Bleh. Meh.
What is it? Hour-long sci-fi drama
Where did it air? On that network dedicated "entirely" to sci-fi, the one with the name that's properly pronounced "Cee-Fee"
Who stars in it? How the hell am I supposed to know?
Why are we reviewing this? Bleh. Meh.
IMDb page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3230854/
I know Season 1 had massive problems, especially towards the end, but when SyFy said S2 would be more "action-focused" all my fears were realized, in spades, doubled-down on, and then some. Season 2 is basically "All The Crappy Parts of Mass Effect 1, Especially The Quick-Time Events and The More Derpy 'Moralistic' Choices: The SyFy Series."
Yeah.
Season Grade: Bleh.
Season MVP: Meh.
Extra Thoughts:
- Bleh.
- Meh.
- Those scores are final BTW. It will go down in the books as officially having a "Bleh" score (the first ever for this blog) and having for an MVP listed as "Meh" (which is not a first for this blog).
Friday, April 7, 2017
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
Mutt & Stuff reviewed: Doggy Mermaid Island (S2E10)
This one's all on Mike, as in yes Mike on this blog
What is it? 30-minute single-cam(!) education/dog-themed TV show for, say, toddlers to pre-tweens (so say 5-9 though probably more like 5-7 age demo)
Where did it air? Nickelodeon/Nick Jr
Who stars in it? Calvin Millan, son of Cesar "The Dog Whisperer" Millan (both of whom are also executive producers/creators of this show, which I guess makes sense) as the main host. Victor Yerrid and Meegan Godfrey are listed in the IMDb credits as "Bow Wow" and "Stuff." Raini Rodriguez was a guest star in an episode but sorry this ain't that one. Oh, and apparently it stars the "Krofft Puppets," named for another one of the series' producers/creators (sorry, Lara Croft doesn't appear here).
Why are we reviewing this? Well aside from outing myself as a PAW Patrol fan in the last review... because if you remember a long time ago - about a year and a half ago in October/November 2015 I challenged both members of this blog and Girl Meets World Reviewed to review a show each of us would pick, and Mike picked Muff & Stuff, so here we go.
And it only took us a year and a half to commit to one.
So, ok, very first impression (besides the admittedly catchy theme tune) Calvin drives a frickin' dog puppet. No, really. It's surreal as all hell.
Ok, so, that's kind of a lie as that's not my true first impression (I saw the one with Raini in it which is how I know she's in an episode). Overall I don't think describing it as "2016 Pee Wee Herman's Playhouse but Dog Themed" is inaccurate at all, and I do think that's a major contributor to the show's popularity to begin with. It's a very bright color palate for sure, especially for a live-action show, and it's very sharply shot too (definitely taking advantage of that 1080p signal that I've only recently gotten to take advantage of - yay moving away from oppressive expensive and limited cable packages in favor of affordable feature-laden ones! Even if the slightest cough can interrupt the signal, no wonder people nowadays just cut the friggin' cord altogether....)
The songs are catchy, but in a somewhat winking, knowingly cheesy kind of way (again, not so much a Pee Wee's Playhouse influence as much as a knowing rip-off but dog-themed). It's a definite contrast from the songs in, say, both Bubble Guppies and Shimmer and Shine (yes I'm really painting myself out to be a man-child again here in actually knowing this stuff) that are trying to go for extremely catchy mainstream pop but with educational and moral message-themed lyrics.
"Wait, we have a sailboat?" Ah, gotta love the situational upgrade that these preschool/early gradeschool shows tend to have a few times per season, even moreso than the late middle school/high school-demo shows this blog usually reviews.
"What, dogs on a boat?" Insert Samuel L. Jackson dank meme reference in here. Also I'm regretting using the header normally reserved for a direct quote from the episode to rag on Mike, so I guess it serves me right.
The sailboat is effectively a glorified 3D cardboard cutout that has a real deck you can stand on. It literally looks like a playhouse you can have in your own backyard or even living room. I'm actually impressed it's apparently a real structure and not an actual cardboard cutout everybody's just standing behind. Probably because since this actually is a single-cam production, with a boom cam they're definitely making use of, and it definitely shows that even just the choice of what techniques you use to film the episode in the first place can go a long way towards adding polish and making up for any shortcomings elsewhere (which is why TV show enthusiasts make a really huge deal out of single-cam productions, but the single-cam process itself tends to be time-consuming and expensive which is why until starting last decade it wasn't exactly common for sitcoms at all to be single-cam and why it's still very much a novelty in KidComs - it can be cheaper to construct an entirely new set for just a single episode than it is to simply move a boom cam around for the entirety of that same episode on a location shoot, which is why they go through the trouble of doing exactly that). It also explains the "bottle show" feel of the main dog school set and why when they venture outside it's mostly painfully obvious green screen composited backgrounds with actors rarely changing position - which can occasionally give the effect that it's actually a multi-cam with some schizophrenic camera angles and arguably help kind of defeat the purpose but whatever.
WTF is up with these random cats and the incidental music that implies they're bad guys? Are they true antagonists or do they just pop up to be the show's Waldorf and Statler?
"Hmm, seems that mer-dogs don't speak human!" I know this is from The Dog Whisperer so there might be an insistence that dogs know English (and there's actually scientific study that suggests at least to some degree they do in the same sense we ourselves do, in the sense that they're not just barking in Pavlovian fashion whenever they hear humans make that nose that we interpret as "Speak" but they actually understand the word "Speak" itself) but it doesn't make it any less strange to say.
Also we have this weird Noodles the Mouse? Huh?
Yeah, sorry but it's very obvious that Calvin Millan isn't a great actor at all - I mean to be brutally honest he comes across as having the same talent as a middle-schooler with no interest in drama and doing either an English class presentation or some sort of thrown-together play for community service credit. But then again I guess you don't really need to be an actor to pass for this kind of show.
...this is a really soft show even for the expected demo. If you've ever had one of those cheesy plays put together in your elementary school auditorium with one of those local or traveling groups that want to teach kids, uhh, stuff...well that's basically this but on Nick Jr. It's extremely soft in plot, which puts it in a major contrast to even other Nick Jr. shows including Blaze and the Monster Machines or Bubble Guppies, to say nothing of shows that actually are very plot-focused like Shimmer and Shine and PAW Patrol. It might be cheap, colorful and effective entertainment for 6 year olds but for an adult - even an adult that likes Bubble Guppies and PAW Patrol, it feels like a 30 minute bombardment of empty calories.
Not that there's anything wrong with that - I do love a good soda more than just now and then, after all (which my gut and dental hygiene pretty much attest to). But as I just implied, it's not exactly a good thing to binge on, and Mike's really gonna have to come in here and explain this one to me.
Episode Grade: A flat C. This really is the textbook picture of what this grade looks like, folks, even when adjusting to demo considerations.
Episode MVP: The actress playing the mermaid by default because she actually shows off the fact that she is a trained actress. I can't even find her name because IMDb doesn't even list this episode, and the big annoying bar that tells you how much of the episode is left covers up the teeny tiny little credits and I can't even find her in there anyway. Yeah, Nickelodeon is very much interested in telling you who's in the episode which I must imagine makes SAG very, very happy.
Extra thoughts
- Yeah, I guess I did promise Andi Mack would be the next review so yeah I guess I kind of lied to you, sorry.
- Again, Mike's really, really going to have to explain this one. I'm just...yeah.
What is it? 30-minute single-cam(!) education/dog-themed TV show for, say, toddlers to pre-tweens (so say 5-9 though probably more like 5-7 age demo)
Where did it air? Nickelodeon/Nick Jr
Who stars in it? Calvin Millan, son of Cesar "The Dog Whisperer" Millan (both of whom are also executive producers/creators of this show, which I guess makes sense) as the main host. Victor Yerrid and Meegan Godfrey are listed in the IMDb credits as "Bow Wow" and "Stuff." Raini Rodriguez was a guest star in an episode but sorry this ain't that one. Oh, and apparently it stars the "Krofft Puppets," named for another one of the series' producers/creators (sorry, Lara Croft doesn't appear here).
Why are we reviewing this? Well aside from outing myself as a PAW Patrol fan in the last review... because if you remember a long time ago - about a year and a half ago in October/November 2015 I challenged both members of this blog and Girl Meets World Reviewed to review a show each of us would pick, and Mike picked Muff & Stuff, so here we go.
And it only took us a year and a half to commit to one.
So, ok, very first impression (besides the admittedly catchy theme tune) Calvin drives a frickin' dog puppet. No, really. It's surreal as all hell.
Ok, so, that's kind of a lie as that's not my true first impression (I saw the one with Raini in it which is how I know she's in an episode). Overall I don't think describing it as "2016 Pee Wee Herman's Playhouse but Dog Themed" is inaccurate at all, and I do think that's a major contributor to the show's popularity to begin with. It's a very bright color palate for sure, especially for a live-action show, and it's very sharply shot too (definitely taking advantage of that 1080p signal that I've only recently gotten to take advantage of - yay moving away from oppressive expensive and limited cable packages in favor of affordable feature-laden ones! Even if the slightest cough can interrupt the signal, no wonder people nowadays just cut the friggin' cord altogether....)
