Girl Meets World Reviewed: Girl Meets STEM

I'm going to make a volcano that will turn into a robot and crush all the other volcanos!

Riley, I hate to break it to you, but that thing called science? It's not exactly something that's your forte. It hits hard, Riley, then because you're a girl, you'll inevitably screw it up for everyone around you. Your best friend did it, your own parents most likely did it. Break the cycle, Riley. Rise above. Focus on Lucas.

What is it? You know, Girl Meets World. You should know all this already by now.

Not to intrude on what Mike's been doing or preempt him, but I do want to add some thoughts to STEM before it actually airs, just based on the previews. Basically, it looks like Farkle's going to be the Designated Bad Guy(TM) in this one. I know it can seem like men just want to dominate over women because they think women are inferior, but I'm willing to bet Farkle, well, probably thinks he's just superior to everybody when it comes to science experiments. It's practically the only thing he's confident at (or at least until Donnie Barnes took over). Not that such overconfidence (or badly distributed confidence - trust me feeling better than everyone when it comes to middle school-level science experiments and feeling like you suck at literally everything else isn't great life balance) couldn't stand to be broken either. But, uh, I guess we'll see.

Also, Alvinnn! And the Chipmunks did a better STEM episode. If for nothing else because it brought us that badass quote above (seriously, if you're going to make a volcano like everyone else, you want to at least make sure your volcano can take out all the competition through copious amounts of destructive, futuristic violence). 

It's okay, Unknown. I haven't been working on anything lately but it's been really slow for kids TV. And yes, another Alvinnn! fan in the house! I don't think I've seen that one yet, I have to check it out.

I actually am quite pleased you brought this episode's promos up because it looks like we're all going to hell on Friday. I don't want to be presumptuous, but based solely off of the previews, this is shaping up to be the worst episode of the show since "Gravity." Simply because, and only because, Riley is absolutely intolerable. All Farkle asked her to do was drop the stupid marble into the solution. Maybe he came off as a little arrogant, but we all know that science is Farkle's game. It's where he excels and I know for a fact that Riley is nowhere near his level. If this episode is going to be about Riley simply standing up for herself because she believes she is just as good at science as Farkle, then it will be a good episode. I mean, the boy should realize that some people are going to excel at the same things he does. 

But nope, it......doesn't look like they're going that route. They're making this a male vs. female thing, and I'm kinda tired of seeing that plot on television because almost every show deals with gender relations in the exact same way. Females prove they have what it takes, males give them their props, blah blah blah. I really don't want to sound like I'm trashing this episode before it comes out, but I honestly believe Riley would turn this into a gender thing while having absolutely no clue of what to do with the actual experiment. It's a really in-character action, and the odd thing about it is that at the same time, it didn't feel like Riley in that promo. It felt like Rowan Blanchard playing herself, and I don't want this episode to turn into one big mission statement with a lesson that is bashed into your head several times over. 

Also, that Maya thing, cheesy Yogi.........does anybody want to make heads or tails of that? That's going to be some quality television, let me tell you. I think it would be absolutely hilarious if Maya took in some bad fumes from the chemicals and just acted like how she did in the promo for the whole episode. Maya on a drug-induced trip, I would pay to watch that episode.

Well, we still have more than two days left but in all honesty, I'm not looking forward to this one at all. 

I was a big fan of the 1980s-early 90s series of The Chipmunks (the "original" as far as the Chippettes are concerned, invented specifically for that iteration of the Chipmunks) so of course I needed to check out the revival, especially since it carries that series' theme song almost unaltered (they just shortened it to a few verses). It was one of the first television series I've ever watched, and the first one I distinctly remember really liking. The new one...more or less keeps up the same spirit (much more successfully than Cartoon Network's similar revival of Garfield and Friends in the CGI Garfield cartoon) but like the new Garfield it looses a lot of translation making the jump to CGI (a sad necessity in today's world just for budget reasons if nothing else). Still, there's a deserved reason why it's hanging with Spongebob as one of the highest rated things on the network right now. But I guess that's another time. Also, man I'm old.

In the interest of being really, really lazy I'm just going to copy-paste what I wrote on Christian and Sean's blog (minus where I tease Sean over Sarah Carpenter and comparing it to me and Debby Ryan P.S. I haven't seen the episode yet):

I haven't seen the episode yet so all I know of is what's gone on in this very review. Getting people, especially girls, interested in science is very problematic in education, and it's a double-edged sword in the fact that there's real pressure from higher-up and from parents to get girls especially, but literally everyone, interested in STEM subjects, including and up to just about forcing them (or whatever passes as such, as much as you can). When you get down to it it's just no different than what school has always been, except it got inevitably politicized due to a combination of fears that women are being squeezed out of STEM subjects in school (as I just said, it's always been the attitude of education to get everybody interested in everything, at least to my experience - I don't remember anti-female STEM discrimination at all, both as a student and then as a teacher myself) and the fear that the U.S. keeps taking massive steps backwards in comparison to the rest of the world when it comes to the STEM fields (which are critical for financial infrastructure, communication and - let's face it, defense, which is the real reason why certain politicians with major military-industrial complex ties and keep using China and Japan as platform points keep pushing for STEM competitiveness). The end effect is to exaggerate an existing problem - "education" and "STEM" gaps start being fabricated and administration and politicians miss whether or not the problem might be teaching methods (research and experience shows that the good old fashioned science lab experience and participation is highly effective at raising scientific understanding and interest, but it's also expensive) but instead either blame students, teachers or both, and then attempt awkward solutions towards overcoming that blame.

That said...eh, again, just based on your description of the episode, while Mr. (or Mrs.? I really need to actually watch this) Norton's methods might be...odd in real-life context, I guess it does deliver a point. 

These writers really need to be able to deliver points more effectively.

I was able to watch the episode live which was difficult because for some reason, whenever I try watching GMW live, something or somebody has to interrupt me. Virtually every single time I watch a new episode of the show when it first airs, that has to happen. I have no idea why.

It could have been a lot, lot worse. They didn't repeatedly pound the lesson into you, Riley was a lot more tolerable than I thought she would be, and it was interesting having them learn their lesson in a way that doesn't involve history. The only problem is it feels like the plot didn't naturally fit the characters. It's like they had to have all the boys in the class do the science while the girls drop the marble in order to make the point they were going for. Christian & Sean summed it up nicely when they said that the teams for the assignment were not chosen correctly. Farkle would never, ever, make Riley drop the marble simply because she's a girl. Maya barely cared about anything that was happening because of her laziness, and then we had that unfunny non-sequitur crap where the girls were going to sacrifice Yogi and Maya was acting like she had become addicted to smack. The odd part about that is at the same time, it was mixed in with Farkle and Riley's serious confrontation about the experiment. There was no reason to do that and it feels like I lost the point completely.

The writers walked into a brick wall with this one when Farkle realized that he was preventing Riley from realizing her scientific potential,.....during the second act. And no, I don't even care that Riley's interest in science has never been brought up before because they at least took it seriously. Plus, it was implied that because of Farkle, Riley really never felt the need to challenge herself, deciding to wander in the shadow of someone she long believed to be better than her. Once Farkle told her to drop the marble, Riley resigned from that mindset because she felt disrespected and wanted her friend to see that she had an interest in science as well. Just a thought. Anyway, Farkle obviously is not a sexist pig like Riley claims he is, just a perfectionist who wanted to do well on another report. That was an unnecessary, uncharacteristic comment from her but that's as far as they went with trying to push the sexism angle. Between that and the science teacher saying that nobody has ever figured out his assignment in almost 40 years.......it felt too easy. This episode almost had no reason to exist. It just emphasized what we already knew about each and every one of these characters. Remembering to never lose focus and strive for more is a very important lesson to take from this episode. If it was said in a more coherent way, it could have been a fantastic episode. Instead, it just ends up being a bit underwhelming. They saved it from pushing the sexism angle, but I feel like this issue is a little too complex for GMW to handle it properly. Then again, I can say that for a lot of episodes like this. 

