX Television Studios, but hey she did do a DCOM) and also legit one of the hottest chicks on the whole freakin' planet, but also someone who I thought could really pull off what they had been building Darla up to. But moreover I just really wanted to see Sarah on Jessie, and Debby on Modern Family (fun fact: they've had Kevin Chamberlain on that show), I think those two would be really natural fits on each of those shows at least as just a one-episode wonder guest spot, and I always imagined the role of Darla being perfect for Sarah.
But as I said, Don't Meet Your Heroes also applies to plot points and even just casting decisions.
One of the biggest problems in this episode is the behavior of the kids. They're complete brats for 44 minutes, and they don't let up at all until Jessie gives them a speech about how awful they all are. Then they go back to being brats, and save the day in spite of all the trouble they caused, while also potentially making it worse which I'll get to soon. I can't remember how the kids acted consistently from episode to episode, but their characters here are insufferable beyond compare. All they do is complain about things, destroy whatever they see, and run off at the mouth when someone should have smacked them for having loose tongues. And they do all of these things unsupervised. For 44 minutes, nobody is watching these children, which gives them free rein to act like they have no common sense or ability to restrain themselves. But that's the thing. I feel like they would normally behave like actual human beings, but they don't.
How consistently the characters act, especially the kids (you know, the ones who got their own spinoff show - and I'm bringing that up because that's another point that deserves its own details)...really depends from season-to-season. Which is to say barely meeting the actual definition of "consistent."
But...there also is a pretty common consistency throughout the entire show from New York New Nanny to Ooray for Ollywood...and yeah, it's the kids acting like brats.
I mean, go rewatch New York New Nanny and Ooray for Ollywood and tell me, what's the difference in behavior between the kids in New York New Nanny, the kids in G.I. Jessie and the kids in Ooray for Ollywood? Exactly nothing. That's what. What Mike just described the behavior of all these characters is literally no different from either of those two episodes, aside from Jessie's supervision (or at least in what kind of valid excuse she has for not exercising it).
I get what the show is trying to do here. Jessie needs to have her breaking point and dress these kids down like never before, so in order for the story to work, Luke, Zuri, and Ravi have to be irredeemable pieces of shit. But that just makes things worse because of how far they go to accomplish this goal. We're not seeing an actual story here, the kids are just acting out, blatantly defying Jessie's authority multiple times, and making the experience worse for her for no apparent reason. And it's not like they don't know any better. They're told multiple times not to play stupid games, sometimes by Ravi himself, and they continue playing stupid games. So when Jessie gives them their stupid prize by quitting her job, I don't feel bad at all. They brought this on themselves.
I'm not done talking about these stupid kids just yet because the whole review could be about breaking down every terrible thing they do. But the other big problem in this episode is Jessie's father. I have no reason to identify with him or see things from his perspective because he has no likable qualities whatsoever.And see, here's another example of what I'm talking about with "don't meet your heroes" applying to plot points. Jessie's only been talking about her father, on and off, from not just Day 1 but literally Minute 1 - the very first line of dialogue for the whole freakin' show, back in New York New Nanny, is Jessie talking about her dad and his disappointment with her not joining the "family business" of - if you don't mind me being unabashedly, extreme-left political here - enlisting into what had become the armed imperialism arm of Dubya Bush and now of Trump the Toupee (and I'm mentioning this in this specific language because I may decide to build upon it and tie it into the plot, I dunno - I forgot half of what I'm doing here in the first place) and wanting to be an actress instead. Oh and BTW in that line of dialogue he was in the Marines not the Army but that's a detail that I noticed changes often on TV shows in general. But left-wing politicizing aside my point being, Jessie's dad had been built up and woven directly into the mythos of the show itself very heavily. Of course we had lofty ideas of what Jessie's dad was like, taht was the whole point of all the dialogue mentioning him. He was this larger-than-life figure that, for better or worse, shaped his daughter into the leading character we see every single episode. And what we end up with instead is...well, I'll let Mike continue: He still harbors resentment towards Jessie for leaving Texas, which is fair enough, and there's always this underlying feeling that this resentment is what is weighing down all of his conversations with her. But he does everything wrong. He invites Jessie to Texas without telling her the real reason he brought her there. He expects her to get along with Darla for no apparent reason, which is ridiculous because Darla is another piece of shit that has no intention of getting along with Jessie. And then he just announces that he's getting married to Darla's mother. What the hell is happening here?
