What is this? multi-cam kidcom, half-hour (24 minute) length. Also, it's Girl Meets World so you should already know the particulars already, but I'm anal-retentive and OCD so here I continue on!
Where did it air? Disney Channel
Who stars in it? Sabrina Carpenter, Rowan Blanchard, Peyton Meyer, Corey Fogelmanis, the guys from Boy Meets World. ...ok, I'll show some proper respect, I guess, and actually type out "Ben Savage" and "Danielle Fischel."
Why are we reviewing this? Because we're seriously envious of Christian and Sean over at Girl Meets World Reviewed.
On my own blog, this episode would be referred to as a member of The D-Minus Club. It really deserves that membership after what I saw.
Dear Lord, this episode had a lot of problems. But before I start ranting about an episode that came a few weeks ago, let me put things in the proper perspective. In my opinion, Girl Meets World is the best live-action show for kids, on Nickelodeon and Disney Channel overall. I don't count Disney XD because I am very unfamiliar with a lot of the stuff there. Also, keep in mind that as we continue to develop this blog, I will start getting more acquainted with today's current kids programming. This is an area that requires more attention. But yes, Girl Meets World is far and away the best live-action stuff for kids.
Why is that? Well, GMW on its best behavior provides you with a realistic experience of what it is like to be a kid, to grow up in a world that you have to control on your own. Everybody has had those growing pains and those moments where it feels like the outside world will eat you alive. I'm one of those people, and Girl Meets World can really speak to its audience. The character relationships are some of the best stuff on this show. Riley and Maya play off of each other in a way that we have not seen in a very long time. Farkle can be very comical, but you can take him seriously at the same time because the writers knew better and gave him depth. Lucas is still a little wet behind the ears, but he is definitely starting to become a more fleshed out character. And then you have Ben Savage, who acts like Boy Meets World just recently got its eighth season because he has not missed a step. The lessons on this show are pretty straightforward, but one thing I fell in love with was that GMW was aiming higher than most shows on Disney Channel. You can expect morals to come into play, you can expect friendship values, you can expect the kids to act like real kids. Girl Meets World has a way of talking to its audience that the best Disney Channel shows have utilized and perfected. There is really something special about this little show, and hopefully, it goes on to have a long, memorable run.
Maybe ABC Family will pick it up when the kids get old enough to talk about drugs and alcohol and such and Disney Channel has milked at least 100 episodes.
But yeah, Girl Meets World. I like the show, I really do. I want nothing more than for it to succeed, and season two has been a vast improvement over season one. The characters are slowly starting to become more and more exposed to life's hardships, the dialogue is becoming less hammy, and the chemistry between the cast has been running like clockwork. Even the lessons have become less on-the-nose and more to the point. It speaks to season two's roll when this is only one of two, possibly three episodes I absolutely cannot watch again ("World of Terror 2" was not frustrating, but I just felt nothing watching it.). Along with the disgusting season premiere, today's episode completes the trifecta of season two GMW episodes that you are just wasting your time watching.
So let's just tear this to shreds. I did not watch this episode on its premiere night and I kept putting it off. The last time I kept putting off a Girl Meets World episode was with "Friendship," and that was not worth watching live. I notice that the GMW episodes I put off watching or never watch tend to be lame, and this was no exception. The main plot deals with Riley going through a crisis when she realizes that Cory and Topanga are doing a lot more for the community than she is, and is afraid that she will never be as good as them. In the subplot, a much better and wasted potential-type subplot, Lucas tries to teach Farkle how to be more athletic. In the end, Riley realizes that she will follow her own path and have her own stories, and tying in with the subplot, her friends and family will help her "round the bases" in this crazy little thing we call a world.
Let me just say that this main plot had the potential to be a lot more than what it was. Riley thinking that she will never be better than Cory and Topanga? Conflict on a plate. If you looked at the episode the same way I did, Riley is a stand-in for Girl Meets World and Cory and Topanga are stand-ins for Boy Meets World. This episode was an exercise in being meta. I'm surprised they weren't more blatant about it because this show will go there for the sake of a meta joke. For crying out loud, Riley and Maya imagine themselves being transplanted in a scene from BMW's first season. This was the one episode where we could really see how admirable Cory and Topanga are in Riley's eyes and why it scares her that she will never beat them in the game of life. But nope, everything we get is just an explanation. The opening scene sets the tone, but the rest of the episode is just Riley being sad about something, her trying to solve the thing, her solving the thing, and we will never see it brought up again. That's it. This plot could have been a lot more sophisticated and deep, but we just get the surface-level stuff. And when you tell a story like this, you need to give the viewer something to chew on. We could predict every single beat in this plot. It was so barebones, the writers probably cranked it out in a few hours when pressed for a story and submitted it as the final cut.
First of all, Riley is in junior high. Her life has barely even started yet. Cory and Topanga are fully realized adults. Of course they do more for their community than her, they have to. Also, the way this plot is executed makes very little sense to me. Riley learns that she is just like Cory and Topanga when they were as old as her, so she can be her own person? Nooooooooo. For the rest of Riley's life, she will be compared to Cory and Topanga even more because she is just like them. The viewers know that Riley has to be their kid, but now that she realizes it, that will be one of her significant traits. "She's both of them." How will Riley ever become better than her parents or even match their success if she is forever linked to them? She's nothing more than their seed, a copy of them without an individual voice. What kind of lesson is that? Who wrote this anyway?
Right, it was Joshua Jacobs, Michael Jacobs' son. Nepotism. It's the wrong thing to do.
There was no reason to even attempt this plot if the execution was going to be so weak. In this one episode alone, we see that Topanga the Shark Lawyer is back. Apparently, she can defend anybody and come out on top because she's Topanga the Shark Lawyer. In the immortal words of Nas, "Why shoot the breeze about it, when you can be about it?" Topanga being this excellent lawyer is almost never brought up unless it is used solely as a plot device. This show has been on for more than a year and we still have to hear the characters talk about how Topanga is a killer lawyer and protector of the good? The writers are treating her like she's Batman or something. We never see Topanga in court, we never see any of her clients talking to her, we never see her have any sort of stress over a case she might lose. We never get any development with this woman, and we are expected to hold her up to a high standard? Topanga is the one character that the writers have really dropped the ball on. By the time this show ends, Lucas will be a more fleshed out character than she is right now. And that is just obscene. I guess Michael Jacobs and company have no idea what to do with her anymore. That's more than enough that I can say for Topanga, or Cory's wife.