So, the best thing I can say about this episode is it was not as bad as it could have been? Eh, I guess so. I don't want it to sound like I hate this episode, but it just came off as undercooked to me. Like, they had some great ideas, but it wasn't translated well enough. 

Episode Grade: C+

MVP: Sabrina Carpenter. I just loved how over Maya was with everything in this episode, especially when Lucas was telling her to drop the marble and she couldn't even do that. Seriously, episodes like this make me realize that Maya could shine in a comedic role just as well as a dramatic role. 

QUICK BITS

-Topanga's attitude towards Auggie being proud of himself over his poor soccer performance was hilarious. Reminded me of old-school competitive Topanga. It's very weird how that subplot literally only lasted that one scene unless I'm missing something. Isn't that strange to you guys?

-They really need to stop bringing in Zay every few episodes. I feel like he could be a great character and provide some nice comedy because I like him whenever he's on screen, but it feels like the writers aren't committed to him right now. Either make him a cast member or get rid of him entirely, he doesn't get that Shawn treatment.

-I could get behind assertive Sarah. She's so cute, you just want to wrap her into a present and take her home. By the way, is it me, or do I just not see the resemblance between her and Sabrina Carpenter? And how weird is that Sabrina is younger than her? What kind of girls do they get for these roles? 

-Cheesy Yogi? Seriously? I'm really pissed that they let that scene go by without rewriting it. Riley and Farkle were having a serious moment that I was into and then they hit us with that left field sacrificing BS.

-This episode almost confirms my belief that Riley and Farkle are going to end the series together. The chemistry that Rowan and Corey have is just phenomenal and they play off of each other so effortlessly. Kinda like how Sabrina and Peyton have great chemistry but they are never allowed to show it in the setting of a relationship for some reason. Shame, shame, shame.

-The next episode looks pretty interesting, but I feel like some other Disney Channel show has done that plot before. I don't know, I think the show had a stupid sea school in it. Also, I hope Mark Cuban's guest appearance isn't as awkward as Perez Hilton's was. 

Here I go again, swooping in several weeks after the fact! (well, one and a half)

I've finally seen the episode. And I think it's...

...ummm...wow.

I'm being completely serious when I say I think it's the best episode the show has had so far. I'm completely serious. If this episode aired back in December I might've named it the best episode of any show on Disney Channel in 2015. 

Of course, I'm a student teacher so I'm a bit biased here. One of the greatest struggles a teacher has is to try to figure out how to get all of his or her students interested in the subject that teacher teaches, because, well, that's what that teacher is quite literally paid to do. Unfortunately it also creates a bit of a mess. One of the things teachers hate admitting is that each of the core subjects end up competing against each other whether intentional or not - and in more ways than one. Teachers compete with each other over students - English teachers compete with Science teachers over homework time and interest. Teachers are also competing with each other when it comes to raw dollars - because of all these news reports about how the U.S. is lagging behind Japan, Korea and China in the STEM fields, and because these same news reports link STEM with manufacturing, and because these same news reports then go on to link manufacturing with raw cold hard economics and GDP (i.e. cash) production, people panic and start complaining to their local politicians about why we're losing our ground on manufacturing, and why our economy sucks, and it's because the way we teach STEM sucks, and that if we fall too far behind the Chinese Commies are going to become our new supreme overlords who will not only dominate the global economy but can also literally nuke any dissent flat with their vastly superior military, also made possible through their STEM superiority.

Of course, the actual educational picture is much more complex than that. But both politicians and the public that votes for them hate complex. They like it when they can boil down everything to some sort of either literal or conceptual boogeyman, and education's failure to properly raise an educated corps well versed in STEM fields gets to be an educational boogeyman for politicians.

The end result is that subjects like arts, physical education and even literature and language arts fields suffer because they only serve to detract from STEM fields, because last time a politician and his or her aids checked, learning about the arts or literature in middle or high school isn't going to let us build better and more powerful nukes than what the ChiComs can build, or smarter and more powerful conventional bombs and missile than what the ChiComs can build, or have our factories spit out whatever it is that raises GDP (cars, refrigerators, computers, oil production equipment, nuke-tipped missiles, what have you) faster than what the ChiComs can. 

Again, it's much more complex than that. But there is a general sentiment in the air that many people, particularly politicians, are looking at the raw on-paper stats and pissing their pants in immediate reaction before they even understand what those raw on-paper stats mean.

Anyway, that's a long-winded way of saying that STEM is important, and having students interested in STEM is important, even if only because it's literally being forced upon you upon threat of losing your job at the expense of other still very important educational subjects, and then only because it boils down to people being afraid of economic domination or outright being literally blown away and killed by the superior military of a foreign threat that chances are doesn't even exist. But enough politicizing, on to the actual episode.

The reason why I liked this episode so much is, quite frankly, I thought Mr. Norton's approach is brilliant. I legitimately think it is important to have young students - especially girls - realize that they can make important contributions to science, and that those contributions extend to even the little lab experiments they do in a classroom environment. And that the classroom is absolutely an appropriate place to conduct social experients. But before we go on, we need to clarify what a social experiment even is.

When I say social experiment, I mean a literal experiment, no different than, say, dropping a "marble" (yeah a clod of dirt is so not a marble) into a beaker of water to see what happens. In other words, a very specific and deliberate set of conditions meant to demonstrate or expose a hypothesis. Also, there's a right way, and a very, very wrong way to conduct a social experiment as a matter of course of friggin' school. You've probably had innumerable social experiments conducted upon yourself through the course of school without even realizing it, and chances are those were conducted the right way. People come away with no hard feelings against each other, or even a newfound respect for another person, and people walk away happier. People walking away happier is the whole point of conducting social experiments in the classroom. It's to have students feel better about themselves and about the people they interact and work with - the same people that in the future will be their co-workers, their spouses and their extended and literal families. 

And then there's just doing it all sorts of wrong. Once upon a time in the 70s there was a social studies teacher who, well, let's say he thought he could be a Feeny or a Cory Matthews before there even was a Feeny or a Cory Matthews. And let's just say he was a lot closer to being Cory Matthews than being a Feeny. Through an arbitrary selection process he divided the students up into two groups, and had them physically separated. Class would go about normally, and for a while nothing happened - it's just that for some bizarre reason now the room was obviously and awkwardly divided. Except through the course of the experiment this teacher started implanting various thought seeds into these students' heads - the other side isn't as good as you guys in homework, the other side is jealous of you because you have better-looking boyfriends or girlfriends, or are better at sports, or you guys just smell better. Stuff like that. If you couldn't already tell where this was going, eventually he basically created two groups of opposing Nazis and the experiment turned into one of the worst clusterfucks in the entire history of American education. It got so bad it was turned into a movie, The Wave which was also turned into a book.

So yeah, while Mr. Norton's experiment was well-intended, dividing the boys and girls to essentially be against each other ended up being a bit too close to The Wave to qualify as a success, even if it wasn't even his intention at all. All he wanted to do was just show that the girls tended to want to just be the marble-dropper. Not rise up to be Chick HItlers. 

Speaking of which, Yogi seemed waaaay too enthusiastic to be sacrificed. That, and the exchange between him and Darby...I'm not convinced they have a healthy relationship. Someone might want to intervene in that.

In conclusion, I think I can see what the writers were going for past what was actually put on the screen. Seeing the trees for the forest, maybe (I'm not going to lie I don't get that saying and I think it's stupid). But that doesn't take away that these writers really need to take a hard look at what they're actually doing and figure out that what automatically translates into their heads isn't what 2 million viewers see (as opposed to a year and a half ago when it used to be over 3 million). 

Episode Grave: I'm torn between giving it anywhere from a B+ up to even an A+, and given all the facts - how much I liked it, but also how much Mr. Norton fundamentally fucked up when dealing with frickin' middle school students and people's reactions - I'm going to do something I swore never to do and just leave it up in the air outside of that vague range. Sorry to do this to you. There are things that make it really, really great, but there are things that make it dangerously questionable. Everybody acted terriffically, especially Rowan, Sabrina and kid-Corey-with-an-e, but it was in the name of a well-intended but muddled message.
Episode MVP: I'm tempted to say Sarah Carpenter because I think I might be catching whatever's got Sean over at Girl Meets World Reviewed. But I'll have to ultimately go with her sister for exactly what Mike said.