Pamela O'Connell and the rest of the creative staff quitting about giving a shit is what.
This episode really wants me to feel sorry for a man that misled his daughter into thinking the Texas trip was so they could reconnect, tried forcing his daughter to get along with a woman she clearly didn't like and didn't like her back, and then just decided to drop this marriage bomb on her. He was going to wait for Jessie and Darla to get along before revealing the marriage, which was all supposed to be in one weekend. And the episode acts like Jessie is in the wrong for having resistance to this whole situation. Again, what the hell is happening here?
See previous comment.
But let me talk about Darla here, to make good on a promise I made earlier about her being London 2.0. Or at least that's what the show originally made her out to be. While, sure, there may be underlying resentment implied, the overall implication I got from the backstory built up about Darla was that they may have more or less been frenemies or even outright friends, again not unlike the Bailey/London dynamic. Jessie didn't hate Darla, at worst she was jealous and wanted to prove that she was just as well-off materially as Darla. Then out of nowhere we get this episode and BAM!, Jessie hates Darla because back when they were kids Darla committed what would legally be defined as severe sexual assault against Jessie.
And yeah yeah I'm being way overly dramatic here, but this sudden extreme tonal shift on character dynamics is jarring, confusing and, well, an honest betrayal of expectations. Yeah I know this is a Disney Channel multi-cam, shut up. Good Luck Charlie built up a great mythos and backstory with its subtle, downplayed dynamic of a very typical and even arguably bland middle-America WASP family. Shake it Up did the same with its TV dance crew, as did ANT Farm about its special advanced talent school. Andi Mack is doing the same as what Good Luck Charlie did in 2017-2019 (even if, if anything, it's trying way, way too hard). Wizards of Waverly Place, one of the greatest shows on the network, was nothing BUT this in its very premise. "It's just a Disney Channel multi-cam" is no excuse when plenty of Disney Channel multi-cams do it all the time.
Hell, this show, yes Jesse, was one of those examples. At least for most of the first two and even into the third season. As was virtually any given Disney Channel show, animated or live-action (to say nothing about Gravity Falls which again was very literally Mythos: The Disney Channel Cartoon Show as its premise) that aired any premiere episode whatsoever between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2013. Yes I'm insisting on this, now and forever.
Oh yeah and on top of that Jessie's family and Darla's family have a random generations-old feud, ok.
Under normal circumstances, Jessie would want nothing to do with her father which BTW is literally the foundation for the premise of this show, and take the kids back to New York before telling them that they can find a new nanny. But neither of those things happen because we're supposed to act like all of these characters are good people. Except for Darla, who we only hate because we're told to. To her credit, she is a terrible person, but she's not the only terrible person in the episode. In the end, Jessie's father says that he's sorry for springing everything up on her, and that's it. That's his only act of contrition in the episode. The kids are also remorseful, but that's only because they got faced with actually having to deal with the consequences of their actions. And it's all forgotten about within minutes. Jessie snaps at the kids for everything they did, quits her job, and minutes later, she's in the B.A.T. with the kids bonding over the snow cone machine inside it. At least they halfway try to bring Jessie closer to her father, but after everything the kids have done, there's no reason why Jessie should be their nanny again. It's just something that happens, and only because the kids were stupid enough to press buttons inside of an ATV they were never supposed to touch in the first place. Why do I hate almost everybody in this episode?