The songs are catchy, but in a somewhat winking, knowingly cheesy kind of way (again, not so much a Pee Wee's Playhouse influence as much as a knowing rip-off but dog-themed). It's a definite contrast from the songs in, say, both Bubble Guppies and Shimmer and Shine (yes I'm really painting myself out to be a man-child again here in actually knowing this stuff) that are trying to go for extremely catchy mainstream pop but with educational and moral message-themed lyrics.
"Wait, we have a sailboat?" Ah, gotta love the situational upgrade that these preschool/early gradeschool shows tend to have a few times per season, even moreso than the late middle school/high school-demo shows this blog usually reviews.
"What, dogs on a boat?" Insert Samuel L. Jackson dank meme reference in here. Also I'm regretting using the header normally reserved for a direct quote from the episode to rag on Mike, so I guess it serves me right.
The sailboat is effectively a glorified 3D cardboard cutout that has a real deck you can stand on. It literally looks like a playhouse you can have in your own backyard or even living room. I'm actually impressed it's apparently a real structure and not an actual cardboard cutout everybody's just standing behind. Probably because since this actually is a single-cam production, with a boom cam they're definitely making use of, and it definitely shows that even just the choice of what techniques you use to film the episode in the first place can go a long way towards adding polish and making up for any shortcomings elsewhere (which is why TV show enthusiasts make a really huge deal out of single-cam productions, but the single-cam process itself tends to be time-consuming and expensive which is why until starting last decade it wasn't exactly common for sitcoms at all to be single-cam and why it's still very much a novelty in KidComs - it can be cheaper to construct an entirely new set for just a single episode than it is to simply move a boom cam around for the entirety of that same episode on a location shoot, which is why they go through the trouble of doing exactly that). It also explains the "bottle show" feel of the main dog school set and why when they venture outside it's mostly painfully obvious green screen composited backgrounds with actors rarely changing position - which can occasionally give the effect that it's actually a multi-cam with some schizophrenic camera angles and arguably help kind of defeat the purpose but whatever.
WTF is up with these random cats and the incidental music that implies they're bad guys? Are they true antagonists or do they just pop up to be the show's Waldorf and Statler?
"Hmm, seems that mer-dogs don't speak human!" I know this is from The Dog Whisperer so there might be an insistence that dogs know English (and there's actually scientific study that suggests at least to some degree they do in the same sense we ourselves do, in the sense that they're not just barking in Pavlovian fashion whenever they hear humans make that nose that we interpret as "Speak" but they actually understand the word "Speak" itself) but it doesn't make it any less strange to say.
Also we have this weird Noodles the Mouse? Huh?
Yeah, sorry but it's very obvious that Calvin Millan isn't a great actor at all - I mean to be brutally honest he comes across as having the same talent as a middle-schooler with no interest in drama and doing either an English class presentation or some sort of thrown-together play for community service credit. But then again I guess you don't really need to be an actor to pass for this kind of show.
...this is a really soft show even for the expected demo. If you've ever had one of those cheesy plays put together in your elementary school auditorium with one of those local or traveling groups that want to teach kids, uhh, stuff...well that's basically this but on Nick Jr. It's extremely soft in plot, which puts it in a major contrast to even other Nick Jr. shows including Blaze and the Monster Machines or Bubble Guppies, to say nothing of shows that actually are very plot-focused like Shimmer and Shine and PAW Patrol. It might be cheap, colorful and effective entertainment for 6 year olds but for an adult - even an adult that likes Bubble Guppies and PAW Patrol, it feels like a 30 minute bombardment of empty calories.
Not that there's anything wrong with that - I do love a good soda more than just now and then, after all (which my gut and dental hygiene pretty much attest to). But as I just implied, it's not exactly a good thing to binge on, and Mike's really gonna have to come in here and explain this one to me.
Episode Grade: A flat C. This really is the textbook picture of what this grade looks like, folks, even when adjusting to demo considerations.
Episode MVP: The actress playing the mermaid by default because she actually shows off the fact that she is a trained actress. I can't even find her name because IMDb doesn't even list this episode, and the big annoying bar that tells you how much of the episode is left covers up the teeny tiny little credits and I can't even find her in there anyway. Yeah, Nickelodeon is very much interested in telling you who's in the episode which I must imagine makes SAG very, very happy.
Extra thoughts
- Yeah, I guess I did promise Andi Mack would be the next review so yeah I guess I kind of lied to you, sorry.
- Again, Mike's really, really going to have to explain this one. I'm just...yeah.
Monday, April 3, 2017
Some more minor review formatting notes (this time about how reviews are actually written)
So, yeah. Just a quick note - since we've been doing a lot of short, one-paragraph or even one-sentence reviews lately (especially back in February and early March there are quite a few) I've decided that we're going to have a special "Mini-Review" category from now on. It's not that big a change at all from our normal review style - you'll still have the whole who/what/where headers we have for all our reviews now, still have movie/episode MVPs, extra thoughts (in fact don't be surprised if the extra thoughts section is many, many times larger than the actual review itself) and etc. The only thing is that now the header will say "Mini Review" so you get to know the review itself is probably going to be a few sentences long (with a 1,500-word Extra Thoughts section) and with a link to the IMDb profile since we usually go into plot and story details in the main body of our full reviews and needless to say that's a bit hard to do in a few sentences usually more useful as pathetic exercises in sarcasm than actual reviews.
The first review demonstrating the new format - Eurotrip - is right below!
The first review demonstrating the new format - Eurotrip - is right below!
Eurotrip: Movie Mini-Review
Well, there's your R-rating right there.
What is it? Theatrical-release "teen comedy" originally released in 2004, during a period where bad teen comedies and American Pie-clones roamed the Earth.
Where did it air? Well being a theatrical release from over a decade ago it should be easy enough to find in some form, but in this case I recorded it off TBS on my DVR
Who stars in it? Michelle Trachtenberg is probably going to be the biggest name in it by far (and really, except for weirdo niche "enthusiasts" like me she's probably never going to be that much of a big name to begin with, but hey at least she was in Buffy and the first and "real" Harriet the Spy movie) and Kristen Kruek makes a glorified cameo in it. And I have to take back the comment about Michelle Trachtenberg being the biggest name in it (sorry Michelle :( ) but apparently Matt Frickin' Damon is in it, though I only found out about this from looking up the IMDb credits. And oh, some guys named Scott Mechlowicz and Jacob Pitts are in it.
Why are we reviewing this? Well I could always pull out the "Michelle Trachtenberg was the first Harriet the Spy and she was in Buffy too" excuse but really, b'cuz.
Full IMDb page with summary: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356150/
So, ok, it's funny for all the wrong, 12-year-old fratboy reasons...but hey, at least it's funny.
Movie Grade: Between a C'ish and a C+'ish. Like I said, it's funny, but it's funny for all the wrong, 12-year-old-frat-boy reasons (it really shows off its age and the sensibilities of the last decade) but at the end of the day it's still funny.
Movie MVP: I really do feel Travis Wester really does the comedy heavy lifting, plus I didn't mention him in "Who stars in it?" so here you go, Travis.
Extra Thoughts:
- first some blog errata: I know you're owed a few reviews here and there and they're coming. The big question I keep getting asked lately is have I seen Andi Mack? And the answer is: Yes. What do I think about it. You'll have to stay tuned for the review, sorry, which can come anywhere between tomorrow and Sunday. I'll try to fast-track the Tangled movie review and Tangled: Before Ever After review within that time too (though don't expect more than a review per day, and between the three it's no question prioritizing the Andi Mack review first, both from relevancy and just quality - I know there are a lot of Tangled fans out there but one way to tell what I think of a movie or episode before I even put the review up is how much I simply put it off especially in favor of other reviews). I also want to throw in another essay about the importance of tween/teen entertainment that's going to come in there too, and I have another Barbie movie review! (that one will have to wait for me to find time to actually watch it first, which might not be until Sunday or even sometime the first half of next week...hopefully).
- As for Hunter Street, I've decided to delay the review of that until the season one/series finale Friday so I can give it a whole series review, but if you want spoilers for a review of all things: so far it does things...decently, it does other things...not so decently and it's looking like another C'ish to C+'ish, probably in C+ territory if that strikes you as a positive or if that means anything. Another spoiler alert: yeah Tangled and the "DCOM" (more on that in the dedicated review) are pretty much going to be in that territory too.
- So that's a lot of mehtastic-ism being thrown around a lot lately (well, into the future) which is one of the reasons why I want to write up an essay to talk at least in some part about some good stuff in tween/teen entertainment. Still, some of you might be curious what I think is actually good on Disney and Nick lately, especially since Thundermans seems to be on a mini-hiatus and a lot if not most of the live-action multi-cam stuff on Disney Channel right now is kind of garbage. Well, this "Tales of the TMNT" (the 5th season of TMNT '12 of course, I really don't know why they retitled it so that my DVR can miss it) hasn't really missed a beat so far, I like how the new season's turned out to far. Uhhh...Power Rangers: Ninja Steel is pretty decent too (yeah, I know the "Disney Channel and Nickelodeon Review Blog" and "I really liked Barbie: Star Light Adventure more than I should so I recorded Barbie" Video Game Hero" should've been a big warning sign for you, but now that I'm typing it out even I'm kind of surprised just how much of a man-child I'm really painting myself to be). But what I'm really getting into lately is, well....