Also, Cory teaches clowns. Or something. I don't know, this episode is garbage. Unknown, if you want, you can take the floor.
Grade: D
MVP: Peyton Meyer, because Lucas had the funniest line in the entire episode. Lucas, of all people, made me laugh the most ("Don't you mess up America's most favorite thing with America's least favorite thing!")
EXTRA THOUGHTS
-Riley realizes she is unique.........because she is just like Cory and Topanga. How do you pitch that idea, write it in your script, and actually put it out there for people to watch? A little more time to fine tune your work goes a long way. THE LESSON KNOWINGLY SHOOTS ITSELF IN THE FOOT AND YET WE ARE SUPPOSED TO FIND THIS COOL.
-Riley and Maya going into the BMW scene and seeing Cory and Topanga as kids was..........very underwhelming. Family Guy did something very similar to this and, um........the results were ten times more satisfying that time. The first time they do it, we see Cory trying to teach Topanga about basketball. Riley sees that she is as goofy as Cory was. Wait, what? Topanga was a lot weirder than him in that scene. Cory was just being a kid. If you want to see Cory be a special kind of goofy, go to the season four episode "B & B's B n' B" where he has this overwhelming desire to see him and Shawn get punished for their latest scheme. No, seriously, that is Cory being the Cory we know and love. He even enjoyed being spanked as a little kid because he thought he always deserved it.
-Then, because someone realized that scene was stupid, they go back to the BMW episode to let us know that Riley is like Topanga too. It took an imaginary trip back to Boy Meets World before it really found itself to let us know that Riley is like Cory and Topanga. Good to know.
-The subplot with Farkle and Lucas meant absolutely nothing outside of that one hilarious line. It was purposefully set up to service the main plot. You can tell that the plot meant nothing because it was absolutely rushed. Everything that happened in this plot was contained within a few minutes. That is an absolutely horrible way to write a story. You just go from scene to scene without bouncing from and back to the main plot? This is all we get to see? Ridiculous. Also, is it me, or does Farkle act more like he actually has Asperger's Syndrome here? You know, a week after the episode that was about him potentially having it. All that stuff about comparing sports to physics..........I don't know, it just seems like he was off. Also, this plot could have been a lot more improved if we find out that Farkle actually likes sports. Like, him and Lucas could go back and forth about their favorite baseball players or who they think has the best shot at winning the Super Bowl this season. He could just be inept at actually playing any sports. That would be a much more interesting plot and help develop Farkle's cool side more. We see that he is just another one of the guys. But nope. Farkle is just an emotionless robot when it comes to sports and sees them as pointless. The lesson of the plot was that YOU DO NOT HAVE TO KNOW HOW TO PLAY SPORTS TO BE A FAN. Did anybody proofread this script to make sure it made sense and had......you know, coherence?
-That scene with Riley, Maya, and the clown was just painful to watch. The worst part is that Maya and the clown know exactly what will happen when Riley looks at the flower. We know what joke is coming. I get the joke is that Riley is too naive to understand what is happening, but they drag it out. It's like they're dealing with a five-year-old eating dirt and they try to teach the kid a lesson by letting them eat as much dirt as they want. Then they reuse a joke from earlier about how Riley should be intimidated by Cory since he's her father. Why is this whole episode acting like Cory and Topanga are the most awesome people in the world? As characters, absolutely, we adore them, but as people, there is hardly anything that separates them from other people making positive changes in the community. Plot devices. Plot devices everywhere. Also, really lame attempt at being meta. This whole episode is just another reason why Girl Meets World is so schizophrenic with self-awareness.
-Kill. The bay. Window. We get it, it means something to Riley and Maya but why are they trying to make this a big thing? They sit near the bay window in the Matthews house as if it has or ever had actual meaning. They keep shoving it down our throats and drowning it in Hennessey and vinegar. NOBODY CARES ANYMORE. I liked the bay window in season one when it was acknowledged as this cool thing that the girls gravitated to. Now it's supposed to be all godly and have spiritual meaning and create sociopolitical change and help lead the fight against breast cancer, AIDS, police brutality and human trafficking. In 2017, when police brutality and racial profiling finally come to an end, we can all thank the bay window because......in the words of Mr. Enter, potatoes.
Next review: Something from Nickelodeon or maybe a collaboration with Unknown.
Why wait? ;) You don't mind I add my own words here right? BTW I might want to come up with something a bit different or unique than "Unknown." It's a little bit on the awkward side to refer to me as Unknown. Now, The Unknown, that's a different story and like something out of Star Trek but, nah, too much nerding out from me.
BTW feel free to contribute to any of the other reviews, especially the Jessie review down below. She's just kind of hanging there by herself right now! I think I finally set up all your permissions to go completely to town on this blog if you want. As for Nickelodeon shows, there are two Dan Schneider shows that aired just today, and I know his shows are well acquainted with your D-Minus Club (thought we might need to start renaming the the Yawn Club after a while). We're also getting some rave reviews already: one guy called us, and I quote, "a sad attempt to recapture the amazement of GMWReviewed."