Oh, and a few other things I forgot

 - yeah, the subplot. While I also liked it (yay for Ava getting a few good scenes for a change!) it's a bit bizarre that Topanga of all people would be so happy with Auggie basically playing soccer by not playing soccer and getting an award for it. With actual pro athletes and even car commercials poking fun at it, the whole concept of "participation" awards has pretty much gone the way of the dodo. The people who had advocated for them have finally learned that 1.) the recipients of such rewards eventually regard them as meaningless 2.) despite anticipating the exact opposite and being hailed as heroes parents have basically yelled at them for "wussying" their kids and 3.) well, nobody just takes them seriously, which pretty much defeats the point. 

 - again, yay for Ava! (both Morgenstern, and Koker, the actual actress). Both of them have really grown now, especially compared to their usual appearances, and Koker strikes me as maybe being the rare child actress who can go the distance into adulthood, maybe.

 - and yeah, Mike, if the plot seems familiar to you it's because they also did it on an early episode of I Didn't Do It (back when the show was good-ish). 

All the shows that left Nickelodeon since iCarly

I mentioned in the previous post that from the period of late 2012 to, well, the present, Nickelodeon's pretty much hemorrhaged live-action programming. I promised a more detailed look at that, so, well, might as well get it over with. A lot of this is off the top of my head - I can go back and try to verify it on IMDb but, sadly, there isn't a lot to look up in terms of the sheer number of shows that ended unless you already know first-hand what to look for. So I'll try to make this comprehensive, and I'll go back and make changes accordingly, but bear with me and feel free to make corrections yourself in the comments. Anyway, I'm going to be organizing it by both year and success (whether or not the show lasted at least three seasons or not, which is more or less the Nick/Disney agreed upon marker of "success"). I'm not going to include the Saturday morning run of shows, or the animated block (I can keep track of that stuff if I really wanted to, but it's a bit complicated for my tastes) but the type of programming that tends to appeal to the type of demo Disney Channel is directly vying for (as opposed to what might be watching Disney Junior or XD instead) with maybe a few borderline cases but eh whatever. Beyond that everything is included, even foreign imports (virtually all of them were co-produced by Nick at home anyway). Again, I'm not tracking episode counts or total seasons, just strictly end-dates. 

Shows That Had Successful Runs:

2012: iCarly
2013: VicTORious, Big Time Rush
2014: Korra: The Last Airbender
2015: Every Witch Way, See Dad Run, Instant Mom

...wait that's seriously it? Oh wow. And two of those are Nick@Nite originals. Let's see the shows that have failed (again, less than three seasons, and in a lot of cases just one)

2012: Bucket and Skinner's Epic Adventure, How to Rock
2013: Marvin, Marvin; Wendell and Vinnie; House of Anubis; Supa Ninjas (a borderline case but it just didn't last enough by episode count)
2014: Sam & Cat (that's the only one I can think of for that year, but I still feel like I'm missing one)
2015: The Haunted Hathaways

Yeah, needless to say even when adding in Nick@Nite shows the number of failed shows outnumber the number of "successful" shows. Nick should consider itself lucky that 2014 and 2015 have only seen two official subpar cancelations total.

But not so far: WITS Academy and especially Talia in the Kitchen and 100 Things to Do Before High School and even Bella and the Bulldogs have questionable futures and possibly either have already aired their last episodes or will in 2016. It's possible Thundermans will air its last episode in 2016 too. That's no less than six shows whose fates are in the wind. Almost inevitably Make it Pop! will join them as well (daily strips are getting murdered since EWW made its exit). To put it another way, that's Nickelodeon's entire weekday/weekend afternoon live-action lineup sans Schneider's Bakery's productions. And then there's Max & Shred - I don't know what the status of this show is, but since this show has been utterly buried and completely hidden in the schedule over the summer and hasn't returned since, I think it's safe to assume it's canceled. I'm not completely sure so I'll just list it separately.

So, to summarize, since 2012 on Nickelodeon:
7 shows have ended successful runs
3 managed to end with four seasons specifically (though EWW is somewhat of an abberation by design)
8 shows have been prematurely canceled
15 shows have ended period regardless of success or circumstance
1 show that may or may not have been canceled, but most likely has been canceled
5 shows that are "on the bubble" and in imminent danger of being canceled
1 show that will most likely join them but is waiting to premiere its second season (Make it Pop!)

15 shows is a lot in three years, especially for a network like Nickelodeon. Especially given the number of premature cancelations they've had (just over half of their total expired shows!).

Just for fun, let's run the exact same statistics for Disney Channel. Again, this will be since 2012, for shows that have had "successful" runs (same exact criteria, at least three seasons or ran the entirety of its intended and planned run, which is an important distinction for one show on the list):

2012: Wizards of Waverly Place (we're not going to count Alex vs. Alex for this purpose)
2013: oddly enough, none!
2014: Good Luck Charlie, Fish Hooks, ANT Farm
2015: Phineas and Ferb (for this purpose we'll count it as a Disney Channel show), Dog With a Blog, Jessie
(January) 2016: Austin & Ally, Gravity Falls (I'm counting it as a Disney Channel show too since it premiered on that network)

Now let's run premature cancelations (again, less than three seasons)

2012: None! (WoWP was the only show in 2012 to come to an end)
2013: ...again, oddly enough, none! (no Disney Channel show aired series finales at all in 2013)
2014: ...and yet again, none! (all the Disney Channel shows that ended in 2014 ended with at least three seasons)
2015: I Didn't Do It (the only Disney Channel show that belongs on this list period since So Random! in 2011, which just misses out on this list).

So that's 9 successful shows that have come to an end in three years, and one that wasn't so successful. There are a number of shows with flailing ratings - actually pretty much all of them that aren't Girl Meets World or K.C. Undercover. Yes that even includes Bunk'd, which the network pretty much assumed was going to be a major, automatic four-season success. Really, the situation on Disney Channel and across both networks is such a mess I don't feel like I can put any shows on Disney Channel on "the bubble" as it's hard to tell right now if the network's going to sink them all for new programming or just swim anyway - other than Best Friends Whenever, which I've heard enough ratings and BTS woes to feel like I'll have to do so (as much as I actually like it). Which brings us to, since 2012:

9 shows that have had successful runs and have come to an end
5 shows (WoWP, GLC, Phineas and Ferb, Jessie and A&A) ended with a minimum of 100 episodes
Just 1 show that has come to a premature cancelation
10 shows total that have ended
Just one that's on the bubble, but more potential depending on exec's attitudes.

Disney Channel's 10 compared to Nickelodeon's 15. 15. I believe that stat speaks for itself. And of that 10 only one failed to make it three seasons (excepting Gravity Falls as it still ran its intended run), while over half of Nickelodeon's shows ended as failures. Just over half of Disney Channel's shows that have come to an end during that period managed to make out at least 100 episodes! Not all of Nickelodeon's shows that made it to four seasons even made that! (namely, again, EWW, though I don't remember if Korra or even BTR managed to quite make it to 100). Oh, and I keep forgetting that VicTORious had "four seasons" although by production code Season 4 is still Season 3, and it didn't quite even make it to 65 episodes which is the typical episode count with three seasons - so it's gone three seasons as far as I'm concerned, for whatever this compilation of statistics is worth.

I could run through some bad math to punch out some percentages for further on-paper pissing match comparisons, but the disreprency between all the numbers is big enough to make the conclusions obvious just as they are. If either having the fewest shows get canceled or the most shows get three (or four) seasons or more is sign of victory, then Disney Channel has utterly dominated Nickelodeon during the past three years and especially in 2013, which again going by this criteria was both Disney Channel's zenith and Nickelodeon's nadir (and again, this doesn't count Nick's Saturday/Sunday morning line-up, or most of their animated shows like Spongebob or Sanjay and Craig which I'm basically categorizing into a separate subnetwork more competing with Disney Junior or Disney XD depending on the show - and even so, the statistics are still favoring the Disney networks, though the stats aren't quite as lopsided in their favor. I suppose it's more akin to when Robb Stark was just running all over the Lannisters in his early battles, as opposed to late in Season 5 when the Whitewalkers were completely killing absolutely everything in their way and Jon Snow and Tormund barely escaped with their lives). 