- So one of our wiseguy commentators wants me to point out the best part of the movie so here you go:
What is it? Theatrical-release "teen comedy" originally released in 2004, during a period where bad teen comedies and American Pie-clones roamed the Earth.
Where did it air? Well being a theatrical release from over a decade ago it should be easy enough to find in some form, but in this case I recorded it off TBS on my DVR
Who stars in it? Michelle Trachtenberg is probably going to be the biggest name in it by far (and really, except for weirdo niche "enthusiasts" like me she's probably never going to be that much of a big name to begin with, but hey at least she was in Buffy and the first and "real" Harriet the Spy movie) and Kristen Kruek makes a glorified cameo in it. And I have to take back the comment about Michelle Trachtenberg being the biggest name in it (sorry Michelle :( ) but apparently Matt Frickin' Damon is in it, though I only found out about this from looking up the IMDb credits. And oh, some guys named Scott Mechlowicz and Jacob Pitts are in it.
Why are we reviewing this? Well I could always pull out the "Michelle Trachtenberg was the first Harriet the Spy and she was in Buffy too" excuse but really, b'cuz.
Full IMDb page with summary: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356150/
So, ok, it's funny for all the wrong, 12-year-old fratboy reasons...but hey, at least it's funny.
Movie Grade: Between a C'ish and a C+'ish. Like I said, it's funny, but it's funny for all the wrong, 12-year-old-frat-boy reasons (it really shows off its age and the sensibilities of the last decade) but at the end of the day it's still funny.
Movie MVP: I really do feel Travis Wester really does the comedy heavy lifting, plus I didn't mention him in "Who stars in it?" so here you go, Travis.
Extra Thoughts:
- first some blog errata: I know you're owed a few reviews here and there and they're coming. The big question I keep getting asked lately is have I seen Andi Mack? And the answer is: Yes. What do I think about it. You'll have to stay tuned for the review, sorry, which can come anywhere between tomorrow and Sunday. I'll try to fast-track the Tangled movie review and Tangled: Before Ever After review within that time too (though don't expect more than a review per day, and between the three it's no question prioritizing the Andi Mack review first, both from relevancy and just quality - I know there are a lot of Tangled fans out there but one way to tell what I think of a movie or episode before I even put the review up is how much I simply put it off especially in favor of other reviews). I also want to throw in another essay about the importance of tween/teen entertainment that's going to come in there too, and I have another Barbie movie review! (that one will have to wait for me to find time to actually watch it first, which might not be until Sunday or even sometime the first half of next week...hopefully).
- As for Hunter Street, I've decided to delay the review of that until the season one/series finale Friday so I can give it a whole series review, but if you want spoilers for a review of all things: so far it does things...decently, it does other things...not so decently and it's looking like another C'ish to C+'ish, probably in C+ territory if that strikes you as a positive or if that means anything. Another spoiler alert: yeah Tangled and the "DCOM" (more on that in the dedicated review) are pretty much going to be in that territory too.
- So that's a lot of mehtastic-ism being thrown around a lot lately (well, into the future) which is one of the reasons why I want to write up an essay to talk at least in some part about some good stuff in tween/teen entertainment. Still, some of you might be curious what I think is actually good on Disney and Nick lately, especially since Thundermans seems to be on a mini-hiatus and a lot if not most of the live-action multi-cam stuff on Disney Channel right now is kind of garbage. Well, this "Tales of the TMNT" (the 5th season of TMNT '12 of course, I really don't know why they retitled it so that my DVR can miss it) hasn't really missed a beat so far, I like how the new season's turned out to far. Uhhh...Power Rangers: Ninja Steel is pretty decent too (yeah, I know the "Disney Channel and Nickelodeon Review Blog" and "I really liked Barbie: Star Light Adventure more than I should so I recorded Barbie" Video Game Hero" should've been a big warning sign for you, but now that I'm typing it out even I'm kind of surprised just how much of a man-child I'm really painting myself to be). But what I'm really getting into lately is, well....
...yeah, I've probably doomed myself to be single for the rest of my life, if not being put on some list.
- As for extra thoughts about the actual movie we're reviewing, eh...nothing really comes out to mind besides the rather very little I've already said, other than, I dunno...I guess I could say something like "I think Michelle Trachtenberg's pretty hot" or "the girl at the photo development counter who went behind the back alley with Travis Wester's character is pretty hot too" but per my new year's resolution for the blog empty objectifying comments like that get shoved to the very back (and comments like that are probably another reason why I'll be single for the rest of my life/get put on some list).
- So one of our wiseguy commentators wants me to point out the best part of the movie so here you go:
Saturday, March 25, 2017
Holy New Layout, Batman!
EDIT: Nevermind, I miss having all the previous blog posts readily available to the sidebar at right.
Yeah obviously I'm still playing around with layout options. Going back to the old style is always an option if you hate the new stuff that much (I'm not sure if I'm in love with them, but I do think exploring new style options for the blog is important to make the blog look more contemporary and at least a little more professional, especially if they come conveniently pre-packaged so I can still be lazy about it). A note to Mike: you can click on the "Powered by Blogger" button at the very bottom to write new posts or make edits. The "Make a New Post" button was convenient, but I'll still experiment for the time being.
Yeah obviously I'm still playing around with layout options. Going back to the old style is always an option if you hate the new stuff that much (I'm not sure if I'm in love with them, but I do think exploring new style options for the blog is important to make the blog look more contemporary and at least a little more professional, especially if they come conveniently pre-packaged so I can still be lazy about it). A note to Mike: you can click on the "Powered by Blogger" button at the very bottom to write new posts or make edits. The "Make a New Post" button was convenient, but I'll still experiment for the time being.
Friday, March 24, 2017
Liv and Maddie: Cali Style Reviewed: End-a-Rooney (S5E15; Series Finale)
Au revoir, Bits and Pieces. You were too beautiful for this world.
What is it? 24 minute multi-cam KidCom on Disney Channel, and after close to four years and at 80 episodes the series finale.
Where did it air? Disney Channel
Who stars in it? Dove Cameron (and Dove Cameron), Joey Bragg, Tenzig Norgay Trainor, Kali Rocha, Lauren Lindsay Donsiz, with guest appearances by Ryan McCartan, Jessica Marie Garcia, Shak Ghacha and Chloe East
Why are we reviewing this? Well by now you guys should know my love for Liv and Maddie, if nothing else from the post immediately below and hey it's the series finale.
So, that's the end of Liv and Maddie: Cali Style! and, well, the whole thing period. No more adventures of Liv and Maddie Rooney or Joey or Parker or any of that crew from here on out, sorry. No spin-offs like with Jessie-to-Bunk'd, it just ends here.
Now, of course it's hard to give "closure," so to speak, to a multi-cam family sitcom. With certain shows, and dramas in particular, there's a clear-cut end goal, and it's easy for a drama to simply conclude on whether or not that end-goal is reached for whatever characters (depending on who the characters are, most typically for the good guys vs. bad guys, the end-goals are diametrically opposed to each other, of course). But when you're just watching the daily shenanigans of a random family, it can be hard to define at what point the story should end short of whenever contractual obligations run out or when the network just pulls the plug and you're left with wherever the end happens to fall (ala I Didn't Do It and at least to some extent Best Friends Whenever and even Girl Meets World). About half a year ago I was lucky enough to drop by a novel con with Scott Westerfeld as guest speaker, who said something along the lines of "you get invested into these characters, and at one point the story ends and you're left hanging. The story ends there but the characters go on, and you're left wondering what happens to these characters?" No fictional story can go on forever so at some point it has to end, and it either has to find a natural end point or just settle on what seems to serve as best. So how well does End-a-Rooney serve with that in comparison to some other finales that have come and gone since this blog began?
Most of these Disney Channel multi-cam sitcoms, especially the low-concept ones like Liv and Maddie (and Good Luck Charlie) choose that natural end-point as being when the family pretty much blows up due to everyone leaving, usually when the main star's character leaves for college (again, as with Good Luck Charlie). Well, Liv and Maddie pulled a fast one on us and had Maddie go to college at the beginning of Season 4 and with Liv being busy with her show career, but nonetheless had been steadily building up and setting a point where indeed the whole family will be blown up with everyone going their separate directions - Maddie will be going to build tiny houses for the summer (hey! that episode ended up being an important plot point!); Liv's Broadway career will take place over the summer to not interfere with Sing-it-Louder! Season 2; Joey will go on a stand-up tour over the summer and Parker's going to spend an entire year at the BioDome with Val. Granted once summer is over most of them will be coming back to California - but Karen's coming back to Wisconsin once the house is finished right after summer, meaning there's no way the family will be together ever again. It's a very natural thing for most families, and it really does represent the end not only for the Rooneys but for any real cohesion for the show after that so a suitable finale point it serves.