The last thing I want to elaborate on is the length of this episode. It was one hour, but it felt like six hours, because all I wanted was to review this episode as quickly as possible. A regular decent episode could help mask some of the show's flaws, but with 44 minutes, everything gets exposed quickly. The characters are almost all full of smart-aleck quips that don't really work, and none of them are that well-written to care about what happens to them either. It's just exhausting to see a bunch of kids act like spoiled sociopaths for an hour, and a man try to manipulate his only daughter into accepting his decisions because of his resentment over a past transgression a transgression Jessie was entirely justified over. I guess here I might as well make good on that whole "armed imperialism branch of Dubya and Trump" promise. As a Millennial I feel it's only natural that my worldview be heavily colored by the decade of the 2000s - a massive, devastating and crippling attack on this country - so crippling in fact that almost two decades later we haven't recovered from it and it's increasingly likely that we never will, which means Bin Laden won, deal with it - followed by seemingly endless military ventures that turned into blood-sucking blunders - as in thousands of young men and women died needlessly in the name of an imbecilic President who now feels sorry about it all, too little too late, and his crony-cabinet of bloodthirsty warmongers and now the ultimate logical conclusion of that crony-cabinet of bloodthirsty warmongers, an asshat of a President who if anything gives credibility to America being the Great Satan, all of which ultimately just compounds to all of that crippling devastation we never recovered from and if anything only helps cement Bin Laden's ultimate victory. Thanks there, neo-conservativism. So yeah, I don't blame Jessie for not wanting to voluntarily sign up to go die in the name of giving Karl Rove and Dick "Most Appropriately Named VP Ever" Cheney another war-stiffy (although yeah this would've been under Obama's watch bu whatever, he wasn't exactly the most perfect President ever it turns out either). Plus all the more power for Jessie for wanting to go to such extreme lengths to achieve her dreams, to the point of arguably needlessly antagonizing her own father. At this show's premise it was about a young girl who would stop at nothing to achieve her dreams - but be constantly reminded the importance of family and humility along the way. And come to appreciate the legacy her dad had given her to help her along the way. Or at least that's what it was in my mind. No, wait, this isn't something I'm making up in my own mind this is the actual premise the show sold itself to us on. Again, Disney Channel multi-cams are capable of achieving this loftiness. This show had been doing it up. To. This. Exact. Point and even at least a little beyond. Which is why I don't believe in giving Pamela O'Connell and crew any quarter in their ability or willingness to deliver. The pacing really doesn't work at all. Half the time, it feels like I'm watching the same scene. I guess I could give them credit for the scene with Jessie and Emma in the bunker, but that would have been great if the episode justified it.
Like I said, Jessie's father deliberately withheld information from his daughter and forced her to accept what was coming to her because he couldn't let the past go, so this was his attempt to manipulate the situation in his favor. And the episode plays it as if Jessie was being unnecessarily cruel to her father, her future stepmother, and her future stepsister for no apparent reason. Wait, I forgot, that's how this story usually works.
You know, Disney sitcoms seem to get a bum rap everywhere I look. A lot of people point them out as being especially bad. I find it weird because Nickelodeon sitcoms really haven't been that much better in the last five years or so, but Disney Channel's live-action shows carry a bad reputation like a terminal illness. Like, a Disney sitcom having poor quality is treated like a stereotype. Episodes like "G.I. Jessie" are proof to me that this stereotype exists for a reason. For 44 minutes, Jessie goes out of its way to give you the worst episode they could come up with. The characterization is awful, the overall writing is poor, the motivations are weak, the jokes are mediocre, the resolution is stapled together with bits of fax paper, and the feeling you get overall from watching this is shame. Shame that they thought this was good enough to air on television.
And yeah, I totally get that stereotype and why it's really a bum rap. Ranting and railing against that bum rap and stereotype is literally the whole goddamned reason I started this blog in the first place.
Which is why it's so heartbreaking when they come along and just want to live down to it.
Especially in 2019 when frankly their efforts almost across the board have been...well, outright terrible a lot of times.