Now, again just for fun, let's see the opposite effect - how many new TV shows each network has added in during the same period (keeping in mind that period is large enough that many of these shows have since ended and show up on the previous list) Also, again, it might be an incomplete list - to find out what shows premiered you kind of have to already know what you're looking for, but I'll try to make it as comprehensive and accurate as I can.

For new shows Nickelodeon added since 2012:

2012: Bucket and Skinner's Epic Adventure; How to Rock; Marvin, Marvin; The Legend of Korra
2013: Sam & Cat; Wendell & Vinnie, The Thundermans; The Haunted Hathaways; See Dad Run; Instant Mom
2014: Every Witch Way; Henry Danger; Max & Shred; Nicky, Ricky Dicky & Dawn
2015: Bella and the Bulldogs; 100 Things to Do Before High School (I'm counting it as a 2015 series given the ridiculously half-year gap between the pilot and the actual show); Game Shakers; Talia in the Kitchen; Make it Pop
2016: *shrug* (no not an actual show title I just have no idea what's premiering if anything)

That's 19 shows, which is quite a lot (not surprising given that 15 shows made their exit during the same time period, and a good chunk of titles of both lists are mutual). Speaking of which, a more useful statistic is that of those 19, no less than 10 of those shows that aired during that same time period also ended within that time. Again, that's expected because as far as tween shows are concerned that's pretty much a lifetime. An even more useful statistic is that 6 of those shows were premature cancellations. That's about a 62% success rate. I'm sure someone can tell me how that compares to whatever statistically useful standard would apply to a tween network like this, or if I get about to researching it myself. Meanwhile, only two shows premiered from 2014 are confirmed to be returning in 2016, only one show premiered from 2013 will still be airing episodes in 2016, and absolutely no show that premiered in 2012 survives to this day (and in fact only one, Korra, even managed to last beyond a single season). 

So how does Disney Channel compare?

2012: Gravity Falls, Dog With a Blog
2013: Liv and Maddie, Wander Over Yonder (again counting it as a Disney Channel show since it premiered on that network)
2014: I Didn't Do It, Girl Meets World
2015: K.C. Undercover; Best Friends Whenever; Bunk'd
2016: (scheduled/confirmed to what I've been updated on) Blizaardvark (yes that's a real show title), Stuck in the Middle

Of further note both Jessie and Austin & Ally barely miss out on this list, premiering very late in 2011 (especially Austin & Ally's November 2011 premiere date)

That's 11 shows counting the two I know for a fact are scheduled for a 2016 premiere (though I think there might be one or two still) but considering shows that have yet to actually premiere as of this writing to be outliers, that gives us 9 shows that premiered on Disney Channel during that time period. Of those 9 shows, only 3 came to an end within that period and only 1 was a premature cancelation (IDDI, natch). Needless to say that's waaaay better than Nick's success rate at a whopping 89%, though it tips a little bit in favor of Nick when you factor in the fact that Gravity Falls and Wander Over Yonder got banished to XD during that time as well. It very roughly restores itself though if you simply count Gravity Falls and Wander Over Yonder to be completely XD shows. Breaking down the stats by year, only one premiere from 2014 is still with us (GMW), while both of 2013's premieres are still with us, and nothing from 2012 or older remains (with Gravity Falls just airing its series finale, Jessie airing its finale back during Monstober and A&A scheduled for next week or so - close enough). 

So yeah, while Nickelodeon has a higher number of show premieres during that period, there's a pretty clear reason for it. Right now Disney Channel is whomping Nickelodeon's butt going by this set of arbitrary criteria during this arbitrary time period, but the ratings game just isn't the same right now as it was in 2013. There's enough Neilsen ratings instability to suggest all sorts of things could be happening in the new year to come, and much potential for sudden upsets or even mutual downfall. 

In Memoriam: 2015 Retrospective

That's right, I'm back! Well, yes and no. I'm just popping in to do a bit of an update of where I am and mostly just to look back on 2015 in entertainment, mostly focusing on tween/teen entertainment but some other things as well. 

Right now I'm trying to set up another blog, and Mike and Nick are invited to be contributors. Unfortunately I'm running into some technical difficulties so I'll update you when that is cleared up. It will mostly focus on tween/teen entertainment and young adult literature but other things I just feel like reviewing as well. I'm also looking for a new job, hopefully either in education or in publishing (a bit far from my actual degree in aerospace engineering but, eh, things change - and it's not like a little bit of math hurt anyone. Right Maya and Riley? ;) I don't know when this will be set up other than "in the future."

But enough about that, it's time to look back at 2015. First, we've got a lot of departures with us this year. So much so that I feel it's best served with some historical precedent/background:

2015 is to Disney Channel what 2013 and even 2014 were to Nickelodeon (Mike and Nick, I'm sure, can vouch for this and understands what I mean). Maybe not quite as bad, but as far as historical precedent certainly the closest so far. I've talked about the "Kidocalypse" on this blog, on Christain and Sean's Girl Meets World Reviewed blog and even on Gawker's iO9 before, and this is pretty much what it's referring to. Ever since iCarly aired its final episode, things have tumbled downhill faster than Olaf trying to build a snowman up Mt. Everest during the events of Into Thin Air (too esoteric?) The weird, rather inexplicable thing about it is that it affected both networks, but it certainly affected mother-network Nickelodeon the hardest. Since iGoodbye, Nick's suffered a lengthy string of setbacks and premature cancelations that's been continuing to this day. Arguably it goes back even to before iGoodbye with the bomb Bucket and Skinner's Epic Adventure (or whatever it was called), followed by the premature cancelation of How to Rock (not necessarily a bomb as it apparently had good ratings), the bomb Marvin, Marvin; the bomb Wendell & Vinnie, and well you get the point. But perhaps the biggest and highest-profile failure is, of course, Sam & Cat, a failure so colossal and infamous it managed to make headlines with media outlets that don't normally cover tweener shows or even TV shows period. Yeah, sure, maybe Jennette and Ariana didn't exactly get along but the disappointing ratings didn't help either (while it was duking it out with Jessie, Good Luck Charlie and Austin & Ally for top-dog ratings early on over the summer of '13, they eventually slipped to Dog With a Blog and later ANT Farm Season 3 levels. For a show that was supposed to carry the glory of iCarly, that's pretty pathetic). In 2015 you can also add The Haunted Hathaways to that list, and unfortunately it looks like WITS Academy, Talia in the Kitchen and even Bella and the Bulldogs may see their last episodes in 2015-2016. I remember seeing a post on either the Haunted Hathaways or Thundermans board on IMDb, but it seems to be deleted, but there's something like a dozen shows canceled on Nick ever since Bucket and Skinner got the axe, when counting Instant Mom and See Dad Run. I might run down the numbers in a future post. Fun fact: Thundermans is the only show still airing on Nickelodeon that dates back to prior to August 2014. 

Not that Nickelodeon has not had successes too. That long list of shows includes shows that have had "natural" endings, most prominently iCarly, of course, in 2012, with Big Time Rush in 2013 and Korra in 2014. 2015 only saw one such show, the final two seasons (half the show!) of Every Witch Way, a show I know hasn't been exactly well-liked but I loved nonetheless. EWW's success also owes much to a new business model - one that could be called either experimental or weird, depending on how you look at it. One thing you can't deny though, is that it's cheap. By using their Nick Latin studios in Miami and limited budgets and production values, they can churn out EWW far cheaper than, say, Thundermans or Henry Danger, at a rate that makes daily showings (or "strips" as Nick now refers to it) profitable at relatively low ratings. At the same time, I think it shows that a show doesn't have to suffer for it as long as it's written well enough. EWW had a shaky start but it's grown on me tremendously, and by the time it bowed out it became one of my favorite shows (heck, this was #2 on the network behind Korra when the latter bowed out). I'll really miss the adventures of Emma, Maddie, Sofie, Katie, Daniel, Jax, Diego, and Mia as they defend the realm against evil witches while trying to navigate high school at the same time, with more than a little fun on the side. And I've certainly enjoyed Andi's own adventures at the WITS Academy so far, with hopefully more to come.