I think the biggest problem with Cory and Topanga is how front-loaded it is. We get to, like, what, 2/3s of the episode's total run time before we even get to the first frame of Boy Meets World reused footage? Establishing that Riley has a lot to live up to isn't hard to do. We've had not one but two whole series establishing the shoes she has to fill, let alone all the viewer expectations that could've been rolled into this meta-style (maybe that's what they intended, but they kind of failed). You have a five-minute classroom scene just to establish the basic premise of the episode, you can still have your little thing about Riley and Maya walking past the orphanage (I suppose I shouldn't be shocked in a world where electing a guy like Jefferson Davis Graham apparently is a popular choice, but what kind of evil corporation is evil enough to buy out a freakin' orphanage? Aren't there zoning laws that prevent that?) and the circus, and then BAM! it's Trials and Tribble-ations time (again with the Star Trek references! You can Google that one if you have no idea what I'm talking about, but basically it's the Star Trek version of this episode). It's not like it's such an expensive effect that they have to be conservative with their footage - Disney Channel has this show called Liv and Maddie that's basically This Special Effect: The Series. You guys got no excuse when my POS Toshiba can do this with an ancient copy of Photoshop and pre-installed WMM.
Another thing I can't help but noticing is the specific episode they used. Yeah, the GMW Guys already pointed out that this has almost nothing to do with Cory and Topanga actually being Cory and Topanga, it's just them playing sock basketball, but I just find it interesting that they used one of the episodes Disney Channel aired back in '14 to the lead-up to GMW. I don't remember if the other one they used made it to that run, though I don't think it did. I'm just wondering if Disney Channel has some sort of weird mandate that they can only use flashback scenes from those episodes that aired on Disney Channel, or why did they have to use that episode when they've got something over 150 to choose from.
I don't think I can add any substantive stuff anymore, so here I go:
Grade: Is there a grade for meeeh? Oh, wait, there is, C. The concept was actually pretty nice, the execution was just, well, meeeh to the three-e degree. Would I watch this episode again? I'd probably just tune out everything until the flashback shows up again, then watch it for the novelty, then when the 4 minutes are up just tune it out until whatever show is next (unless it ends up being something like Meets Gravity, in which case it's time to catch up on Public Morals - no, I don't just spend all my time watching kiddie shows. Yes, I do come pretty close anyway).
Episode MVP: Easy call: Ben Savage and Danielle Fischel. Circa 1994. Also, too late, they already did mix up America's Most Favorite Thing with America's Least Favorite Thing, it's how they created Girl Meets World in the first place (I kid, I kid).
Liv & Maddie uses special effects in a way that makes this episode look like Full House when they used it to enlarge Michelle's feet. God, those special effects were awful. But it was 1995, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Girl Meets World? Nah, this show doesn't get a pass when the same network has another show that uses special effects as their bread and butter, and they do it perfectly. I'm serious, when the show first got promotion, I thought Dove Cameron had a twin sister. Then I realized that she is just that good of an actress. Liv & Maddie is going on my list of shows to check out.
It's funny how Ben and Danielle get your MVP, because when I watched the episode, I thought the funniest scene in the whole episode was when Cory said to Topanga, "Are you going to be one of those girls who doesn't shave their legs?" This episode made me laugh my head off during the flashback. And this was when BMW was still in its infancy. Do the writers feel good? Do they feel good about all of this?
I'm not a Trekkie, but feel free to make a reference. I love quoting and referencing shows, even the stuff that's just regular conversation. And I'm willing to bet that episode was ten times better and was more complex and interesting than this one.
They really are obsessed with season one, aren't they? Look, I know that revisionist history is Michael Jacobs and friends' signature style, but nothing really happened in season one. Outside of Cory and Topanga's first kiss and Shawn's epic cherry bomb moment, no one really regards season one as classic BMW because nothing ever happened in it. It was the show getting its feet wet. The writers know that season three (or even season two, if you want to be generous) is when BMW really started and became the legendary show we talk about today. It's like when Jay-Z kept telling us that Reasonable Doubt deserved more recognition. In that case, Jigga was right because Reasonable Doubt really is Jay-Z's best album. But this? Nope, I'm not buying it. Season one of Full House is more classic than this. That season had charm and whimsy coming out of its ears.
And about the anonymous comment, it is what it is. No one here's trying to take away from Christian and Sean's work. It's great work, but at one point, they were just like us. They had to work hard to boost their readership and get people to notice. Hell, I still have that same problem with my adult animated sitcom on FanFiction after three years. But I have to keep going because the only way people will appreciate my work and discuss it is if I put it out there. I'm not going to lose anything of value because I love writing. This is not Girl Meets World Reviewed. Do I admit I'm a fan of the blog? Yes. But I'm a fan of Me Blog Write Good, Full House Reviewed, The Mysterious Mr. Enter (my true inspiration for blogging in the first place), PieGuyRulz, etc. I even go to the A.V. Club for a good discussion. Unknown (maybe I could call you Captain Who or the Bad Guy, if you want), you and I have the potential to take this blog to the same heights as GMW Reviewed. I'm not out to be compared to them. But if we can supplement their work with our own, that's fine by me. The blog game could use more players, and as you and I both know, hardly anybody is doing what we or Christian and Sean do. So it's time to crack our knuckles and waste everybody. In a positive way, I mean.
Oh, I only bring up the anonymous comment as a bit of self-depreciation humor. I guess it must come from watching Jessie way too many times: "The Fort Tavey Gazette said I was, and I quote, entirely adequate."
It's sad I can recite that perfectly.
But yeah, Christian and Sean really do great work. This blog wouldn't exist if they didn't. We've gotten way, way more supportive comments than just the one. I'm not even bothered by the negativity of the comment as so much as the anonymity, I guess even small stuff stings more when there's no accountability behind it. I'm not going to take away anonymous posting though, and that's the last I'll bother to bring it up unless I think it's worth the cheapshot at myself.
Liv and Maddie is a good show and Dove's talent is a big part of it. It also matters a whole bunch who's behind the camera. Andy Fickman, one of the executive producers and one of the show's "go-to" directors, has had tons of experience in television and movies. A lot of them are good, a lot of them are honestly, um, not so good. But I'm willing to bet if you go back and look at even some of his not so great works you can't really fault the directing that much. And even so, it still means he's had much, much more experience in terms of sheer volume and even reputable quality than other Disney Channel go-to directors who in many cases have been stuck their entire lives doing second-tier multi-cams or even never having been beyond the network much.