Before it gets to that point though, Karen wants to spend one last Summer of Rooney, but since the kids' plans now take up the whole summer, yadda yadda just watch the episode to see how it resolves. The important thing is, it does manage to tie up all the loose ends brought throughout the course of the series and in the episode itself and it provides really all the emotional closure you can ask for.
So how does it compare to other finales? Yeah I think it's far and away the best one so far - the only one that comes close is the Austin & Ally finale with its random, dramatic time jumps that show us where the characters ultimately end up and even going so far as to show the families they start (if anything it went overboard in showing us how the characters ended up). The Jessie one was...well, I still maintain pretty lame with its insistence that it spend over half the episode showing us how much Pamela Eells O'Connell regrets she isn't working on Game of Thrones instead, and we all know how much the Girl Meets World finale simply fell into the same exact pattern and expectations that show had overall.
So yeah, I thought it was pretty fitting. If you want to know any more thoughts I have about the finale or the series overall...I think I pretty much already covered that in my last post down below. So, uh, take it over Mike!
Episode Grade: A. It did what it needed to do and it did it rather well. I hesitate to say it did it superbly, but I feel very comfortable giving it that full A.
Episode MVP: Man, everyone is just expecting to give it to Dove Cameron automatically, aren't they? Yeah, it is, but I really want to give it to Joey Bragg. I'm really, really tempted to just pull one of those "I'll name everyone" bits because it's really become a whole ensemble with the cast which is more than I can say for other shows where you clearly have distinct, separate archetypes fulfilling roles rather than players and characters meshing together to create something bigger as is what I feel is the case for this show.
...ah, what the heck. Episode MVP gets to be the entire core cast. Better in Stereo, and yadda yadda.
Series Grade: A-. Again, I hesitate to give it higher...but I really hesitate to go so low as a B+ even.
...aw, heck with it. I'm giving the entire series a full A too. If you really want to know why, read the blog post immediately below this one, and after all that I can't see myself justifying going any lower. It really was a show that grew compared to what people might typically expect on this network (and indeed, like a lot of other shows). Stuck in the Middle might get to that point themselves, but not since Good Luck Charlie at least have we seen a show that's managed to really grow in such a natural, familiar way.
Extra thoughts
- Interestingly enough, Liv and Maddie is joined by Austin & Ally as the only Disney Channel live-action series so far to go four seasons without an hour-long special anywhere in there, including the finale (though the final two episodes of A&A got arbitrarily mashed together into an hour-long special, but that doesn't count especially since they've aired separately in reruns since). The closest it gets to that is actually on a completely different series, with Jessie's Aloha Holidays With Parker and Joey.
- Speaking of Austin & Ally they seem to be doing a A&A S4 marathon tomorrow right after the End-a-Rooney replay (you get to see pre-Ruby Lauren Lindsey Donzis again!) and yeah, they do list the two episodes that made up the A&A finale separately "Musicals & Moving On;" "Duets & Destiny"). Since this will actually be the first time I've seen them since the finale now over a year ago, I'll record them and take another look-see.
- So we get an explanation about the so-called "confession cam" segments! And as dorky as I tend to be I think it's actually a pretty nifty one, and it even recalls the original pilot pitch for what would become this show.
- And in the process we get an explanation about the exact nature of Falcon's origin story. Wow they're really hitting it out of the park with closing all these loose threads!
- By my count pretty much all the fan favorite guest characters were at least included by the penultimate episode, minus Benjamin King who has been a complete no-show this entire final season for reasons I simply am not privy to. We got the entire Dream last time (Andy and Holden) along with Evan and Artie and here we have Diggie and one of my favorites, Dump Truck (who gives us the top quote for this review). Actually, come to think of it, we don't get Josh although he did get his own episode and Dump Truck at least name-drops him.
- And I see Bunk'd is trying to pull what GMW did to Jessie's finale with an upstaging featuring Lou (probably one of the best characters, or at least one of the ones that comes closest to being "good") potentially leaving the show, except it's a complete fakeout and the execution is less like the actual one single good part of Meets Texas and more like...well, like most of the rest of Girl Meets World
- Yes I have a tendency to rag on Girl Meets World deal with it
- So howabout that Disney Channel rebranding? I was kind of wondering why they were holding on to the winter bumpers a week longer than necessary and figured they'd probably wanted to debut the spring bumpers during the LaM finale and Tangled: the Series proper premiere, but I wasn't exactly expecting a complete new graphics language (well, I was, but only since last night when I read about it on Nick and More - which is an excellent resource, BTW, and I highly urge you to check it out). So who wore it better: the new Nickelodeon design language, or the new Disney Channel one? Personally...I swear they're ripping each other off as far as I'm concerned so I'd call it a draw, but it's better than the previous rather forgettable and sometimes even downright annoying (especially during Monstober and Dis The Season or whatever) graphics language Disney Channel premiered with the Girl Meets World premiere (and no this doesn't count as ragging on GMW yet again either) - though I did really like the season-specific bumpers and I'll miss them.
- Yup, still no Tangled: the original Pixar movie and Tangled Before Ever After review, nor no Hunter Street review and we're already halfway through that series. Maybe...some...time.
- For that matter we never reviewed Mako Mermaids, Backstage, The Lodge or Ride. Well guess what I still have all those episodes on my DVR, and I better get to actually watching them before they expire off it, so maybe one day too. We never reviewed The Other Kingdom either but...I think I still remember that series well enough. I know Mike isn't the biggest fan of it but maybe it means he just remembers it more!
- Again, if this seems rather skimpy for a review of the finale of one of my most favorite series in the network's entire history, and what may very well be that network's absolute best, refer to the previous post where I think I ended up putting all the best emotional thoughts I really can already.
- And hey, if Disney Channel and Nickelodeon are going to do major style revamps, why not this blog? Input, ideas, feedback blah blah blah.
What is it? 24 minute multi-cam KidCom on Disney Channel, and after close to four years and at 80 episodes the series finale.
Where did it air? Disney Channel
Who stars in it? Dove Cameron (and Dove Cameron), Joey Bragg, Tenzig Norgay Trainor, Kali Rocha, Lauren Lindsay Donsiz, with guest appearances by Ryan McCartan, Jessica Marie Garcia, Shak Ghacha and Chloe East
Why are we reviewing this? Well by now you guys should know my love for Liv and Maddie, if nothing else from the post immediately below and hey it's the series finale.
So, that's the end of Liv and Maddie: Cali Style! and, well, the whole thing period. No more adventures of Liv and Maddie Rooney or Joey or Parker or any of that crew from here on out, sorry. No spin-offs like with Jessie-to-Bunk'd, it just ends here.
Now, of course it's hard to give "closure," so to speak, to a multi-cam family sitcom. With certain shows, and dramas in particular, there's a clear-cut end goal, and it's easy for a drama to simply conclude on whether or not that end-goal is reached for whatever characters (depending on who the characters are, most typically for the good guys vs. bad guys, the end-goals are diametrically opposed to each other, of course). But when you're just watching the daily shenanigans of a random family, it can be hard to define at what point the story should end short of whenever contractual obligations run out or when the network just pulls the plug and you're left with wherever the end happens to fall (ala I Didn't Do It and at least to some extent Best Friends Whenever and even Girl Meets World). About half a year ago I was lucky enough to drop by a novel con with Scott Westerfeld as guest speaker, who said something along the lines of "you get invested into these characters, and at one point the story ends and you're left hanging. The story ends there but the characters go on, and you're left wondering what happens to these characters?" No fictional story can go on forever so at some point it has to end, and it either has to find a natural end point or just settle on what seems to serve as best. So how well does End-a-Rooney serve with that in comparison to some other finales that have come and gone since this blog began?
Most of these Disney Channel multi-cam sitcoms, especially the low-concept ones like Liv and Maddie (and Good Luck Charlie) choose that natural end-point as being when the family pretty much blows up due to everyone leaving, usually when the main star's character leaves for college (again, as with Good Luck Charlie). Well, Liv and Maddie pulled a fast one on us and had Maddie go to college at the beginning of Season 4 and with Liv being busy with her show career, but nonetheless had been steadily building up and setting a point where indeed the whole family will be blown up with everyone going their separate directions - Maddie will be going to build tiny houses for the summer (hey! that episode ended up being an important plot point!); Liv's Broadway career will take place over the summer to not interfere with Sing-it-Louder! Season 2; Joey will go on a stand-up tour over the summer and Parker's going to spend an entire year at the BioDome with Val. Granted once summer is over most of them will be coming back to California - but Karen's coming back to Wisconsin once the house is finished right after summer, meaning there's no way the family will be together ever again. It's a very natural thing for most families, and it really does represent the end not only for the Rooneys but for any real cohesion for the show after that so a suitable finale point it serves.
Before it gets to that point though, Karen wants to spend one last Summer of Rooney, but since the kids' plans now take up the whole summer, yadda yadda just watch the episode to see how it resolves. The important thing is, it does manage to tie up all the loose ends brought throughout the course of the series and in the episode itself and it provides really all the emotional closure you can ask for.