The interesting thing about "G.I. Jessie" is that it is an awful episode, but it's a different brand of awfulness. It's not the same kind of awfulness like those Nickelodeon one-hour holiday specials. You know those specials are going to be terrible going into them, and you feel like your soul is exiting your body as the minutes go by so when you're done watching, it's like you let your family down because you watched it. When I watched "G.I. Jessie," I didn't feel that way. I thought it was a bad episode, but I was thinking more of a C grade for it. It wasn't until I started writing this review and looking back at everything that I realized how terrible it was. It was the kind of awfulness that sneaks up on you, and when the clarity kicks in, you can't think about the episode the same way ever again.
Up to this point I've been almost exclusively talking about this episode in response to Mike and in retrospective in 2019, really mostly being informed by the review and opinions Mike put up. I haven't seen the episode nearly as recently (at least in full) that Mike had, but really I've seen it so often I feel I don't need to. I genuinely feel I have the episode practically memorized (along with every other Jessie episode at least prior to the gawdawful S4).
But it's worth talking about the episode from the perspective of when I first saw it - which I think especially given my status as perhaps the world's only Jessie superfan (or surviving one, at least) is surprisingly easy to do. 2013 - literally the entire calendar year, from the first second of January 1 to the last second of December 31 - was a very pivotal year for me, and this network and this specific show were actually major reasons for that, for in turn various reasons I've already explained in detail in various parts of this blog. For now I'll just say that even, what, six years later? (yeah I'm terrible at math) that first impression is still very powerful and memorable to me. And I actually remember being very wowed by it - but I think that was all just being caught up in the spectacle of finally seeing Darla and Jessie's dad and just yet another one-hour special.
...while I certainly think Mike's points are valid and would even at least broadly agree with them, I don't know if I'd be as harsh as he is. But that said...the absolute and most fair and honest I can be, mainly with myself is that, I severely overrated this episode upon its premiere viewing. I was particularly enamored with the show, with the title character, with finally seeing these two characters mentioned all the time, and I let my perception of that show get colored by that. For years afterward, in fact, well after the show would premiere its last. Perhaps even letting it unfairly age even better than what it deserved upon retrospect of that really awful, terrible season.
But yeah, as again possibly the world's only (surviving) Jessie super-fan...we got ripped off here, folks.
Episode Grade: F
Episode MVP: Peyton List. If there was any bright spot here, it was Emma because she was the only character I could tolerate, and she was also the one that helped Jessie understand things from her father's point of view. Now I know the whole reason Bunk'd existed in the first place.
Episode Grade: C Again I'm not going to be as harsh as Mike, but this wasn't a good episode. It wasn't a bad episode...or at least not the most terrible that Jessie ever offered, even if we just flat out forget Season 4 ever existed. Which is why I think a flat C is very fair.
It still has things going for it. Like...it was a really big 1-hour special at the time. And it's not a Season 4 episode. Ok, I'm really reaching here. But I don't feel like it's in F or even D territory.
...ok, maybe it's in C- territory.
Episode MVP: I'm tempted to agree with Mike and give it to Peyton List but I think I'm going to have to give it to Debby here. This really should've been her episode, or her dad's episode, but it ended up getting hijacked by a combination of the kids and freakin' plot of all things instead of being the tightly focused character episode it should've been (or at least pretends/deludes itself into thinking it actually is). But still, I think Debby doing her best to at least give the sense that this episode is as Jessie character-focused as it thinks it's being outweighs Peyton trying her best to make Emma seem actually helpful in doing all that anyway.
EXTRA THOUGHTS
-Seriously, if Ray sees this, I would like him to share some thoughts on it here I am!. Especially since he believes Jessie fell off a cliff in the last two seasons. But this was the 27th episode of season two hey it was the last one of the season at least!, so.....maybe this was a harbinger of things to come? I usually cite Ravi going through puberty as the time to stop watching.
So I feel like I've talked about this show so much that I was honestly convinced that people were tired of it, which is why I stopped for so long. But Mike's got me halfway convinced that I might be wrong about that.
But I really feel that regarding this episode and exactly were Jessie fell of is...well...I think it's actually complicated. And in those actually rare cases where it is pretty clear-cut (*cough* ANT Farm Season 3...*cough* Andi Mack Season 2...*cough*FREAKIN' GAME OF THRONES) it's complicated for any TV show.