And then there are the creators themselves, Ron Hart and John D. Beck, who have had tons of experience doing multi-cam comedies everywhere including According to Jim which I understand is just as much wholly theirs as Liv and Maddie is. Granted According to Jim might not have been the greatest thing of all time but again it's clear it's still experience that counts. They've also done Shake it Up which again tends to be more divisive than other shows but it's still a beloved show from the tail end of Disney Channel's Golden Era and Pair of Kings which was also regarded as being of good quality.
Now you compare this to some of the other crews of other shows. Like on A.N.T. Farm, where some of the biggest creative forces behind that show have worked on such groundbreaking roles on such groundbreaking series as being a scriptwriter or producer on The Jaime Kennedy Experiment (just in case my sarcasm doesn't get through - no, it's a show I don't think anybody remembers) before going straight to Disney Channel for practically the rest of their careers. Or - do you remember back in the late 90s when FOX was desperately clawing for air and they aired a conspiracy theory special about the Moon or the Illuminati or they had - I'm not kidding - Weird Stuff On X-Rays about every week? Yeah apparently some of the A.N.T. Farm writers and producers got their start on that too. It really comes through when they try to break out of Disney Channel and end up creating Richie Rich for Netflix, which is almost universally regarded as the worst show possible by man. I've seen Richie Rich. It's no exaggeration. It's amazing this show ever got greenlit and I can't fathom someone not getting fired over it.
That's a bit of digression and I need to revisit the topic by itself later.
And since you insist I bring it up - Trials and Tribble-ations is kind of a controversial episode because it's the same treatment to The Trouble with Tribbles, probably the most beloved episode in the entirety of Star Trek history way back in, what, 1964 or something. A lot of people love it, a lot of people just feel like it was a cheesy cash-in. The episode was made to commemorate the 35th anniversary of Star Trek or something along those lines, so it's not like they ran out of ideas and wanted to throw something together or wanted to show the audience, "hey! We remember the original series too!" (Star Trek had already been back on the air for about a whole decade by that point). By the way, Deep Space Nine absolutely was a groundbreaking sci-fi series of its time and even today seems to be vastly under-appreciated. It paved the way for series like Battlestar Galactica in more ways than one - Ronald D. Moore, executive producer and creator of the new Battlestar Galactica, was an executive producer and scriptwriter of Deep Space Nine first. But again, I can save it for its own blog entry.We might even review Trials and Tribble-ations just to see an example of this kind of show revisiting and older show by way of CGI insertion plot.
Yeah, you got exactly why I gave Ben and Danielle MVP. I'm not going to lie, the flashback time travel scene felt like a treat. It was a gimmicky as hell treat but it suckered me in. Ben and Danielle might not have been the best actors at that age (I think we can all agree Ben's career is entirely owed to Fred) and both Sabrina and Rowan are probably far, far better actors from a technical standpoint but I thought those scenes had a genuine authenticity that have absolutely survived the test of time. Hell it's aged fine wine at this point. When you watch Cory and Topanga, there is no Ben or Danielle, just Cory and Topanga. Riley/Rowan and especially Maya/Sabrina pull that off. Peyton Meyer, not so much. And that's the problem. It's hard to come up with a coming-of-age story without romance. Yes, there is a big movement out there to get teen/young adult fiction of all media to be less reliant on the idea of needing a man (or woman) to feel complete but too bad, it is a big part of the human experience whether you like it or not. There's all sorts of groundbreaking and legitimately good coming-of-age stories from the LGBT perspective if that makes you feel better but the most successful coming-of-age or just teen/young adult stories period tend to have a romance element. It's beyond just sexual attraction - it's a very easy yet very effective way to make the characters and readers feel a part of something bigger than just his or her own life, to be a part of another person's life. That's why Boy Meets World was such a success. Even in that scene you got a sense that Cory and Topanga are in this journey together. Cory and Shawn were in this journey together. Cory and Eric were in this journey together. Cory and Turner and Feeny were in this journey together, except Turner and Feeny got to relive their own experiences and guide Cory, but they were just as much caught up in Cory's life as Topanga or Shawn.
This is what Riley and Maya are supposed to be be about, but I'm not convinced they are. Actually, come to think about it, I think there's too much interference from other people to allow Riley and Maya to share their life's journey. Everybody wants to butt in and be part of the ride too. Riley or Maya and Lucas can't do it because frankly Peyton doesn't have the acting chops. but the show keeps shoving it in our faces anyway. There's a whole goddamn three-episode story arc coming up of the show shoving Lucas into our face while at the same time serving a heaping helping of Texas stereotypes, as if we haven't had enough Disney Channel shows about that. Riley and Maya and Farkle can't do it because I think until recently the show didn't even know what to do with Farkle beyond gravely misunderstand who Minkus was in the original show (and it's Minkus, not Stewart Minkus!) Not to mention the show often wants to insist it's Riley and Maya and Farkle and Lucas. Boy Meets World was a show about Cory and Shawn with Topanga, or Cory and Topanga with Sean - one of the three just sometimes had to take a backseat. And Alan and Amy and Turner and Feeny and Eric were the support system. Sure, they had their limelight, but they were also the support system. Like how Girl tried to awkwardly state in Meets Gravity, they were in orbit around Cory, Shawn and Topanga. On Girl Meets World, it's Riley, and Maya, and Farkle, and Lucas, and Cory, and Topanga, and whoever the guest spot of the week happens to be. Hey it's Shawn, and Turner, and Harley, and Joshua, and Auggie, and Evelyn Rand, and Jessie, and Austin, and Ally, and Random Boy Meets World Extra #223423.