So how does it compare to other finales? Yeah I think it's far and away the best one so far - the only one that comes close is the Austin & Ally finale with its random, dramatic time jumps that show us where the characters ultimately end up and even going so far as to show the families they start (if anything it went overboard in showing us how the characters ended up). The Jessie one was...well, I still maintain pretty lame with its insistence that it spend over half the episode showing us how much Pamela Eells O'Connell regrets she isn't working on Game of Thrones instead, and we all know how much the Girl Meets World finale simply fell into the same exact pattern and expectations that show had overall.
So yeah, I thought it was pretty fitting. If you want to know any more thoughts I have about the finale or the series overall...I think I pretty much already covered that in my last post down below. So, uh, take it over Mike!
Episode Grade: A. It did what it needed to do and it did it rather well. I hesitate to say it did it superbly, but I feel very comfortable giving it that full A.
Episode MVP: Man, everyone is just expecting to give it to Dove Cameron automatically, aren't they? Yeah, it is, but I really want to give it to Joey Bragg. I'm really, really tempted to just pull one of those "I'll name everyone" bits because it's really become a whole ensemble with the cast which is more than I can say for other shows where you clearly have distinct, separate archetypes fulfilling roles rather than players and characters meshing together to create something bigger as is what I feel is the case for this show.
...ah, what the heck. Episode MVP gets to be the entire core cast. Better in Stereo, and yadda yadda.
Series Grade: A-. Again, I hesitate to give it higher...but I really hesitate to go so low as a B+ even.
...aw, heck with it. I'm giving the entire series a full A too. If you really want to know why, read the blog post immediately below this one, and after all that I can't see myself justifying going any lower. It really was a show that grew compared to what people might typically expect on this network (and indeed, like a lot of other shows). Stuck in the Middle might get to that point themselves, but not since Good Luck Charlie at least have we seen a show that's managed to really grow in such a natural, familiar way.
Extra thoughts
- Interestingly enough, Liv and Maddie is joined by Austin & Ally as the only Disney Channel live-action series so far to go four seasons without an hour-long special anywhere in there, including the finale (though the final two episodes of A&A got arbitrarily mashed together into an hour-long special, but that doesn't count especially since they've aired separately in reruns since). The closest it gets to that is actually on a completely different series, with Jessie's Aloha Holidays With Parker and Joey.
- Speaking of Austin & Ally they seem to be doing a A&A S4 marathon tomorrow right after the End-a-Rooney replay (you get to see pre-Ruby Lauren Lindsey Donzis again!) and yeah, they do list the two episodes that made up the A&A finale separately "Musicals & Moving On;" "Duets & Destiny"). Since this will actually be the first time I've seen them since the finale now over a year ago, I'll record them and take another look-see.
- So we get an explanation about the so-called "confession cam" segments! And as dorky as I tend to be I think it's actually a pretty nifty one, and it even recalls the original pilot pitch for what would become this show.
- And in the process we get an explanation about the exact nature of Falcon's origin story. Wow they're really hitting it out of the park with closing all these loose threads!
- By my count pretty much all the fan favorite guest characters were at least included by the penultimate episode, minus Benjamin King who has been a complete no-show this entire final season for reasons I simply am not privy to. We got the entire Dream last time (Andy and Holden) along with Evan and Artie and here we have Diggie and one of my favorites, Dump Truck (who gives us the top quote for this review). Actually, come to think of it, we don't get Josh although he did get his own episode and Dump Truck at least name-drops him.
- And I see Bunk'd is trying to pull what GMW did to Jessie's finale with an upstaging featuring Lou (probably one of the best characters, or at least one of the ones that comes closest to being "good") potentially leaving the show, except it's a complete fakeout and the execution is less like the actual one single good part of Meets Texas and more like...well, like most of the rest of Girl Meets World
- Yes I have a tendency to rag on Girl Meets World deal with it
- So howabout that Disney Channel rebranding? I was kind of wondering why they were holding on to the winter bumpers a week longer than necessary and figured they'd probably wanted to debut the spring bumpers during the LaM finale and Tangled: the Series proper premiere, but I wasn't exactly expecting a complete new graphics language (well, I was, but only since last night when I read about it on Nick and More - which is an excellent resource, BTW, and I highly urge you to check it out). So who wore it better: the new Nickelodeon design language, or the new Disney Channel one? Personally...I swear they're ripping each other off as far as I'm concerned so I'd call it a draw, but it's better than the previous rather forgettable and sometimes even downright annoying (especially during Monstober and Dis The Season or whatever) graphics language Disney Channel premiered with the Girl Meets World premiere (and no this doesn't count as ragging on GMW yet again either) - though I did really like the season-specific bumpers and I'll miss them.
- Yup, still no Tangled: the original Pixar movie and Tangled Before Ever After review, nor no Hunter Street review and we're already halfway through that series. Maybe...some...time.
- For that matter we never reviewed Mako Mermaids, Backstage, The Lodge or Ride. Well guess what I still have all those episodes on my DVR, and I better get to actually watching them before they expire off it, so maybe one day too. We never reviewed The Other Kingdom either but...I think I still remember that series well enough. I know Mike isn't the biggest fan of it but maybe it means he just remembers it more!
- Again, if this seems rather skimpy for a review of the finale of one of my most favorite series in the network's entire history, and what may very well be that network's absolute best, refer to the previous post where I think I ended up putting all the best emotional thoughts I really can already.
- And hey, if Disney Channel and Nickelodeon are going to do major style revamps, why not this blog? Input, ideas, feedback blah blah blah.
Monday, March 20, 2017
Liv and Maddie (and Cali Style!) Unknown's Retrospective
How ya doin'? (Yeah I don't know why I occasionally like to steal that line from Christian whom he in turn stole/homaged from, of course, Boy Meets World. Or for that matter why I'm opening up with that)
Unknown here, obviously. I imagine Mike would want to do his own post on Liv and Maddie although he's certainly more than welcomed (actively invited, in fact) to add his own words here if he'd rather do that. We've retrospective'd Jessie, Austin & Ally and Girl Meets World (more or less) when those series ended (along with Gravity Falls which is probably the biggest animated series on the Disney networks to end during this blog's lifetime so far - with P&F coming to an end just before I started this), and those series certainly were the major series on Disney Channel since this blog started being a thing. And we've covered those series differently - both Jessie and Austin & Ally were mixed bags but in different ways, and Girl Meets World at least for me (though it seems like for most people, even) certainly had a tendency to be a frustration-fest with plenty of venting about it on my part. So it's nice to be able to dig into something that I've universally loved.
...except not quite much. Looking at some social media posts I seem to be alone in thinking this (though maybe not so much) but I actually think the first season of Liv and Maddie was more or less garbage. Yeah, really. Given how much I've fanboy'd and stan'd the series this might come as a legitimate shock but I was kind of hoping they'd cancel the series after just the first season. The first episodes in particular were...well, just not very good. There were more than a few exceptions to the First Season Sucks rule (Move-a-Rooney was a pretty good, solid episode - and lay the groundwork for a lot of the series later on including the very foundation of Cali-Style; Skate-a-Rooney and Brain-a-Rooney were decent episodes; Sweet-16-a-Rooney was a good episode and Switch-a-Rooney, Moms-a-Rooney, Flashback-a-Rooney and Song-a-Rooney are good enough that I usually completely forget they're first season episodes) but there's a reason why I keep talking about how no Disney Channel series is invulnerable to the First Season Sucks rule (except for the few shows that come swinging for the fences out of the gate - and then begin long, suffering slides into declining quality ala the aforementioned Jessie and Austin & Ally - or even just get stuck as overhyped garbage-fests throughout their entire runs ala the aforementioned Girl Meets World - ok so GMW wasn't that bad but still). Twin-a-Rooney was ok for a pilot - if anything it's slightly better than what the Wonky Pilot Episode Rule would dictate. Team-a-Rooney was something straight out of a KidCom writing playbook from a decade prior, at least, and even then maybe for nine-year-olds. Sleep-a-Rooney was the first real effort by John Beck, Ron Hart and crew towards the slightly off-beat, more cutting but still warm, family-friendly comedy the show would be known for but man, was it still pretty wonky. Steal-a-Rooney I maintain was just garbage through-and-through. I mean, you can really tell they had a lot of things to iron out as they were working on this (see First Season Sucks rule and Wonky Pilot rule, so it's hardly unique to LaM) and looking through it I think it really shows in the back half of Season 1 (starting, say, with the 2014 calendar year) which, again, so closely resembles Season 2 I actually thought most of those episodes were Season 2. Needless to say, Season 2 (and the backhalf of Season 1) is a massive improvement. I think Space Werewolf-a-Rooney ended the season on a still wonky note, especially given the season finales that were to come, but it even surprised me looking through IMDb to see how quickly this show's improved in that first season alone, and I already thought it was one of the biggest turn-arounds in Disney Channel history.