I could say it was this episode, except I feel Season 3 was still overall at least solid enough. But again that could be that nostalgia filter of delusion talking. Like Toy Con...at least had enough redeeming moments. So did The Tell-Tale Duck. And I just remembered Toy Con was S2. Umm...Krumping and Crushing had redeeming moments, so there. Hoedown Showdown is actually a classic episode, I think. Cheating and looking down the programming guide for S3 off my TV screen right now, I'd definitely say there's a lot more episodes I like and enjoy, or at least tolerate watching, than I don't like, but the ratio isn't as high as it was in S2. S2 admittedly had an auspicious start with The Whining which...is basically G.I. Jessie again but without the dad or Darla, it's Halloween and at least the one good thing is that it's only 24 minutes long but yeah it's about as bad or worse than this one. And it's followed up by Green-eyed Monsters which the guys at GMW Reviewed infamously reviewed but I still like, damnit! And yeah it had some, well subpar episodes - Trashin' Fashion, Pain in the Rear Window, the aforementioned Toy Con, followed up again by To Be Me or Not to Be Me, The Jessie-nator: Grudgement Day and finally back to G.I. Jessie (interestingly enough this covers all of the mandated theme episodes for that season). That's 7 out of 27 or so.
For Season 3 we have Ghost Bummers (yeah Jessie Halloween episodes suck), Lizard Scales and Wrestling Tales (which upon recent viewing wasn't that bad, but bad enough I'm putting it on this list), Acting with the Frenemy, Where's Zuri? (which again wasn't that bad but still), immediately followed up with Morning Rush, Coffee Talk, and...that's it? Hmm that's...6. One less than S2 with the same number of episodes total. Go figure.
And then with S4 it's just easier to list the episodes I actually like. Which is A Close Shave, Karate Kid-tastrophe, Dance Dance Resolution, Identity Thieves...yeah that's it. Since we're doing reverse math that's 22 bad episodes out of 26 or so. Or only one good episode out of seven and a half episodes total. Yeah I saw things fell off a cliff in S4 all right.
But I think just where I was when I was watching these episodes matters too, which is something I've talked about before and even when I talked about first impressions of G.I. Jessie. I guess it's a good idea to go back and watch them all again then. But I think it's extremely unfair to dismiss at least the personal importance this show has for me. Again, we very literally wouldn't be here (as on this blog) otherwise. I never, ever would've visited GMW Reviewed without Jessie. There's a real domino effect and without Jessie I think I would've missed out on a lot.
...or without Good Luck Charlie. I think I have to re-evaluate which show truly is responsible for shaping me into who I am today (and really if that's even a good thing). But again I think it's outright unfair and dishonest to dismiss Jessie's personal importance of me, for better or worse, regardless the quality of the show itself.
If you really want me to elaborate on that, I guess I can do that in a future post. Yes really I'll do that I mean it.
-"HEY JESSIE!" I forgot the way this theme song used to climb inside your ears and stay there. It was like catchy garbage.
Fun fact: there is a certain person who agrees with you. Her name is Debby Ryan.
-Initially, Jessie was supposed to go to Texas by herself and Bertram was supposed to watch the kids. Honestly, since this episode is a personal story about Jessie and her father, it would have been way better to do it like this. Instead, Jessie decides to take the whole family with her after the kids destroy the roof and an entire water tower with a rocket. That's literally the first thing they do in this episode. Actually, this entire scene serves as a microcosm for the whole 44 minutes: The kids do something awful, and their response is to act like they didn't do anything wrong, or be proud of what they did, or find a fall guy (usually Ravi).
I think this really gets to what I've been talking about. Although I'm interested in knowing where you heard this behind the scenes info.
