I used to work with his sister! It was a looooong story.
What is it? Hour-long "live" special of a multi-cam kidcom.
Where did it air? Nickelodeon, where you'd expect exactly something stunty like this.
Who stars in it? Well, your usual Henry Danger stars - Jace Norman, Cooper Barnes, Sean Ryan Fox, Rielle Downs - and oh yeah we have Frankie Grande in this one too.
Why are we reviewing this? Because whenever Nickelodeon does something stunty, we cover it (as Mike and his Quest have proven every three months when Nickelodeon insists we have to know what Santa Claus and his elves does the other 363 days of the year).
Spoiler Alert: I actually really liked this one.
But about that "live" aspect first: yeah, I couldn't even tell. I talked about how gimmicky the live aspect always is the last time we reviewed something desperate enough to pull that off (second spoiler alert: it still failed miserably on all fronts possible) and the thing is, very rarely is it even noticeable. It's not just something that's exceedingly smacking of desperation, it's a complete and total waste of any gimmicky aspects because those aspects become virtually invisible. Yeah, sure, the audience can hope for someone to screw up or something - but again, that's so exceedingly rare it's a waste of time to hope for it, let alone come in and watch this show you've never seen before just for that aspect, and that's not even mentioning just how damn mean-spirited it is.
And it should be no surprise that this two-parter came off like any other two Henry Danger episodes without a hitch, especially given how accustomed all the players involved are when it comes to, you know, the art of acting and especially how accustomed its special guest star especially is to a live audience.
And, yeah, Frankie Grande is the whole reason why I liked this two-parter as much as I did. He just seemed like he was genuinely having fun with it. And you know what? I really liked Goomer even. Goomer...actually contributed to the episode, which isn't something that can be said for that one show where he worked with Frankie's sister, that being a loooong story and all.
The main plot is...pretty Dan Schneider-y, in that at least he has a better grasp and understanding of how social media works and how people are using it than your average middle-aged Hollywood executive producer. Again, it's Frankie Grande who this entire thing revolves around, and Thank God he actually works with the material. The B-plot is...actually pretty good. It integrates directly into the A-plot and Piper manages to not be harpishly annoying in it.
Episode Grade: B+. Yeah, it's...that decent.
Episode MVP: Frankie Grande, duh.
Extra Thoughts:
- I really like to see what Mike thinks of this. Speaking of which, when I asked for Mike to be a part of this, it was because I was really hoping having two people on this blog will really spice things up and make it fun, like on Girl Meets World Reviewed. And...it has, working as advertised.
Which is to say, working on this things alone without Mike...actually kind of sucks. So, again, I really and eagerly look to see what Mike thinks of this.
Goomer showed up, like the actual character? Between Game Shippers, and this show's own Game Shakers Crossover coming up (at least i think heard something about that), Dan is even more reference happy than usual.
ReplyDeleteYes, literally Goomer, all just to set up the "Hey remember Ariana Grande? She's Frankie's sister!" joke. And to try to pass off Sam & Cat as being better than it was. Mike mentioned he was afraid of this, and he mentioned it quite some time *after it actually happened*.
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