Now, some if not a lot of that (both in how horribly I assessed Season 1 and how high I've assessed Season 2) might be situational on my part - and I'll get to that in a bit - but Hart, Beck and crew absolutely need to be acknowledged for the great, raw talent they've shown throwing this show together. They've had a lot of experience throwing together many great, more adult and traditional-style sitcoms in the recent past, many of which were solid mega-hits, and at a certain point it was only natural for things to click again and for them to throw that full talent into Liv and Maddie once they got a handle on it. They're certainly not alone in this regard on Disney Channel either - Pamela Eells O'Connell who was a producer on both Suite Life series and the big creative driver on Jessie along with Debby, has an even more impressive resume behind her stretching all the way back to Laverne and Shirley and threading through Married, With Children..., Mad About You and Just Shoot Me. All four of those shows deserve to be in some sort of Sitcom Hall of Fame as some of the greatest ever (they'd be, like, the Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Joe DiMaggio and heck the Babe himself of sitcoms) and Just Shoot Me is one of my most favorite sitcoms of all time. Chris Thompson, who gave us Shake it Up, also worked on Laverne and Shirley and went through a string of one-and-done and two-and-through season wonders that nonetheless ended up being cult hits (Shake it Up would in fact end up being his very last show, even though he would live for one and a half years after SiU aired its finale and was actively shopping concepts and pitches around up until pretty much the moment of his death). And of course you had Micheal Jacobs and his crew who besides Boy Meets World gave us a string of notable sitcoms as well, most notably Dinosaurs (the one with the actors in the animatronic suits, the one who played Earl would later go on to berate Cory Matthews and the art teacher he hired and then get pretty much literally schooled by a hyper-active little pixie girl).
But while Girl Meets World ended up being bogged-down in its own nostalgia-prison and Jessie slowly turned into a schmuck-fest until by its final season it had just become a pale, going-through-the-motions shadow-clone of itself living down to the reputation of all the other sitcoms on its network (and Bunk'd, I still maintain, is almost unwatchable), and while Shake it Up is still regarded as a cult hit well, let's face it, it (like many of Thompson's works) is a cult-hit rather than a wide-appealing mega-hit for a reason, Liv and Maddie is one of the few shows in the entire network's history to really grab onto that elusive, near-universal appeal and grab at least a little cred in the wider pop-culture world in the same vein as Dan Schneider's peak works and not at all unlike exactly what they were hoping to grab again near-automatically with Girl Meets World. So the question to ask is, why is that? And I don't think it's unfair to ask why did Liv and Maddie succeed where Girl Meets World at least kinda-sorta failed at? (And yeah, I know it sounds like I'm just beating up on Girl Meets World here, sorry for that.)
I think it's because, well...just guessing here, I think Beck and Hart are entering into this whole tween-com thing with fresher minds and attitude if nothing else. O'Connell had been in the Disney scene since 2005 with Suite Life of Zack and Cody and while the first two seasons of Jessie were still fresh and able to hit it with the best of Liv and Maddie, Girl Meets World or Good Luck Charlie, I just think there was a lot of complacency that worked itself in. The final season of Suite Life on Deck...well, if not the final season and a half in fact, were a lot closer to being Jessie's later seasons than Jessie's earlier seasons. Plus, Jessie's first season had Doug Tuber and Tim Maile on its staff, the duo that gave us the bulk of Disney Channel's earliest successes including Lizzie McGuire, Even Stevens and Phil of the Future. As for Girl Meets World...I think Jacobs was just stuck in that Boy Meets World 90s mindset. I think there was just as much complacency and assumptions on things being automatic made on his part as there was on the fandom's and network's part.
For whatever reason, Beck and Hart were just more willing to push things. If not necessarily boundaries (and while LaM didn't exactly flirt with what they acceptable envelope is, it's still a bit more edgy than the shows either still currently airing or having just recently ended - and yeah I guess that was a stealth-jab at GMW again but hey it shows I'm improving) they were at least willing to get outside the typical Disney comfort zone. In fact I think that right there describes exactly the problem with the earliest episodes - I think when they started out in this Disney Channel kidcom business they at first started playing it safe and just followed the typical network playbook - hence stuff like Team-a-Rooney and Steal-a-Rooney - but I think they quickly realized they have a particular style that's very successful and screw just following the kidcom playbook. If they had any reason to not have to worry about being too "edgy" for the network, I think they have no further to look than that edginess perhaps being the very reason why Disney Channel signed them on.
Plus, I think you just gotta credit them for raw talent. I think O'Connell and Jacobs are perhaps just worn-out, while Beck and Hart can still pull more than a few tricks out of their hats. The least of these tricks being this uncanny, almost outright weird knack for getting serious star firepower onto their show, even if it's just in comparison to within the network. Laura Marano, Piper Curda, Jordan Fisher, Kevin James, even the ex-wife of a President now. And not just Patty Duke, but for what it's worth earning a footnote as the very last role she would do alive and as an homage to her most famous role no less. Even down to the show's main star, Dove Cameron, although it's debatable if she already was a rising star prior to LaM, if LaM helped her get there or if other projects mainly Descendants were more responsible. Sure, other Disney Channel shows were able to score some notable names here and there, but rarely were they able to outside of other mega-hits on the network and even then often in the case of network-wide and enforced special events. Liv and Maddie did it totally casual, and it not only boosted the quality of the show but gave it major cred too. And for that matter, it managed to get the best out of its regular cast too - I think Joey Bragg has the talent to pull it off at least as a real-life standup comedian but I don't think people are going to remember Tenzig Norgay Trainor like they do Parker Rooney. Just the way that character is written and perhaps directed, he's managed to really make an impression beyond the type of stock character of this archetype inhabits on other Disney Channel shows (see Ravi on both Jessie and Bunk'd or Bernie on Bizaardvark).
I know a lot of people are quite frankly butthurt over Cali-Style - they don't like the sudden addition of a new "sorta sister" in Ruby or the change of locale to literally right next to the Pacific Ocean (it does seem kind of OC-glamour-ish to be able to feel the sand between your toes right when you step off your patio compared to the down-to-Earth feel of the show's Wisconsin seasons) but I'm debating whether or not to consider Cali-Style the best of the show's seasons. They've managed to add many great dramatic moments to the show and add a lot of closure for the characters' plotlines along the way and answering a lot of questions the audience might have of their future after the finale, even before the finale even premieres - all the while not missing any of the comedic beats at all. I've been very, very impressed with Cali-Style and needless to say I have very high hopes for the finale.
That should just about wrap up this retrospective save for one thing - I've mentioned that there's some of my own situational attitude in play here, both that might've unfairly dinged the first season (or at least the back-half) while at the same time turning me into the LaM fanboy stan I am today. I mentioned how my own personal situation might've colored me into thinking that Jessie is a better show than it actually is in my retrospective for that show, and Liv and Maddie is no different. 2014 was a very stressful year for me and it was a big reason why I quit being a teacher and started pursuing a career in the book publishing industry instead, which was hard for me to do because I got into the teaching scene in the first place after soul-searching when I had cancer (see the Jessie restrospective where I talk about how that factored into my enthusiasm for that show) and I think a lot of that stress caused me to write a lot of the show off without seeing much or any of it at that point, especially since, again, I still maintain a lot of the first half of the first season was wonky at best if not outright garbage (at least compared to the show's turnaround). Come to think of it, I think I was already starting to get into the show by late in the first season, but I really didn't start to fall in love with it until early-mid in the second season in January 2015 when I was starting to come to terms with quitting and starting to not only have a lot of free time on my hands (again), but needing to use up a lot of that free time to destress and do some soul searching (again) and Liv and Maddie at that time provided a lot of that television comfort food necessary to help me get through (again). Which is probably why I have such a fondness in particular for the round of episodes that aired during that time - starting with Bro-Cave-a-Rooney and going through Detention-a-Rooney, Upcycle-a-Rooney, Gift-a-Rooney (which is probably one of the coziest episodes in the series' entire history) and especially Rate-a-Rooney which is not only one of the greatest episodes in network history but easily out-GMW'd actual GMW (yeah I'll quit that now) - and culminating through what I'll call "The Dream Arc" (Liv's band, not any of the characters going through a multi-episode dream sequence arc) and straight into and through the season finale, Champ-a-Rooney. And the show only continued to shoot further upwards from there. That whole situation and personal circumstance, just like with Jessie (and a lot of the shows airing during that general era on both Nickelodeon and Disney Channel too - which Liv and Maddie, incidentally and at least for Disney Channel, represents the very tail-end of) is probably why I'm not just so enthusiastic for, but outright emotionally attached to Liv and Maddie - and perhaps why I've found it so difficult to get into another Disney Channel series that's premiered since, like with Bunk'd and even Stuck in the Middle and Bizaardvark (though the latter two are starting to grow on me as I invest more into it) as fortunately (knock on wood) my life and health have been pretty stable since.
Yeah, cancer and a big emotional relationship break-up at the same time can do a number on you even after those events actually happen, in what's perhaps the greatest understatement I've ever made on this blog.