-Emma and Caleb's story makes no sense. Jessie and Darla bring up this longstanding feud between their families, with decades of history. Under these circumstances, Jessie's father and Darla's mother shouldn't want anything to do with each other romantically. If anything, that should have played a part in Jessie not wanting her father to get remarried. Instead, this "feuding families" plot is pushed on someone that's not a part of either family (Emma), so there's no reason to care about this. And the whole thing is null and void because Jessie's father is marrying Darla's mother so........go to hell for paying attention, I guess?
-Alright, let's go over the kids' activities: They commit property damage four times (destroying the roof/water tower, knocking down a 70-year-old statue, creating a hole in the wall at the rehearsal dinner using the B.A.T., and causing the munitions bunker to self-destruct), attack Darla with experimental weaponry unprovoked, and inadvertently set off the bunker's self-destruct button after firing a missile at it, with Jessie, Emma, and Caleb locked inside. Had they not used the grappling hook to get the door unlocked, they would have been responsible for the deaths of three people, and the bunker ends up destroyed anyway because they forgot to turn off the self-destruct button. So, on top of three people almost being killed, the bunker is destroyed anyway, resulting in what I have to assume is years worth of military equipment blown up. What's Jessie's response to realizing this? Blame Ravi.
It's funny because Ravi gets blamed for what in effect is a one-boy act of war.
-The kicker is that Emma was the one who locked herself, Jessie, and Caleb inside the bunker because she didn't know what else to do. The most tolerable character in this episode and she couldn't even get off scot-free.
-Seriously, I can't get over how terrible the kids are in this episode. Their behavior is disgusting in a way that I haven't seen in a long time from TV characters. And I know they're still children, but again, they knew what they were doing the whole time and didn't care about the consequences until they went way too far. And it's not like they were really sorry for what they did. They just didn't want to lose Jessie. Luke and Zuri even blame Ravi for not keeping them from doing the things they did. At the end of all this, how am I supposed to root for them? They make Jessie's life a living hell and they love it. I don't know how Ray was able to stick around after this episode.
Well it's a three-step process really, all you have to do is 1.) get cancer 2.) have your fiancee break up with you 3.) arbitrarily decide Debby Ryan looks like your new ex over the fact that they're both dye-reds. Simple as that really.
But that gets back to what I'm saying about perception coloring...uhh, perception I guess. I'm glad I did stick around because I really do think S3 is better than it is worse, but the simple matter is I just didn't see it as being that terrible at that time, for whatever reason. I think Mike even mentioned as much at the beginning of his review, all that time and words ago.
But we have to also talk about another point....
-The only reason I don't hate Jessie's father as much as I should is because the kids were far, far worse. But after everything he did, I really don't think Jessie should have tried to meet her father halfway. It was clear he didn't respect her, while also expecting her to have eyes in the back of her head and watch the kids at every turn. He literally blames Jessie for the kids finding the B.A.T. and committing property damage. You know, even though Jessie had a role in the rehearsal brunch and probably didn't even see them leave. And they were sitting there unsupervised because apparently, nobody else was capable of watching them. And they had easy access to a military vehicle that should have been locked away. And they were told already to stay away from the B.A.T. so they intentionally went against basic instructions.
...and that point being, is that this episode really plays out like a really bad episode of Suite Life on Deck (Season 3, if you're interested in knowing. Particularly Party On!, one of the worst things in this network's entire history and written by the two bloomin' geniuses who's not only largely responsible for ANT Farm S3 but also what many people consider literally the worst show to ever air on Netflix so far and literally Sean Kingston was the only redeeming feature of it at all.) Really, go back o S3 of SLoD and you'll see: characters acting out of character, characters in particular acting bratty and insufferable, the plot derailing itself for reasons incomprehensible to actual humans, and so on. And while Hodgson and Pollock were too busy ruining ANT Farm to be associated with Jessie, much of the same staff including most of all O'Connell carry over. Just like with Dan Schnieder there seems to be a particular kind of humor and writing going on, and just like with SLoD that humor and writing became more and more pervasive as the show went on, especially into Season 4.