In the comments on GMWReviewed I've talked about how overly bloated the cast is on Girl Meets World, even compared to the Disney Channel standard. And now they have Zay, and now they want an LGBT character as a semi-regular, which is fine, except that if Zay is any indication we'll be seeing this LGBT character all of 12 minutes from the total 624 minute runtime of a 26 episode season. This is getting ridiculous and just stupid. And it's never Maya and Riley growing up together, or even a part of their support system helping them along the way, it's someone from the outside swooping in to the rescue. All Evelyn Rand has done in her entire existence as a character (save for the pilot when even the show itself literally didn't know who she was) is swoop in from the outside to the rescue at the last minute, which is exactly why for all I like Jackee Harry I despise this character to the core. When Farkle was out of control with his muffin-shaped sugar cubes Evelyn Rand swooped in to the rescue to fix everything by giving Farkle a stern talking-to lecture to make him feel bad and make him think about what he's done - and when I say lecture I mean she might as well be staring at the camera and say "I'm Jackee Harry and being greedy is bad" and then Farkle steps in and says "I'm Corey Fogelmanis who plays Farkle of Girl Meets World and being greedy is bad, and you have seen how Farkle has learned his lesson." And again in Meets Demolition, the whole episode is resolved by the Evelyn Rand cavalry coming to the dramatic rescue at the last minute by having Evelyn deliver another one of her stupid lecture speeches to make Aubrey feel bad and make her think about what she did wrong. "I'm Jackee Harry and being greedy is bad." "I'm Debby Ryan of Jessie and and being greedy is bad, and you have seen why Aubrey is bad and how she learned her lesson." Plus Astronaut Horse. And it's the same damn lesson both episodes! Micheal Jacobs, if you want to write a good episode with Evelyn Rand in it, it involves the Rand Building being surrounded by an Occupy Wall Street picket line.
And it happens all the time, just with characters who aren't quite as blatantly bad as Evelyn Rand. As much as I liked Meets the New Teacher,it's Turner who swoops in to rescue the girls. In Meets Flaws, it's Harley who swoops in to rescue Farkle. In the Mr. Squirrels trilogy, it's Eric who swoops in to rescue the girls. I think this is the biggest problem with the role reprisals too, it's them swooping in to the rescue, not to actually add to the Girl Meets World standalone legacy, which as of right now is virtually nonexistent because it's too busy propping up the Boy Meets World legacy. I have to give credit to Meets Rileytown, it actually is Riley and Maya saving themselves.
Wow, that was a much longer rant than what I was expecting of myself. But yeah, I think that sums up a lot of the problems with Girl Meets World. Liv and Maddie isn't burdened by having to accommodate all these ridiculous demands as a part of its legacy and own show culture. Even Jessie wasn't burdened by having to accommodate all these ridiculous demands as a part of its legacy and own show culture, at least back when it was good. Wizards of Waverly Place, Good Luck Charlie, Lizzie McGuire et all weren't burdened by being some sort of weird simulacrum of an exquisite corpse of a bygone era (and if you have no idea what I'm talking about or that I don't know how I'm using those words watch this video - see it's not just limited to TV shows, people.)
Anyway, I think I've said all I can about this.
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Friday, October 2, 2015
Jessie Reviewed: "The Ghostess With the Mostest" (#4.17...or whatever)
Unknown: Come down and see how pretty I look! Alternatively, pick whatever quote you want from The Ring and shove it in here
What is this? Yeah, I'm not doing this again, read the first Jessie review if you want all that (it's in the September 2015 folder).
What is this? Yeah, I'm not doing this again, read the first Jessie review if you want all that (it's in the September 2015 folder).
Seriously, what's with all these A-B-C plot structures? Good Luck Charlie barely skated by on it on the best of days, I Didn't Do It got wrecked into just about near literal oblivion (more on that between now and the 16th when it airs its final episode - yes, this is it for Jessie and Lindy at the same time, folks!) and Austin & Ally just did a new version of its three ghost stories from last year (oh yeah, they released the Monstober episodes early kind-of sort-of - more on that tomorrow). Girl Meets World went above and beyond that even and just did whatever the fuck it randomly felt like. And now Jessie has an A-B-C plot structure too in this one, though not by much and the C plot didn't really interfere with the other two. I'll cover more of how problematic the A-B-C plot structure is when I review I Didn't Do It's Bite Club tomorrow-Sunday.
Anyway, that didn't stink nearly as bad as I was fearing. Way back in the first Monstober episode, The Whining, there's been a tendency to go way over-the-top beyond the otherwise fairly grounded confines of this show. And then with To Be or Not to Be Me, and Ghost Bummers, and so on, to get even more outlandish. And then it got to the point where it started spilling out into the show period, to the extent that the show just really quit being all that "grounded" altogether and we got stuff like that horrible, horrible Rossed at Sea arc which might as well be called Debby's Suite Life Revenge against her younger castmates who never got the experience the horror of On Deck Season 3 (Party On! is a sin against all children watching television and the adults along for the ride too, I mean it). So it's a nice change of pace for a Halloween episode to seem so damn grounded again at least in comparison.
I'm also just going to leave this here.
I'm not going to come down because I'll be busy in my bunk (can I make that kind of joke on a blog like this?)
And yeah I know it's blurry, that's the best you're gonna get (it's hard to capture mid-motion still images with cheap streaming video files like this).
Anyway, I'm hitting the bed right now (no, not like that, yeah I already regret making that joke) so I'll see you in the morning and let's see if Mike has anything to say in the meantime.
You know, it puts a little sadness in my belly when these Halloween episodes refuse to try. Call me spoiled, but when The Simpsons was one of the best shows on television, their Halloween specials were oftentimes just as brilliant. Hell, "Treehouse of Horror V" is looked at as one of the best episodes in the history of the series. I should never expect that level of writing from shows like this, but come on. It's a Halloween episode. Be silly, be over-the-top, but at least make sense and be entertaining. The Suite Life of Zack and Cody's Halloween episode? Perfection. That episode of That's So Raven with Pushover Patterson and the cake? Beautiful. Even Degrassi could pull off a good Halloween episode....and they did.