But, I wouldn't have made those emotional connections if Liv and Maddie just wasn't a great show to begin with. Girl Meets World was well underway during that time, and despite being a fan of Original Flavor Meets World I haven't ever been able to make an emotional connection to it (in fact I think my rants against it are rather infamous now). Both I Didn't Do It and Best Friends Whenever outright lived and died during that time and while I think both of those shows are underrated they're still no Liv and Maddie.
Disney Channel might be obsessed with trying to find the next Good Luck Charlie as Stuck in the Middle and even Liv and Maddie itself might show, but there will never be another Liv and Maddie. Perhaps just from dumb luck, a confluence of crew and cast talent collided to provide an all-too-few 80 episodes of wacky hijinks that just, somehow *sniff*...hits you right there in the heart.
Extra Thoughts
- I really also have to give credit and special note to the rather large number of women on the production, writing and directing staff of Liv and Maddie, not the least of which include the pair that gave Linda and Heather their name. I don't know if this is really all that special for a Disney Channel series but given just how good this series is I feel maybe it'd be a service to make note of it.
- This is also the very last surviving series (well, for the remaining week at least) on Disney Channel to have aired new episodes during the 2013 calendar year (save for perhaps some Disney Junior shows like, I dunno, Doc McStuffins) which means needless to say it's also currently the oldest. It managed to outlive a number of shows that premiered during the 2014 and 2015 calendar years. If you don't get why I make such a big deal out of the year 2013, go back and read the Jessie retrospective (or go back and read the paragraphs up above, for that matter).
- I'm serious, if I didn't happen to have picked up both Disney Channel/Nickelodeon and young adult novels while recovering on the ample down time I had while under chemo, I probably would've gone stark-raving mad from boredom. It was helpful in that I could find ways to not only entertain myself but on stuff that I could perhaps at least somewhat literally stomach at the time, and I found out very early on how quickly I got sick and tired of overdosing on endless Pawn Stars marathons on "History" Channel and I just wasn't in the mood for more "adult" style entertainment for a long time coming. And it doesn't hurt that I picked up a new career path from it too even with a false start in between as it's how I decided to become a teacher and from there got into a career path into publishing.
- Speaking of Doc McStuffins, her voice actress is also the same actress who plays Priya!
- Just as a piece of related personal trivia - this is also either the second or third show I've seen on Disney Channel that I've seen the premiere episode of during its first "live" airing and saw all the way through to its finale "live" airing that's managed to last more than two seasons (the fact that Girl Meets World entirely lived and died within the time frame Liv and Maddie aired complicated the exact nature of the order, although certainly Dog With a Blog is the first). It's also the first Disney Channel series I've seen period under such criteria that's lasted a full four seasons, even if it's way short of the magic 100 episodes.
- And just in case John Beck and Ron Hart are reading this - yes, I did use the correct form of "premiere." I even double-checked with Merriam-Webster.
- Oh, I promised reviews of Tangled the movie, Tangled: Before Ever After and even Hunter Street? Yeah, later. I can't even promise I'm going to review those before I put up a review of the Liv and Maddie Cali Style finale. Sorry.
Unknown here, obviously. I imagine Mike would want to do his own post on Liv and Maddie although he's certainly more than welcomed (actively invited, in fact) to add his own words here if he'd rather do that. We've retrospective'd Jessie, Austin & Ally and Girl Meets World (more or less) when those series ended (along with Gravity Falls which is probably the biggest animated series on the Disney networks to end during this blog's lifetime so far - with P&F coming to an end just before I started this), and those series certainly were the major series on Disney Channel since this blog started being a thing. And we've covered those series differently - both Jessie and Austin & Ally were mixed bags but in different ways, and Girl Meets World at least for me (though it seems like for most people, even) certainly had a tendency to be a frustration-fest with plenty of venting about it on my part. So it's nice to be able to dig into something that I've universally loved.
...except not quite much. Looking at some social media posts I seem to be alone in thinking this (though maybe not so much) but I actually think the first season of Liv and Maddie was more or less garbage. Yeah, really. Given how much I've fanboy'd and stan'd the series this might come as a legitimate shock but I was kind of hoping they'd cancel the series after just the first season. The first episodes in particular were...well, just not very good. There were more than a few exceptions to the First Season Sucks rule (Move-a-Rooney was a pretty good, solid episode - and lay the groundwork for a lot of the series later on including the very foundation of Cali-Style; Skate-a-Rooney and Brain-a-Rooney were decent episodes; Sweet-16-a-Rooney was a good episode and Switch-a-Rooney, Moms-a-Rooney, Flashback-a-Rooney and Song-a-Rooney are good enough that I usually completely forget they're first season episodes) but there's a reason why I keep talking about how no Disney Channel series is invulnerable to the First Season Sucks rule (except for the few shows that come swinging for the fences out of the gate - and then begin long, suffering slides into declining quality ala the aforementioned Jessie and Austin & Ally - or even just get stuck as overhyped garbage-fests throughout their entire runs ala the aforementioned Girl Meets World - ok so GMW wasn't that bad but still). Twin-a-Rooney was ok for a pilot - if anything it's slightly better than what the Wonky Pilot Episode Rule would dictate. Team-a-Rooney was something straight out of a KidCom writing playbook from a decade prior, at least, and even then maybe for nine-year-olds. Sleep-a-Rooney was the first real effort by John Beck, Ron Hart and crew towards the slightly off-beat, more cutting but still warm, family-friendly comedy the show would be known for but man, was it still pretty wonky. Steal-a-Rooney I maintain was just garbage through-and-through. I mean, you can really tell they had a lot of things to iron out as they were working on this (see First Season Sucks rule and Wonky Pilot rule, so it's hardly unique to LaM) and looking through it I think it really shows in the back half of Season 1 (starting, say, with the 2014 calendar year) which, again, so closely resembles Season 2 I actually thought most of those episodes were Season 2. Needless to say, Season 2 (and the backhalf of Season 1) is a massive improvement. I think Space Werewolf-a-Rooney ended the season on a still wonky note, especially given the season finales that were to come, but it even surprised me looking through IMDb to see how quickly this show's improved in that first season alone, and I already thought it was one of the biggest turn-arounds in Disney Channel history.
Now, some if not a lot of that (both in how horribly I assessed Season 1 and how high I've assessed Season 2) might be situational on my part - and I'll get to that in a bit - but Hart, Beck and crew absolutely need to be acknowledged for the great, raw talent they've shown throwing this show together. They've had a lot of experience throwing together many great, more adult and traditional-style sitcoms in the recent past, many of which were solid mega-hits, and at a certain point it was only natural for things to click again and for them to throw that full talent into Liv and Maddie once they got a handle on it. They're certainly not alone in this regard on Disney Channel either - Pamela Eells O'Connell who was a producer on both Suite Life series and the big creative driver on Jessie along with Debby, has an even more impressive resume behind her stretching all the way back to Laverne and Shirley and threading through Married, With Children..., Mad About You and Just Shoot Me. All four of those shows deserve to be in some sort of Sitcom Hall of Fame as some of the greatest ever (they'd be, like, the Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Joe DiMaggio and heck the Babe himself of sitcoms) and Just Shoot Me is one of my most favorite sitcoms of all time. Chris Thompson, who gave us Shake it Up, also worked on Laverne and Shirley and went through a string of one-and-done and two-and-through season wonders that nonetheless ended up being cult hits (Shake it Up would in fact end up being his very last show, even though he would live for one and a half years after SiU aired its finale and was actively shopping concepts and pitches around up until pretty much the moment of his death). And of course you had Micheal Jacobs and his crew who besides Boy Meets World gave us a string of notable sitcoms as well, most notably Dinosaurs (the one with the actors in the animatronic suits, the one who played Earl would later go on to berate Cory Matthews and the art teacher he hired and then get pretty much literally schooled by a hyper-active little pixie girl).
But while Girl Meets World ended up being bogged-down in its own nostalgia-prison and Jessie slowly turned into a schmuck-fest until by its final season it had just become a pale, going-through-the-motions shadow-clone of itself living down to the reputation of all the other sitcoms on its network (and Bunk'd, I still maintain, is almost unwatchable), and while Shake it Up is still regarded as a cult hit well, let's face it, it (like many of Thompson's works) is a cult-hit rather than a wide-appealing mega-hit for a reason, Liv and Maddie is one of the few shows in the entire network's history to really grab onto that elusive, near-universal appeal and grab at least a little cred in the wider pop-culture world in the same vein as Dan Schneider's peak works and not at all unlike exactly what they were hoping to grab again near-automatically with Girl Meets World. So the question to ask is, why is that? And I don't think it's unfair to ask why did Liv and Maddie succeed where Girl Meets World at least kinda-sorta failed at? (And yeah, I know it sounds like I'm just beating up on Girl Meets World here, sorry for that.)