It's worth mentioning that the Tuber and Maile pair, who were involved with such shows as Even Stevens and Phil of the Future, were also major movers in Jessie S1 but were apparently given the Rian Johnson treatment by O'Connell herself in S2.
-Zuri has such a weird line in this episode that I really don't understand. I'm just pointing it out because this was an actual line that Skai Jackson had to read off the script, memorize, and then repeat on camera during filming. So, when Jessie and the kids go to save Emma, they find out that the B.A.T. can fly and they go to the munitions bunker. When Ravi questions if they are in heaven, Zuri sarcastically quips, "Am I playing washboard for the late, great country legend Tammy Wynette? Then no."
-That line was said by Zuri, a girl that shouldn't know anything about country music or who Tammy Wynette is. I didn't even know who Tammy Wynette was until I looked her up. Besides that, it's just a really unnatural response to someone questioning the danger they are currently in, and they give this weird line to someone who wouldn't know anything about Tammy Wynette for the sake of a joke. It's one of those lines that only sitcom characters say because nobody talks like that in real life.
...I actually like that line! Emphasizing Zuri's out-of-nowhere, undying passionate love for all things country is one of the few character traits of any character the show bothers to keep consistent even into Bunk'd! It's even a major plot point in Hoedown Showdown, implying that Zuri thinks Maybelle is a better sister than her actual sister, Emma. Man, the plot potential of that one if they had bothered....
-The weird thing about this episode is that Jessie's father insists that Jessie get along with Darla. But how come nobody says anything to Darla? She antagonizes and talks down to Jessie for the entire episode and nothing happens. It's not like she's putting on a facade, like she's overly sweet to the adults and mean to Jessie behind their backs. She's openly disrespectful and catty towards Jessie regardless of who else is nearby, so why does she never get talked to? Why is Jessie supposed to put up with this? Why is everything in this episode making me want to stop reviewing?
Yeah you got me on that one.
- Fun fact: I started this response to this review the day after my last post, February 14, right on Valentine's Day. It's now the first day of summer (or at least what so far passes for summer this year - Fuck 2019, The Year of the Rotten Toupee as Freaking President, John Oliver had it a full three years too early).
Yeah this is getting to a major reason why I've more or less given up about this blog. It's been a massive time sink for what I can discern no actual benefit at all, and in fact detracting away from a lot of stuff I just really, really need to do instead. One of those things is getting a place by myself (more or less) so who knows? Maybe that will change again.
But yeah a lot has happened in that nearly half a year, hasn't it? We've gotten a few new show on Disney Channel and ones that are still around.
- A new season of Bunk'd for a total of four, howabout that? This new season is entirely helmed by Phil Baker of Good Luck Charlie and Andi Mack fame, go figure, with Lou being the greatest legacy character left. And after the first episode of the season...I honestly can't even tell Phil Baker wrote this one as opposed to O'Connell and her crew. Then again Andi Mack fell off a giant cliff so...First Episode Grade: C-. At least it ties with the highest grade the show's achieved on this blog so far. First Episode MVP: Miranda May by staggering default. Fun fact: I really did think she was Savannah May's sister. I mean I can't be the only one here.
Actually screw that, S4 E1 of Bunk'd MVP is Savannah May. She's almost 19 which in my book makes it barely not awkward enough to make it ok to say I think she's cute as hell, and that's good enough for me to award her MVP status to a show she has literally nothing to do with. It's not like it's even the first time anyway.
But since I did resolve to be less creepy I guess it still goes to Miranda.
- And we have Sydney to the Max which is probably the best live-action show on the network so far, by a wide margin. Yes even compared to Andi Mack which...well after getting out of the loop for a bit is a bit hard to follow now. It's not exactly the second coming of Good Luck Charlie but it's as close as this network's ever gonna get for a while and I credit most of the shortcomings to the fact that it's more of a very late elementary school/very very early tween-centric show and it's certainly got its charm and feels. Fun fact: adult Max was a semi-regular on Suits (where he actually played a giant raging douchebag with, as it turns out, a heart of gold) and you know how much I love lawyer shows. Speaking of which I do find the casting to be really great too, aforementioned adult Max along with Sydney really hit those sitcom beats and they do have great...umm...I really, really don't want to use the word "chemistry" for a freaking father-daughter relationship. Season grade so far: B. Series MVP so far: I guess the aforementioned adult Max, Ian Reed Kessler. Although Caroline Rhea has more than her fair share of moments, sure. She's an in-demand legend for a reason, you know.