I used to be a fan of Jessie. I never thought it was a clever show or hilarious enough to tell people about, but it was much better written at one point. One of the reasons I stopped watching was because of how stale and predictable it had become. They kept relying on the same stupid jokes over and over again like there was no other material to use. Jessie is lame and cannot succeed at anything and has had bad relationships? Check. Bertram is fat and hates everything about the kids? You're no Geoffrey Butler, sir. You're not, and I wish writers would stop trying to replicate Geoffrey. Luke is gross and stupid and still has the hots for Jessie? Check. Ravi is a complete dork who will never get ahead in life because he's not cool? Got it. Emma is a complete airhead? A poor man's London Tipton, I tell you. And Zuri is.........is......an asshole? Yeah, let's just go with that. I think the last episode I watched of my own volition was the one where Stefanie Scott guest starred? Nothing in it made me want to follow the show anymore. I really hope the kids get something more substantial than this. They have good acting chops, but they get saddled with this low-quality material every time.
You know what? I think we might underestimate the kid actors/actresses on these shows? Are they really that bad with any material they get, or is the material so bad they can't make it work? I mean, they had to have been hired for an obvious reason. They had to have been the best person for the role. But it's a lot harder to tell these days. Girl Meets World at least aims higher than most shows like it, and Rowan Blanchard, Sabrina Carpenter, and Corey Fogelmanis are like a three-headed monster when it comes to their acting. They really get into their characters and give them life and energy. Then you have something like Every Witch Way on Nickelodeon, which is a literal admission by the network that they chose to try nothing and yet they are out of ideas.
That Best Friends Whenever episode will get covered by me and the big red guy above me. I'm not missing a chance to see Girl Meets World interact with other shows. But wait, didn't that already happen? No, wait, it didn't. I don't consider it a crossover or a Halloween episode, I don't even consider it an episode. I consider it nothing.
Here's my prediction on the kind of crossover jokes we can expect:
"Hey, I'm Cyd and she's Shelby. Are you guys from here?"
"Yes, we are. I'm Riley and he's Lucas. We're from Friday nights so this is a big deal for us. Unicorns and lollipops and rainbows!"
"Hey, you're just like me!"
"OH MY GOD, I CAN'T EVEN DEAL RIGHT NOW, WE'RE THE SAME CHARACTER ON DIFFERENT SHOWS!!! THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!!!"
"Oh yeah? I CHALLENGE you!"
"To what?"
"A dance-off through time and space, Maya."
"My name is Riley. I'm the main character for God's sake."
"Can we please leave?"
"I'm Lucas and I'm from Texas. My friends call me Ranger Rick. Ha-hurrr."
You get the idea. I don't expect much (or anything) from this episode anyway. I just want to see Riley and Lucas on another show on Sunday night. It's Girl Meets World saying "Hey. We made it." Mike out.
The whole reason why I made such a big deal about wanting a partner for this blog is so I can get someone who vehemently disagrees with me - that Siskel and Ebert effect I had been talking about before. You'd talk about how Jessie is the worst thing ever conceived and that Debby Ryan desperately needs to quit and find a real job, then I'd swoop in and say Jessie is the greatest cultural achievement of mankind and Debby is the world's greatest actress and makes Sophia Loren look like a sorry wet rag, and we'd go back and fourth, and maybe some fun is had by the reader and something about storytelling is learned. So it's actually a little disappointing that we start off agreeing on everything. Not that I'm telling you to automatically do the exact opposite of what I do because, trust me, we'll find plenty of opportunity for that soon.
But yeah, everything you said about Jessie is exactly the problem with the show, though if you ask me it actually doesn't go far enough. You compare Season 1 and Season 4 and they might as well be different shows just using the same sets and actors. I don't think it's a problem with the talent. I think they're more than talented enough. Though you have people who say the only reason why Debby is on the network or has an acting job is because she's, well, I'll just say "front-loaded" and the only reason why Peyton List is on the show or has an acting job is because she looks like a flesh-made Barbie doll. I'm willing to give them more credit than just that. But the writing has taken a nose-dive as the show has gone on.
The thing about TV shows is that for all the silliness or blandness we see being captured by the camera they are complex organizational entities and there's a lot going on with Jessie. Did you know there are rumors that Debby herself hates the show now and wants to pull a Miley? Like, she got herself on the guest role on Girl Meets World as Aubrey specifically to get away from Jessie, even for just one time (that episode was filmed right when they were wrapping up the Jessie finale). There's a lot of stuff to cover and I'll do exactly that within this week when I do more reviews of past Jessie shows and retrospectives upon the show's finale countdown.
As for this episode...hmm, doesn't seem like you were able to willpower your way through it. Which is kind of a shame because compared to some of the stuff put out lately it's a fucking return to form. You can at least add some words about My Babysitter's a Vampire down below even if it is just "I haven't seen it" and you can also quote anything that stuck out to you for this episode, or if not you can put something snarky about a lack of quote (hint hint).
In addition to all of that, Jessie suffers the typical Disney Channel curse of having either the A plot or the B plot be complete and utter trash. This episode is no exception. The A plot was, well, kind of stupid and by far the least interesting thing about this episode. I don't get why the Jessie writers feel such a compulsion to rip off R-rated movies that the core audience is supposed to not have seen given the, you know, R-ratings. They've ripped off The Fucking Hangover,they've basically ripped of 24, and now they're ripping off The Ring. I don't know if they thing they're being edgy or whatever, but this is literally fucking Seltzer and Freiberg territory people. You remember Seltzer and Freiberg right? "Blank Genre Movie" Movies. The guys who finally became Hollywood pariahs for the utter shit they churn out. Cinematic shovelware.
So yeah, the kids keep disappearing because of this Abby ghost girl, and then it turns out it's really Stewart, and it's not even a trick or a punk as it is just an elaborate Halloween-themed invite to a party and that the kids have been "kidnapped" into this party. Actually, even I have to admit the reveal shows more than a few signs of cleverness and originality. The elaborate punk plotline has been done to death by every network ever delving into kiddie shows, and lately Disney Channel seems to have a thing for guys (or girls) coming up with ever-increasingly elaborate productions on how to ask someone of the opposite sex out (Jessie itself did this with one of its most recent episodes). Surprisingly enough when you combine the two it actually works. Actually, I'd even go so far as to say it might even be a good idea to try out in real life, though you might get a good kick to the shin if the invited party isn't so thrilled about your horror theatrics. Meanwhile, the journey to that payoff is, well, like a walk to the mailbox.