I think it's because, well...just guessing here, I think Beck and Hart are entering into this whole tween-com thing with fresher minds and attitude if nothing else. O'Connell had been in the Disney scene since 2005 with Suite Life of Zack and Cody and while the first two seasons of Jessie were still fresh and able to hit it with the best of Liv and Maddie, Girl Meets World or Good Luck Charlie, I just think there was a lot of complacency that worked itself in. The final season of Suite Life on Deck...well, if not the final season and a half in fact, were a lot closer to being Jessie's later seasons than Jessie's earlier seasons. Plus, Jessie's first season had Doug Tuber and Tim Maile on its staff, the duo that gave us the bulk of Disney Channel's earliest successes including Lizzie McGuire, Even Stevens and Phil of the Future. As for Girl Meets World...I think Jacobs was just stuck in that Boy Meets World 90s mindset. I think there was just as much complacency and assumptions on things being automatic made on his part as there was on the fandom's and network's part.
For whatever reason, Beck and Hart were just more willing to push things. If not necessarily boundaries (and while LaM didn't exactly flirt with what they acceptable envelope is, it's still a bit more edgy than the shows either still currently airing or having just recently ended - and yeah I guess that was a stealth-jab at GMW again but hey it shows I'm improving) they were at least willing to get outside the typical Disney comfort zone. In fact I think that right there describes exactly the problem with the earliest episodes - I think when they started out in this Disney Channel kidcom business they at first started playing it safe and just followed the typical network playbook - hence stuff like Team-a-Rooney and Steal-a-Rooney - but I think they quickly realized they have a particular style that's very successful and screw just following the kidcom playbook. If they had any reason to not have to worry about being too "edgy" for the network, I think they have no further to look than that edginess perhaps being the very reason why Disney Channel signed them on.
Plus, I think you just gotta credit them for raw talent. I think O'Connell and Jacobs are perhaps just worn-out, while Beck and Hart can still pull more than a few tricks out of their hats. The least of these tricks being this uncanny, almost outright weird knack for getting serious star firepower onto their show, even if it's just in comparison to within the network. Laura Marano, Piper Curda, Jordan Fisher, Kevin James, even the ex-wife of a President now. And not just Patty Duke, but for what it's worth earning a footnote as the very last role she would do alive and as an homage to her most famous role no less. Even down to the show's main star, Dove Cameron, although it's debatable if she already was a rising star prior to LaM, if LaM helped her get there or if other projects mainly Descendants were more responsible. Sure, other Disney Channel shows were able to score some notable names here and there, but rarely were they able to outside of other mega-hits on the network and even then often in the case of network-wide and enforced special events. Liv and Maddie did it totally casual, and it not only boosted the quality of the show but gave it major cred too. And for that matter, it managed to get the best out of its regular cast too - I think Joey Bragg has the talent to pull it off at least as a real-life standup comedian but I don't think people are going to remember Tenzig Norgay Trainor like they do Parker Rooney. Just the way that character is written and perhaps directed, he's managed to really make an impression beyond the type of stock character of this archetype inhabits on other Disney Channel shows (see Ravi on both Jessie and Bunk'd or Bernie on Bizaardvark).
I know a lot of people are quite frankly butthurt over Cali-Style - they don't like the sudden addition of a new "sorta sister" in Ruby or the change of locale to literally right next to the Pacific Ocean (it does seem kind of OC-glamour-ish to be able to feel the sand between your toes right when you step off your patio compared to the down-to-Earth feel of the show's Wisconsin seasons) but I'm debating whether or not to consider Cali-Style the best of the show's seasons. They've managed to add many great dramatic moments to the show and add a lot of closure for the characters' plotlines along the way and answering a lot of questions the audience might have of their future after the finale, even before the finale even premieres - all the while not missing any of the comedic beats at all. I've been very, very impressed with Cali-Style and needless to say I have very high hopes for the finale.
That should just about wrap up this retrospective save for one thing - I've mentioned that there's some of my own situational attitude in play here, both that might've unfairly dinged the first season (or at least the back-half) while at the same time turning me into the LaM fanboy stan I am today. I mentioned how my own personal situation might've colored me into thinking that Jessie is a better show than it actually is in my retrospective for that show, and Liv and Maddie is no different. 2014 was a very stressful year for me and it was a big reason why I quit being a teacher and started pursuing a career in the book publishing industry instead, which was hard for me to do because I got into the teaching scene in the first place after soul-searching when I had cancer (see the Jessie restrospective where I talk about how that factored into my enthusiasm for that show) and I think a lot of that stress caused me to write a lot of the show off without seeing much or any of it at that point, especially since, again, I still maintain a lot of the first half of the first season was wonky at best if not outright garbage (at least compared to the show's turnaround). Come to think of it, I think I was already starting to get into the show by late in the first season, but I really didn't start to fall in love with it until early-mid in the second season in January 2015 when I was starting to come to terms with quitting and starting to not only have a lot of free time on my hands (again), but needing to use up a lot of that free time to destress and do some soul searching (again) and Liv and Maddie at that time provided a lot of that television comfort food necessary to help me get through (again). Which is probably why I have such a fondness in particular for the round of episodes that aired during that time - starting with Bro-Cave-a-Rooney and going through Detention-a-Rooney, Upcycle-a-Rooney, Gift-a-Rooney (which is probably one of the coziest episodes in the series' entire history) and especially Rate-a-Rooney which is not only one of the greatest episodes in network history but easily out-GMW'd actual GMW (yeah I'll quit that now) - and culminating through what I'll call "The Dream Arc" (Liv's band, not any of the characters going through a multi-episode dream sequence arc) and straight into and through the season finale, Champ-a-Rooney. And the show only continued to shoot further upwards from there. That whole situation and personal circumstance, just like with Jessie (and a lot of the shows airing during that general era on both Nickelodeon and Disney Channel too - which Liv and Maddie, incidentally and at least for Disney Channel, represents the very tail-end of) is probably why I'm not just so enthusiastic for, but outright emotionally attached to Liv and Maddie - and perhaps why I've found it so difficult to get into another Disney Channel series that's premiered since, like with Bunk'd and even Stuck in the Middle and Bizaardvark (though the latter two are starting to grow on me as I invest more into it) as fortunately (knock on wood) my life and health have been pretty stable since.
Yeah, cancer and a big emotional relationship break-up at the same time can do a number on you even after those events actually happen, in what's perhaps the greatest understatement I've ever made on this blog.
But, I wouldn't have made those emotional connections if Liv and Maddie just wasn't a great show to begin with. Girl Meets World was well underway during that time, and despite being a fan of Original Flavor Meets World I haven't ever been able to make an emotional connection to it (in fact I think my rants against it are rather infamous now). Both I Didn't Do It and Best Friends Whenever outright lived and died during that time and while I think both of those shows are underrated they're still no Liv and Maddie.
Disney Channel might be obsessed with trying to find the next Good Luck Charlie as Stuck in the Middle and even Liv and Maddie itself might show, but there will never be another Liv and Maddie. Perhaps just from dumb luck, a confluence of crew and cast talent collided to provide an all-too-few 80 episodes of wacky hijinks that just, somehow *sniff*...hits you right there in the heart.
Extra Thoughts
- I really also have to give credit and special note to the rather large number of women on the production, writing and directing staff of Liv and Maddie, not the least of which include the pair that gave Linda and Heather their name. I don't know if this is really all that special for a Disney Channel series but given just how good this series is I feel maybe it'd be a service to make note of it.
- This is also the very last surviving series (well, for the remaining week at least) on Disney Channel to have aired new episodes during the 2013 calendar year (save for perhaps some Disney Junior shows like, I dunno, Doc McStuffins) which means needless to say it's also currently the oldest. It managed to outlive a number of shows that premiered during the 2014 and 2015 calendar years. If you don't get why I make such a big deal out of the year 2013, go back and read the Jessie retrospective (or go back and read the paragraphs up above, for that matter).
- I'm serious, if I didn't happen to have picked up both Disney Channel/Nickelodeon and young adult novels while recovering on the ample down time I had while under chemo, I probably would've gone stark-raving mad from boredom. It was helpful in that I could find ways to not only entertain myself but on stuff that I could perhaps at least somewhat literally stomach at the time, and I found out very early on how quickly I got sick and tired of overdosing on endless Pawn Stars marathons on "History" Channel and I just wasn't in the mood for more "adult" style entertainment for a long time coming. And it doesn't hurt that I picked up a new career path from it too even with a false start in between as it's how I decided to become a teacher and from there got into a career path into publishing.
- Speaking of Doc McStuffins, her voice actress is also the same actress who plays Priya!
- Just as a piece of related personal trivia - this is also either the second or third show I've seen on Disney Channel that I've seen the premiere episode of during its first "live" airing and saw all the way through to its finale "live" airing that's managed to last more than two seasons (the fact that Girl Meets World entirely lived and died within the time frame Liv and Maddie aired complicated the exact nature of the order, although certainly Dog With a Blog is the first). It's also the first Disney Channel series I've seen period under such criteria that's lasted a full four seasons, even if it's way short of the magic 100 episodes.
- And just in case John Beck and Ron Hart are reading this - yes, I did use the correct form of "premiere." I even double-checked with Merriam-Webster.
- Oh, I promised reviews of Tangled the movie, Tangled: Before Ever After and even Hunter Street? Yeah, later. I can't even promise I'm going to review those before I put up a review of the Liv and Maddie Cali Style finale. Sorry.
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