- Coop and Cami Ask the World: Meh. Season 1 grade so far: C+. Series MVP so far: eh whoever I'm not paying attention.
- Raven's Home Oh My God What The Fuck Happened How The Hell Can This Be Related to Freaking That's So Raven? Then again, so was Cory in the House.... Series grade so far: D-. Series MVP so far: I dunno. I just want to say the videos they're airing for Isaac Brown's song BFF are literally worse than the worst of Kids Bop. I mean it.
- I'm pretty sure that covers all the live-action shows so far except for Andi Mack and...ummm...whatever Just Roll With It is supposed to be. After the second episode it just occurred to me: this is basically Walk the Prank reformatted into a multi-cam and slightly less half-assing the sitcom portion. Remember Walk the Prank? Remember how weird-ass and out of place those scripted single-cam segments were? Yeah Just Roll With It takes that and turns it up to 11.
We just got done talking about Jessie and emotional investment (or in the case of G.I. Jessie, lack thereof). All the great Disney Channel multi-cams - Jessie at its best, Good Luck Charlie, WoWP, Shake it Up, even Austin & Ally and so on - invest heavily in, well, character and plot investment. The very premise of Just Roll With It - the audience literally votes on plot developments after a very jarring interruption - makes that all but impossible. I think it's pretty safe to say that even the youngest of children watching these shows understands that these are just actors playing along with a script, but it's that sense that these fictional characters are still people we can relate to and care about is what makes these shows worth watching in the first place. Again, we just spent this whole review explaining that, as is the nature of reviews in general. Again, the premise of Just Roll With It make it all but impossible. It's a one-trick pony of a gimmick desperately in search of needing to fill the remaining 14 minutes of non-commercial run time.
Now that I think about it I wonder why they didn't double-down on the actual point of Walk the Prank, the, you know, prank portion? That's what these voter-decided plot points really are, just voting on what prank to play on the cast. That's not a valid premise for even a multi-cam Disney Channel kidcom, not even to pass off as the high concept, and yet they somehow deluded themselves into thinking just that. But I can't see how that's sustainable and how they can realistically expect a second season, aside from an automatic renewall because Disney Channel is that desperate for content and BTW, yes they totally are, for real. Being actually pretty familiar with the process of how these multi-cam kidcoms are made, I'm really trying to wonder how they even do a freaking table read, again given the very premise of the show.
I'm almost wondering, again going back to doubling down on the, you know, actual prank portion of Walk the Prank, if they instead should've done some sort of thing where they go to another show, whether it be Coop and Cami or Sydney to the Max or whatever, and prank those actors and go to a different cast every week. Obviously pranking them during the taping of an actual episode would be disruptive, but they can do something akin to World Meets Girl and have it be a mixture of a meet the cast kinda thing with those semi-scripted prank elements. As it is right now, Just Roll With It is incredibly awkward and mostly tripping over its own premise. Season 1 grade so far: D+. Series so far MVP: how do I even, really?
And so we have our animated offerings which are...just two, really? And half of that premiered only this week? Oh wait there's also Go Away Unicorn I show I have not watched anyway. Big City Greens is...meh? I know Spongey disagrees with me which...forces me to conclude his taste is inferior to mine? Eh, that's harsh even for me. I mean it does have moments but it really feels like they're playing the same joke over and over and over again. Series grade so far: C-. And we have Amphibia which just premiered this week, seems to have a lot of promise (series grade so far: B) and features Brenda Song, an Asian woman, voicing an African-American/Latinx character.
I'm sure nobody at all is going to voice a problem with that.
Anyway, see you guys next time.
Maybe.