The real meat of the episode, and the real buzz - it's even got a good shot at crowding out Rucas on Twitter, finally - is Tessie. Nobody was expecting a Halloween episode or an episode this late in the series' entire production order to be a Tessie episode, especially with all of Debby's BTS talk of Jessie "not needing a man in her life" (this from a woman who Periscopes her boobs). And then wham out of nowhere Jessie and Tony are a thing again, and the fandom rejoiced. Tessie has been a major part of the bonding force of the whole series and I think it's no coincidence that the show went down the shitter the moment they broke up. Plus, the show shows its strengths when it comes to relationship moments like this. It's the one thing they do better than the GMW staff.
The crossover element was probably about as well-integrated as you're going to get on something this scale. Jessie actually interacted with Logan and Delia which is more than what we can say for certain other episodes and Delia and Luke started dating each other. In the Disney Channel universe, which is now apparently the same as the St. Elsewhere-verse which means all of this is an elaborate figment of a sick kid's imagination, Delia and Luke are supposed to be the exact same age or very close to it, but you can tell Sarah Gilman is way older than Cameron Boyce to the point where in real life she'd be spending 5-10 in jail and permanently banned from Hollywood as a registered sex offender (there's actually a discussion on this on IMDb where at first people thought the big reveal was Jessie and Logan dating).
That's pretty much all there is to talk about. Really it was standard Halloween plot with a lot of Tessie fanservice thrown in, a lot of it literally too given that getup Debby was wearing (absolutely I'm not complaining). If you're into Tessie fanservice then you're spending hours on Twitter squeeing about it and filling up your friends' timeline with OMG TESSIE RUCAS GIRL MEETS TEXAS I want to punch someone in the face now. If not, you probably changed the channel 8 minutes in.
Episode Grave: B-. And yes that's an intentional misspelling. Holiday spirit, ya'll!
Episode MVP: Chris Gayla, the man behind Tony/Tessie. He actually got to do something beyond dumb jock Mr. Goodhair Doorman.
You know, it puts a little sadness in my belly when these Halloween episodes refuse to try. Call me spoiled, but when The Simpsons was one of the best shows on television, their Halloween specials were oftentimes just as brilliant. Hell, "Treehouse of Horror V" is looked at as one of the best episodes in the history of the series. I should never expect that level of writing from shows like this, but come on. It's a Halloween episode. Be silly, be over-the-top, but at least make sense and be entertaining. The Suite Life of Zack and Cody's Halloween episode? Perfection. That episode of That's So Raven with Pushover Patterson and the cake? Beautiful. Even Degrassi could pull off a good Halloween episode....and they did.
I used to be a fan of Jessie. I never thought it was a clever show or hilarious enough to tell people about, but it was much better written at one point. One of the reasons I stopped watching was because of how stale and predictable it had become. They kept relying on the same stupid jokes over and over again like there was no other material to use. Jessie is lame and cannot succeed at anything and has had bad relationships? Check. Bertram is fat and hates everything about the kids? You're no Geoffrey Butler, sir. You're not, and I wish writers would stop trying to replicate Geoffrey. Luke is gross and stupid and still has the hots for Jessie? Check. Ravi is a complete dork who will never get ahead in life because he's not cool? Got it. Emma is a complete airhead? A poor man's London Tipton, I tell you. And Zuri is.........is......an asshole? Yeah, let's just go with that. I think the last episode I watched of my own volition was the one where Stefanie Scott guest starred? Nothing in it made me want to follow the show anymore. I really hope the kids get something more substantial than this. They have good acting chops, but they get saddled with this low-quality material every time.
You know what? I think we might underestimate the kid actors/actresses on these shows? Are they really that bad with any material they get, or is the material so bad they can't make it work? I mean, they had to have been hired for an obvious reason. They had to have been the best person for the role. But it's a lot harder to tell these days. Girl Meets World at least aims higher than most shows like it, and Rowan Blanchard, Sabrina Carpenter, and Corey Fogelmanis are like a three-headed monster when it comes to their acting. They really get into their characters and give them life and energy. Then you have something like Every Witch Way on Nickelodeon, which is a literal admission by the network that they chose to try nothing and yet they are out of ideas.
That Best Friends Whenever episode will get covered by me and the big red guy above me. I'm not missing a chance to see Girl Meets World interact with other shows. But wait, didn't that already happen? No, wait, it didn't. I don't consider it a crossover or a Halloween episode, I don't even consider it an episode. I consider it nothing.
Here's my prediction on the kind of crossover jokes we can expect:
"Hey, I'm Cyd and she's Shelby. Are you guys from here?"
"Yes, we are. I'm Riley and he's Lucas. We're from Friday nights so this is a big deal for us. Unicorns and lollipops and rainbows!"
"Hey, you're just like me!"
"OH MY GOD, I CAN'T EVEN DEAL RIGHT NOW, WE'RE THE SAME CHARACTER ON DIFFERENT SHOWS!!! THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!!!"
"Oh yeah? I CHALLENGE you!"
"To what?"
"A dance-off through time and space, Maya."
"My name is Riley. I'm the main character for God's sake."
"Can we please leave?"
"I'm Lucas and I'm from Texas. My friends call me Ranger Rick. Ha-hurrr."
You get the idea. I don't expect much (or anything) from this episode anyway. I just want to see Riley and Lucas on another show on Sunday night. It's Girl Meets World saying "Hey. We made it." Mike out.
The whole reason why I made such a big deal about wanting a partner for this blog is so I can get someone who vehemently disagrees with me - that Siskel and Ebert effect I had been talking about before. You'd talk about how Jessie is the worst thing ever conceived and that Debby Ryan desperately needs to quit and find a real job, then I'd swoop in and say Jessie is the greatest cultural achievement of mankind and Debby is the world's greatest actress and makes Sophia Loren look like a sorry wet rag, and we'd go back and fourth, and maybe some fun is had by the reader and something about storytelling is learned. So it's actually a little disappointing that we start off agreeing on everything. Not that I'm telling you to automatically do the exact opposite of what I do because, trust me, we'll find plenty of opportunity for that soon.