Unfortunately Haunted Hathaways didn't get the same chance to completely finish, though it did end up having a more or less suitable finale. This was another show that had a shaky start but grew to a fun, enjoyable show. Along with Thundermans it was the only show on Nickelodeon proper's live-action "teen" lineup to date back all the way to 2013. Poor Taylor, she always got gunk'd on practically every episode pretty much. But Amber, Brianna, Benjamin, ummm...the actor who played Miles...and Two Adult People ruled on it.

Of course between the two networks, it was Disney Channel who had the most high-profile show departures. 2014 saw the conclusion of Good Luck Charlie, which was pretty much an iGoodbye-level event as we saw Teddy Duncan off to college, P.J. off to his food truck and Gabe off to teach another generation of Duncans how to terrorize Mrs. Dabney. 2014 also saw the end to ANT Farm in a lukewarm sendoff, as well as the end of Fish Hooks which was barely a blip even at the start of its fourth season and by all judgement seemingly reached Bucket and Skinner-level of forgotten by now (wait, that was a show on Disney Channel/XD?) In 2015 we saw the end of Jessie, as the eponymous character finally sees the start of her acting career take-off and having to leave the kids in New York in order to pursue her dreams. Unfortunately it was pretty much an ANT Farm-like lukewarm sendoff, just another half-hour show half-filled with half-hearted goodbyes (genuine from the actors perhaps, but not from the network itself). It just seems a bit...off...for what's one of Disney Channel's longest-running series and second-longest by episode count, with 101 compared to Wizards of Waverly Place's 106 (not counting the comparatively astronomical count of Phineas and Ferb, which is far more than what 104 days of summer can fit). But, eh, who cares, Jessie's happy because she finally gets to be an actress, Tony's happy because he finally gets to be with Jessie kind of-sort of, Emma's happy because she gets to have her own show, Debby's happy because she gets to be away from the network, Peyton's happy because she gets to have her own show, Skai's happy because she doesn't have to be around Debby anymore and I guess I'm happy because I finally get those Game of Thrones references now (you know nothing, Jon Snow/Winter is Coming/blah blah blah every time you like a character he or she dies and Belish just weasels out of everything). I guess I should be happy about other things too.

And we have a second super-high profile ending, with Phineas and Ferb's summer finally coming to an end. This is perhaps the most groundbreaking series in the network's history, bringing people in to Disney Channel and XD from demos that never would've dreamed of it otherwise. Just like with Jessie and Good Luck Charlie and WoWP before, it's been going on for so long it did come as a shock when it finally came to an end no matter how much fanfare came with it beforehand (and considering all things, again, it wasn't much). 2015 seems to be where shows die with a whimper, even if they've been around for the better part of a decade (yes, the first episode of Phineas and Ferb premiered in 2007, the same year as WoWP). 

And now we get to the shows the network didn't even care about - I Didn't Do It and Dog With a Blog. At least Disney cared about DWaB enough to let it run a full three seasons ala ANT Farm, but IDDI's finale ended up getting shoved next to Jessie's with both buried deep into Monstober and lost amongst promotion for Girl Meets Texas and Invisible Sister (I'm sorry, you're not going to convince me that was a good DCOM). It might not be her intention, but it certainly was the network's intention for 2015 to be the year Rowan Blanchard gobbles up network airing real estate and promotion like Tywin Lannister carving up Northern holdfasts (yeah I'll stop the Game of Thrones references, I promise). I know Rowan gets a lot of hate, but I can at least - if not understand, then make guesses - regarding how the network is just overexposing both her and the show itself. Given Disney Channel's rather insular demo it's not like it matters either way, and the Disney machine is wont to overexpose so overexpose it will. Speaking of which, with Austin & Ally ending in a few weeks, Girl Meets World and Liv and Maddie are the only shows on the network to predate the 2015 calendar year and consequently the only shows from 2014 and 2013 respectively. On XD Kickin' It came to an end and Mighty Med got the IDDI treatment, though only in order to combine it with Lab Rats. 

For new shows we're given KC Undercover, now the third oldest show on the network at not  quite even a calendar year old and still finishing out its first season! It's an alright show I guess - though I feel like I'm putting myself at risk for making such a base comment, Zendaya truly is, well, one of the best-looking actresses this network's ever had in its entire history, and well to be equally frank that alone pretty much justifies watching it. The show wrapped around her isn't half-bad either, and I think Kamil and Trinity are great actors with pretty good comedic timing (especially Trinity, given how young she still is). We're also given Best Friend Whenever, which is an enjoyable enough show in its own right but has struggled with ratings anyway and rumors of Sam & Cat-like BTS troubles are starting to pop up, which means this show may not be here for long (I may be writing its obit a year from now). And...oh, yeah. And then we have Bunk'd. I'm just going to flat out admit I kind of just stopped watching this show. I intend to watch the episodes eventually before the premiere of the next ones but...meh. I find myself watching Boardwalk Empire or now Game of Thrones instead. I guess Peyton List couldn't do what Debby Ryan can do for me - get me to watch a show even when I think it's starting to get crappy. Sorry, PeyPey.

For Nick we've got the aforementioned excellent but ratings-struggling Bella and the Bulldogs, airing its first and second seasons only a few months apart with the show not even a calendar year old yet. It really is Nick's closest equivalent to GMW in more ways than one, and I'll even go out on a limb and say it's far superior. We also gained the aforementioned EWW spinoff WITS Academy, and a new season of Talia in the Kitchen - both of which I loved and are also struggling. We gained yet another "daily strip," Make it Pop, which turned out to be pretty decent and I'm looking forward to Season 2. For more traditional Nick shows, we have 100 Things to Do in High School - again, a show that can compete with GMW thematically and on quality but with ratings that have completely bottomed out (premiering half a year after its pilot episode doesn't help) and Game Shakers which, um, I'm sorry but I don't get that show. I didn't get a lot of iCarly either but at least that show had a certain charm to it, even if that charm largely exists through a nostalgia filter.

Oh, and DCOMs. 2015 was a big year for DCOMS (and NickOMs). We've had Bad Hair Day, which was admittedly somewhat of a typical early-year throwaway, then Invisible Sister, which ended up being somewhat of a throwaway too despite Rowan-everything (and again, I think is massively overrated anyway), but sandwiched in between are perhaps the two most anticipated DCOMs since High School Musical 2. One turned out to be exactly the success Disney automatically figured it for - and one turned out to be as much of a colossal bomb as the track record Nick's been having. Just looking at the raw numbers, it doesn't seem like Teen Beach 3 will be a thing. In fact Descendants aside DCOM numbers have been extremely poor across the board, and we'll have to see what happens after Further Adventures in Babysitting. With 2014's relatively lackluster performance I've predicted the death of the DCOM period, replaced with cheaper specials like what we saw from the Radio Disney holiday special or other low-investment, speciality or multi-cam programming.It's a trend that's been effecting the rest of the network too - KCU's been able to coast on the strength of Zendaya if nothing else, and GMW's been able to coast on the strength of its branding, but the network otherwise is in rocky territory, exactly in the same spot Nick was in 2013. Speaking of Nick, Splitting Adam turned out to be a pretty decent success, and I'm probably the only one who liked Liar, Liar Vampire, but Nick's other efforts - One Crazy Cruise, the literally forgettable Genie in a Bikini "movie" (I only even remember that movie more for the other events I did that day and thinking "oh yeah they aired that the same day too) and that mystery thing that I don't even remember - were lame to the point of being almost excruciating. Fun fact: Liar, Liar Vampire is Nick's first Halloween-themed movie since 2012's theatrical release of Fun Size (another excruciating lamer), something which used to be somewhat of a tradition akin to the Halloween or Christmas DCOM. But given that, Nick's future looks pretty bleak. Even their new strategy of "just make it as cheap as possible so we'll at least have something" doesn't seem to be paying off. As for Disney,  I've joked about it, but I wouldn't be surprised if in the near future the network's entire lineup ends up becoming inspired by the old-school TGIF or outright remakes/sequels of such. I don't know if this is going to be a good or bad thing but frankly the presentation of GMW makes me lean towards the former. Maybe it's just time I grew up again and matured some taste in TV.

And speaking of grown-up tastes, we've had one other major cable TV departure - the excellent series Justified, which ended with something only a little bit better than a meh (seems like this is all the best a show can hope for nowadays). This show built up tremendous momentum in the first three seasons, then struggled to keep that momentum going in the fourth and started losing serious steam in the fifth, but at least managed to present more or less a complete package. Better than the lame way Burn Notice went out, at least.

And at least we've still got Fargo when I tire of strained British accents and Westeros' seemingly large supply of redheads getting arrows in the back. 

In the end, I'd have to say 2015 for both Nick and Disney Channel largely just sucked the big one. Too many good shows made their exit, too many good shows that premiered this year have had their ratings crash, and too much of what's left is just lame as hell. Liv and Maddie still remains too good a show to miss on its first run, and Henry Danger has become a very enjoyable and well-written show, but I'm increasingly finding myself waiting to watch Girl Meets World and Bunk'd on Watch Disney Channel one or two days after the fact as I'm spending Fridays watching Game of Thrones or Boardwalk Empire with the family instead - if at all (I've still yet to watch Girl Meets the New Year, for that matter). Well, Rowan, if you're complaining about early access to GMW, you've got your wish now. I've had my reasons for watching these tween/teen shows, and there are still glimmers of hope that they can still be written to a quality and level of enjoyment where older audiences really shouldn't be ashamed to watch them. But with the last season of Jessie, with Bunk'd, with Disney Channel really just becoming a constant reminder that, hey, there's this multi-billion movie franchise you can go see in theaters now, it's starting to live down to the kiddie rep. I'll explain more in a follow-up essay (the same one I've been saying I'm working on for months) but my growing dissatisfaction with both networks is starting to push me towards other entertainment avenues - watching shows like the aforementioned Justified, Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones, Fargo etc. that are more "age appropriate." Reading actual books. And really starting to think about where the tweener/teen show has gone astray, and what makes shows like Liv and Maddie, Bella and the Bulldogs and 100 Thing to do Before High School (and yes even Girl Meets World too, I guess, very begrudgingly) different, and what made older shows like Jessie different in their heydey. And maybe the future of tweener/teen shows that can be enjoyed by all ages just barely exists anymore - or if the future is still there somewhere, just not on television.

Like I said, I'll get to that point in further detail. Eventually.

So It's Come to This: Nickelodeon Ho Ho Holidays

Merry freaking Christmas and a happy stinking New Year from your favorite Nickelodeon pals. I guess.

I just have one question: WHAT THE HELL WAS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE?!?!

There are times where you know something is going to be at least decent and then it ends up being even better than you thought. There are also times where you know something is going to blow and then it ends up being worse than that. This is the latter situation. This was an absolutely despicable, horrendous, poorly written, unmotivated piece of garbage that should have never made it to air. It was bizarre and awkward at times to the point where I believe the actors and actresses just gave up and became self-aware. For every isolated bit that might have been pretty funny, there are ten more that were dead on arrival due to poor set-up, poor delivery, or just poor writing altogether. This was a way to get all of Nickelodeon's shows and have them interact with each other on Christmas Eve in one of the biggest, most anticipated, and critically acclaimed crossovers of all-time. No, because that would have been the intelligent thing to do. Instead, the executive decision was made to have everyone play themselves. Yeah, so that's actually what happened. For some stupid reason, the actors and actresses are playing themselves, but I know this is not how they would act in real life. Almost all of them are literally playing their characters from their shows, and if not, then some campy version of themselves. And they all had to read lines off a script for this because there was no attempt at improvisation or just pretending like they're hanging out with old pals. They are all aware that this is a holiday special, but it actually is not because they are in a fake storyline in a story told by elves. 

Yeah. This was corny beyond belief, but actually salvageable. If these people were all playing their actual characters, do you know how much better this special would be? If anything, that makes more sense than having these idiots try to play themselves which they are clearly unable to because of the stupid plot. And do you know why these people cannot play themselves in a special like this? Because then they end up being meta about it. There is a lot of self-referential stuff in here, especially at the end where they talk about the final musical number like nobody else has ever made that kind of joke before. The delivery there was off-putting and awkward because nobody ever talks like that. You can't have these people play themselves in a live-action special and then turn them into cartoonish idiots. Like I said before, some of these people act no different from how they do on their shows. It's baffling to me how little anybody cared about making this special work. Was it an executive decision? I don't know. Did any of the actors and actresses have any input on what they got to say or do? I don't know. Is this the worst Christmas special ever made? Yeah, most likely. I don't even think that Star Wars Christmas special was this bad, or the several Simpsons holiday episodes that paled in comparison to the ones made in the classic era. 

Now what exactly makes this so horrible beyond the cheesy acting and dialogue? NOTHING MAKES ANY SENSE. We have the Nickelodeon stars at the party that they were all invited to while never questioning who invited them or who the host is. Then we cut to the two mentally retarded elves telling the story. They see a box for a game called Guess the Gift and then we cut to a scene demonstrating how Guess the Gift is played......for several minutes. That was one of the most frustrating scenes in the entire special. It was supposed to be a bunch of random gags slapped together, but the bit ran on way too long and had no purpose other than trying to shoehorn in the cast members who weren't part of the main plot. And none of them were funny. There were about four of these painful segments with obvious jokes and terrible pacing. In the second segment, the stars are singing about snowflakes, and then one of them comes in dressed like an apple. One of the snowflakes (Jace Norman, I believe) points this out but nobody else sees it, and the apple is convinced that he is a snowflake and Jace is not. He believes he should not be discriminated because he is unique, and everyone agrees with him. BUT HE ACTUALLY IS AN APPLE!!!! THEY COULDN'T EVEN GET THAT MOTHERFUCKING JOKE RIGHT!!!! It would complete the joke if that one snowflake saw him as an apple from their perspective, but from the perspective of everyone else, they saw a snowflake. That's the one problem with these two hacky segments. They stick to one joke that was stale and unfunny when it was first told, and they prolong it until you sit there screaming at the screen. But the last segment? It was a rap number about how grandmothers buy terrible presents for their grandkids because they are terrible people. 

By the way, this special relies on stupidity to the highest degree. Pretty much everyone here does a bunch of moronic stuff throughout the runtime and about 2% of it is actually funny. Kira Kosarin constantly breaking things and bringing it up even though nobody else does, Aiden Gallagher drinking an entire room full of eggnog in less than twenty seconds, the whole plot revolving around being trapped in the house but moving around as aimlessly as possible, Coy Stewart wearing a Christmas tree costume because it thought it was a costume party. Everything here was horrendous. I laughed a few times, and that was pretty much it. Except for the last song which had actual singers with talent, the music here is painful. Was this special trying to make fun of itself? I don't know, because nobody was in on the joke and there was no sense of cleverness or wit in anything here. 

But you want to know the one thing that made this even worse? The ending.

THE ENDING. THE ENDING. Rico Rodriguez, for some bizarre reason, always wanted to sing a song with the Nickelodeon stars but he never got a reply so he invited all of them to this party. Then he would trap them and ruin their Christmas. Beyond the fact that this plan is asinine and is not even funny on a "so bad it's good" level, Rico is an absolute creep for doing this. That is one of the worst motivations I have ever heard for anything. Do these writers even realize how ridiculous that sounds? That would be like me killing John Cena because he stole my sandwich. When you have eight, yes, eight writers working on this, you know you can do much better than just turn this into a zany Saturday morning cartoon. Even the stars themselves don't really care about what happened. They just shrug it off because that's what actual people do in a similar situation. If the characters themselves do not care about anything that's happening to them, why should I? This special was so disconnected from its audience, I have no idea who this is going to appeal to. Little kids? Yeah, pretty much. They will love this special in 2015 and seven years later, revisit it and realize how awful it really was. That's how these things work because this special will not work in reruns. It barely even functions now. Kevin Kopelow and Heath Seifert were noticeably the two main writers of this mess. 

They came back to Nickelodeon for this?! Well, I guess it happens to everybody at some point. You just start losing your touch.

I'm done here. This special was absolutely horrible. Almost every joke is painfully predictable, really stupid, or runs way longer than it has to. Everybody here is absolutely idiotic and they act like they just stepped into a parallel universe (except for Buddy Handleson, who is the only bright spot in this whole thing). And with the exception of the last number, the music..........basura. I hate the idea that this special had to be made. It just boggles the mind how eight writers could let this happen and they actually thought they did a great job. I know the actors and actresses had fun doing this, but as a fan and a reviewer, I did not have fun watching this. Although it does make me wonder how Disney Channel would handle this kind of thing........

Final Grade: D (Buddy Handleson kept this thing from going any lower. I love that guy and he was the only one who was actually funny. Also, as awkward as the snowflake segment was, the fact that it was so ridiculously stupid made me laugh. Although, that's probably because I have pity.)
Episode MVP: Buddy Handleson

What I'm about to say could be considered controversial on a real level, so I just want to say that I'm not endorsing this attitude in the slightest. But, unfortunately, being familiar with 4chan's /tv/ image board, I can tell you that they were probably disappointed that Brec Bassinger and Kira Korsarin weren't covered waist-deep in eggnog but they were probably just grateful Isabella Moner was.

Also speaking of that scene, I have no idea who that other girl was. Is she the one who plays, uh, Chloe or whoever on Henry Danger? I don't recognize her at all. She's not on Game Shakers (interesting that none of the players on that show were even there), or NRDD, or Bella (at first I thought maybe it's Lilimar, but that's a solid nope on that) or Thundermans, etc. The fact that everything kept sticking to her because she sat on a marshmallow chair was...eh. One, prop sight gags don't really work for me and two, that's probably another one that got /tv/ all excited. Yeah, I promise I'll quit making a squicky list of all the things that probably kept /tv/ happy save for one I'll save at the very end. But, hey, I guess someone was happy watching this at least, though, um....ewww.

I guess grown-ups just don't trust kids to really be able to improv on their own. Disney Channel can't even trust two adult and veteran actresses, Sofia Carson and Sarah Carpenter, to do more than act from a script when they're supposed to be spontaneously excited about Andy Grammar. I think Sofia Carson and Sarah Carpenter are capable of acting spontaneously excited about Andy Frickin' Grammar. Disney Channel probably doesn't even trust Debby Ryan and Bridgit Mendler to say their own names without reading first, "Debby [staring at the camera]: Debby Ryan" and "Bridgit [staring at the camera]: Bridgit Mendler." Which is probably why they abandoned the network for live performances and an actual live show respectively. They probably don't trust Selena Gomez to be able to play you like a love song on repeat-repeat-repeat without reading the original instruction manual first. They probably forced Zendaya to do her Wand ID with a pronunciation guide for her own name (Zen-DAY-ah). 

It's kind of a Holy Grail to be able to let child starlets, especially older ones like the aforementioned Sofia, Debby, Bridgit, Selena and Zendaya who have been at it for a while and probably want to do something different, to be let loose and actually do some improv. The closest any of those stars have been to doing improv on Disney Channel is either Jessie's Green-Eyed Monsters (the one Christian and Sean really hated) or when Disney Channel ran the short-lived Prank*Stars (yes the asterisk is a part of the title) show and only Selena and Debby did that (that was very late in WoWP's run and just before Jessie, just  when Debby started dyeing her hair red). The closest I can recall any of the Nickelodeon stars doing improv is, um, this.

I can see why Buddy has basically been playing the same role over and over again since he was still in single-digits on "the enemy network," it's admittedly a role he wears well. Everybody else...yeah. It just feels like they're out of their element. Yeah, ok, play yourselves...but at the same time don't stray far from your regular roles because the tweens who watch this think Jack Griffo and Max Thunderman are literally the same person. If you follow this blog a lot you know I'm probably way too huge a Debby Ryan fan for what I should be, which means I follow all her social media, which means I know that people literally thinking she's Jessie Prescott instead of Debby Ryan drove her nuts to the point where it probably goes a long way to explaining why Jessie's final season outright sucked. It's why she doesn't want to dye her hair red anymore, she doesn't want people to see Jessie Prescott instead of Debby Ryan. We certainly saw that happen to Jennette McCurdy (who's supposed to be a friend of Debby IRL) too, probably Ariana Grande as well. I have to wonder when, for example, Kira's breaking point is. Jace Norman at least has apparently regular employment in NOMs to break out regularly, but most of everyone else is stuck being who they normally play.

But yeah, it could've been better. Obviously it's trying to be a variety type show, it should've stuck with it better. Kopelow and Siefert know how to do this. I mean, if only there was, say, a show that kind of tried to be the variety model, and had Christmas special variety show episodes, and had skits, and so on. Maybe this completely fictional and hypothetical show could've, oh, I don't know, aired on Disney Channel from 2009 to 2011 and starred someone named, oh, I'll just pull a name out of my hat, how about Demi Lovato.

Oh, and that reminds me, there's another actress who kind of went nuts playing the same role, though granted there are complications behind that story, but people now pretty much look at her work on Glee, or on Princess Protection Program or the Camp Rock movies (as cheesy as they were) and say, hey, she's not bad at all. 

At the end of the day it's just cheap, throwaway programming so I guess I can't really blame them for not wanting to put much effort into it. Rico Rodriguez is a bit of an odd choice for a guest star especially since he's closesly associated with "the enemy network," what with both his own work on ABC and his sister's on Austin & Ally. Then again, that might explain exactly why he's there. And speaking of Rico, it was the other Rico (who plays Ace McFumbles on Bella) who was the complaining snowflake, not Jace (he wasn't in that skit). The kid who played ChrisPo on 100 Things was the apple, along with his costar who plays Fenwick and the girl who plays Piper on Henry Danger. That was their sole contribution to this mess, and likewise Jace, Riele, Cree and Benjamin were stuck in the Guess the Gift skit (that's such a Dan Schneider skit to do, I'm not sure who wrote the snowflake one, maybe Scott Fellows?)

Yeah, when I'm bombarding you with random trivia and suppositions of various actresses' attitudes (especially ones where I've been told you don't know me! You don't know what I think!) for an episode/Christmas special review, it means there isn't much to review. You're really getting what you expect.

I'm not kidding when I say the Monstober "Man Behind the Mask" reveal was much better executed, and that was a three-minute long barely-veiled advertisement for Descendants (yet again).

Episode Grade: This really is the definition of a flat D right here. 
Episode MVP: It's a five-way tie between the little girl from the Thundermans who got shot at the wall from a catapult as if she's trying to get up the Wall from Game of Thrones, Dove Cameron for having a cute expression as Calum Worthy pulled the mask off her face to reveal she was the person in the mask during the Monstober episodes, Sofia Carson for when Calum Worthy also took the mask off her face revealing that it was also her who was in those Monstober episodes, so both she and Dove can remind you to watch Descendants, Demi Lovato for being on a show that actually knew how to do this, and finally, Debby Ryan for having excellent penmanship on her signature on all those legal notices she keeps sending me that I keep ignoring.

It's a canon fact that Aiden Gallagher's tongue has been all over Isabella Moner. It's outright stated in the episode's dialogue, right there, right out in the open, as plain as day. Also, likewise all over Jack Griffo.

They really did not think this entirely through. Anyway, Happy New Years' and a merry Martin Luther King Day!

Girl Meets the New Year (Girl Meets World)

What is it? Blah blah blah Girl Meets World you should know by now.

Right now, I'm really unsure about the future of this blog. As far as I know, both Unknown and Nick have fled the country so until I get some answers about where they went, I guess I'm just going to have to keep this thing from dying on my own. Let's talk about this episode first and foremost because.........I have some things I need to address here.

1. Why is the airing/production schedule for Girl Meets World so messed up? There were 30 episodes produced for season two and this was apparently the second-to-last one made. Keep in mind that this is a New Year's Eve episode and the next one is at their junior high graduation. What the hell is going on here?!?! I feel like the timeline on this show fluctuates so much these days, they should make a meta-joke about the whole thing. In this case, I really think the writers and producers need to get it together in terms of coming up with a production schedule that makes sense instead of having Disney Channel trying to interpret the whole thing. 

2. I noticed that of all the main characters on this show, Farkle annoys me the least. I was getting worried that the writers were going to start leaving him on the street for roadkill in the early goings, but he has played a major role in the second season as it has progressed. You know why he is the least annoying? BECAUSE HE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE LOVE TRIANGLE, IF YOU WANT TO CALL IT THAT. What is this? This is not a love triangle with any sort of development or intrigue or mystery. This is the same BS we saw in Texas, only that time, it was part of a 90-minute movie that was interesting and had everything people expected out of Girl Meets World when it first came onto the scene. This time, no. NO. You have to settle things and you have to settle them now, writers. You can't keep people waiting for something that might never be resolved. I swear, if you guys even think about dragging this out into season three, I'm going to rethink what I said about the Texas episodes. It's really sad because I know the writers can push themselves and give us episodes that shake the core of the show and keep us tuning in  the week after. You want to take a page out of Degrassi's playbook? Go ahead, because with classic Degrassi, they never slacked off and made sure you had something to chew on with the big storylines. This is baby steps writing. I don't want that. I want an ending, I want finality, I want these guys to pull the trigger and do something.

3. We still don't know how Lucas feels about anything. That's really dandy. Seriously, they better take care of that.

4. Well, Charlie's gone for the time being. I can't say I'll miss him because I never really cared about his character. In "Semi-Formal," which was an episode I really wasn't into at all, he was just there. Then in Part 3 of "Texas," they turned him into a creepy stalker trying to be cute and getting upset that everyone saw through him. I really don't know why they did that because that just soured me on him even further. We got more of that with this episode, but at least his last scene with Riley was genuinely emotional and heartfelt. Hey, they wrote Charlie well this time, like an actual human being. Go figure.

5. Farkle made the right decision to spill the beans. I feel like he is the audience surrogate, wanting this whole thing to be over like me. He knew Riley was never going to do it herself and she would let her feelings turn into secret resentment so in order to protect the friendships, he had to do what he personally believed was right. Putting Riley on the spot like that in front of all the kids on her roof on the first day of 2016? Not cool. But I understand his intentions and now that everyone knows about Riley's feelings, we can move on. PLEASE MOVE ON.

6. I like Smackle. She's dope and plays off everyone really well. 

7. This episode was a C for me. As a fan, it was exciting to see Farkle spill the beans just to see what would happen. As a reviewer, I know this is weak storytelling and an absolutely disappointing follow-up to the Texas episodes. The pacing was slow and uninteresting, the build-up was worthless in the end, and we are right back where we started. The season finale better come through because if we have to drag this out any further, I'm going to punch a wall. STOP WITH THE CLIFFHANGERS, WE GET IT. LOVE IS CRAZY. JUST STOP AND PULL THE DAMN TRIGGER ALREADY.

Whenever Unknown or Nick return from their sabbatical, they can add to this because I'm finished. This episode was ridiculous. If you want a good New Year's episode, try "Train of Fools" from Boy Meets World. Remember that show? The one show that would never do what its sequel series is doing right now? I bet Vince McMahon's name is in the writing credits for this episode. Don't believe me, check it again and you'll see it for three straight seconds.

I'm not quite dead or fled the country yet (though the latter is something I'm actually in the process of trying to make happen - the fleeing the country part, not the dead part). Sorry for coming back to this post after so long. Confession time: I haven't actually really seen this episode. Well...I've seen it three times, just not in a focused matter. The first time I was half-paying attention while working on some other stuff, the New Year's Eve airing I watched drunk (hey, New Year's Eve) and the New Year's Day airing I was actually working on the "All the Shows That Left Nickelodeon After iCarly Left" post. I have a vague sense of what's going on, that Smarkle is a thing now, also tween angst. And, uh, I believe that adequately and laconically summarizes the episode. Also, Miss What's Her Face is back for the second time in forever. 

I'm just going to tell you guys, right now. Out of a matter of principle, I actually feel divided about this episode. On the one hand, rarely does an overdose of angst make for great television (Sean from GMWReviewed can tell you about that and House). On the other hand, that shouldn't be an excuse for not visiting these topics. On the other hand (perhaps I should say the gripping hand), it seems like GMW is making the same mistake Austin & Ally (and tween/teen shows in general) do and overplay the drama and overdo the shipping in a straight-line grab for the demo, which tends to go fucking bonkers over shipping with little regard to other aspects of plot, story or narrative construction (coming in 2017: Two Ridiculously Attractive Teens Are Shipped Together, airing in between More Steps by Further Steps and Family Still Matters). 

I'd have to say that seems to be the biggest complaint about the show lately, that doubling-down on what the tween audience cares about. It's not necessarily something the adult audience cares much for. Furthermore, what tweens think is good relationship advice isn't necessarily what adults think is good relationship advice (mainly because tweens have absolute zero experience and wisdom in romance and are vulnerable to all sorts of really shitty advice as long as it makes them think they're going to land that perfect guy or girl by the final bell of sixth grade and all they need to do is patiently wait until legal marriage age, which is what puts their butts in front of that TV). A cynical simplification, yes, but tweens do tend to want to have their cake and eat it too with both a highly romanticized idea of relationships yet a lot of relationship drama at the same time for their entertainment. 

So, uh, I guess that's my evaluation of the episode, given what I've actually seen. I'd rate it a flat C, MVP is, I don't even really know. Put all their names on a dart board and see where the dart lands first. Quite frankly this is such alien territory I very honestly don't even know how to evaluate it. 8th grade was a long time ago, and I've never been a woman and never will be. I don't know what an 8th grade girl thinks or what is realistic in her life experience. There's enough ethos and pathos in other episodes and other shows - Girl Meets Brother, first or second season Jessie, Bella and the Bulldogs, Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, Justified - that I don't need to actually have been an 8th grade girl or her younger brother to feel what's going on (as opposed to simply knowing). My entire 6th grade romantic experience is admiring this ultra-hot Latina girl from afar, and while she was vaguely aware she had a thing for me, it wasn't mutual. She was just waaaay out of my league. It's my understanding that a lot of middle school relationships are like this and that 7th and 8th grade relationships and younger are pretty rare. Which is why these storylines resonate so much with this demo. It's wish fulfillment. If you're an adult viewer, you've either already have your wishes actually fulfilled in real life (and you're watching with the products of that fulfillment) or you've got psychological problems (which explains why I stick around). Adults watch Game of Thrones or Boardwalk Empire or Justified and etc. for wish fulfillment - vicariously experiencing Jon Snow shag that redhead wilding girl or Nucky Thompson gun down assholes with machine guns or Deputy Marshall Raylan Givens be a 21st century John Wayne, or Cam Newton nail that touchdown pass. 

What I'm wondering if there's a widening "demo" gap in entertainment and if tween entertainment is retreating in demo age. There's a certain sense to it - when Good Luck Charlie and Jessie were a thing, especially prior to Jessie's third season, it was at least partially reaching for girls and women roughly around Bridgit's and Debby's actual ages. But that demo has been going more for shows that would cause almost the whole country's supply of parents and moral guardians to scream at once if they ever aired on Disney Channel - namely Pretty Little Liars, but also shows on AMC and HBO. Even Bridgit and Debby themselves talk about how much they enjoy PLL, while never once talking about if they actually ever enjoyed their own shows. I suppose this explains the rather subtle shift in Jessie during its third season too, as they gave up trying to go for a very broad audience up to young adult women and just concentrated on the tweens. 

That said, to answer Mike's questions:

1. That's just Disney Channel for you. Some of it is probably practicality (how just things come together for scheduling) but it's kind of a mess even with that in consideration. I suppose I can explain in its own dedicated article.

2.-8. Yeah spot on pretty much.

Anyway, Merry Pearl Harbor Day and Happy New Year.