But yeah, everything you said about Jessie is exactly the problem with the show, though if you ask me it actually doesn't go far enough. You compare Season 1 and Season 4 and they might as well be different shows just using the same sets and actors. I don't think it's a problem with the talent. I think they're more than talented enough. Though you have people who say the only reason why Debby is on the network or has an acting job is because she's, well, I'll just say "front-loaded" and the only reason why Peyton List is on the show or has an acting job is because she looks like a flesh-made Barbie doll. I'm willing to give them more credit than just that. But the writing has taken a nose-dive as the show has gone on.
The thing about TV shows is that for all the silliness or blandness we see being captured by the camera they are complex organizational entities and there's a lot going on with Jessie. Did you know there are rumors that Debby herself hates the show now and wants to pull a Miley? Like, she got herself on the guest role on Girl Meets World as Aubrey specifically to get away from Jessie, even for just one time (that episode was filmed right when they were wrapping up the Jessie finale). There's a lot of stuff to cover and I'll do exactly that within this week when I do more reviews of past Jessie shows and retrospectives upon the show's finale countdown.
As for this episode...hmm, doesn't seem like you were able to willpower your way through it. Which is kind of a shame because compared to some of the stuff put out lately it's a fucking return to form. You can at least add some words about My Babysitter's a Vampire down below even if it is just "I haven't seen it" and you can also quote anything that stuck out to you for this episode, or if not you can put something snarky about a lack of quote (hint hint).
In addition to all of that, Jessie suffers the typical Disney Channel curse of having either the A plot or the B plot be complete and utter trash. This episode is no exception. The A plot was, well, kind of stupid and by far the least interesting thing about this episode. I don't get why the Jessie writers feel such a compulsion to rip off R-rated movies that the core audience is supposed to not have seen given the, you know, R-ratings. They've ripped off The Fucking Hangover,they've basically ripped of 24, and now they're ripping off The Ring. I don't know if they thing they're being edgy or whatever, but this is literally fucking Seltzer and Freiberg territory people. You remember Seltzer and Freiberg right? "Blank Genre Movie" Movies. The guys who finally became Hollywood pariahs for the utter shit they churn out. Cinematic shovelware.
So yeah, the kids keep disappearing because of this Abby ghost girl, and then it turns out it's really Stewart, and it's not even a trick or a punk as it is just an elaborate Halloween-themed invite to a party and that the kids have been "kidnapped" into this party. Actually, even I have to admit the reveal shows more than a few signs of cleverness and originality. The elaborate punk plotline has been done to death by every network ever delving into kiddie shows, and lately Disney Channel seems to have a thing for guys (or girls) coming up with ever-increasingly elaborate productions on how to ask someone of the opposite sex out (Jessie itself did this with one of its most recent episodes). Surprisingly enough when you combine the two it actually works. Actually, I'd even go so far as to say it might even be a good idea to try out in real life, though you might get a good kick to the shin if the invited party isn't so thrilled about your horror theatrics. Meanwhile, the journey to that payoff is, well, like a walk to the mailbox.
The real meat of the episode, and the real buzz - it's even got a good shot at crowding out Rucas on Twitter, finally - is Tessie. Nobody was expecting a Halloween episode or an episode this late in the series' entire production order to be a Tessie episode, especially with all of Debby's BTS talk of Jessie "not needing a man in her life" (this from a woman who Periscopes her boobs). And then wham out of nowhere Jessie and Tony are a thing again, and the fandom rejoiced. Tessie has been a major part of the bonding force of the whole series and I think it's no coincidence that the show went down the shitter the moment they broke up. Plus, the show shows its strengths when it comes to relationship moments like this. It's the one thing they do better than the GMW staff.
The crossover element was probably about as well-integrated as you're going to get on something this scale. Jessie actually interacted with Logan and Delia which is more than what we can say for certain other episodes and Delia and Luke started dating each other. In the Disney Channel universe, which is now apparently the same as the St. Elsewhere-verse which means all of this is an elaborate figment of a sick kid's imagination, Delia and Luke are supposed to be the exact same age or very close to it, but you can tell Sarah Gilman is way older than Cameron Boyce to the point where in real life she'd be spending 5-10 in jail and permanently banned from Hollywood as a registered sex offender (there's actually a discussion on this on IMDb where at first people thought the big reveal was Jessie and Logan dating).
That's pretty much all there is to talk about. Really it was standard Halloween plot with a lot of Tessie fanservice thrown in, a lot of it literally too given that getup Debby was wearing (absolutely I'm not complaining). If you're into Tessie fanservice then you're spending hours on Twitter squeeing about it and filling up your friends' timeline with OMG TESSIE RUCAS GIRL MEETS TEXAS I want to punch someone in the face now. If not, you probably changed the channel 8 minutes in.
Episode Grave: B-. And yes that's an intentional misspelling. Holiday spirit, ya'll!
Episode MVP: Chris Gayla, the man behind Tony/Tessie. He actually got to do something beyond dumb jock Mr. Goodhair Doorman.
Reality Break: Uriah Shelton (actor behind Joshua Matthews on Girl Meets World) hospitalized in motorcycle accident
I just found out about this about a minute or so ago on the Girl Meets World Reviewed and BMWSequel.com that teen actor Uriah Shelton is making a slow recovery after being involved in a motorcycle accident, the details of which can be read on one of his Instagram and Twitter posts which has been reposted in the enclosed BMWSequel.com link. If you're wondering why this is big news for this blog, or what he has to do with Girl Meets World, he's the actor portraying Joshua Matthews (Cory's younger brother and Riley's barely-older uncle) on the show. He's also had a lengthy history with being a child actor on Disney Channel, the first instance I'm aware being on the Suite Life on Deck special episode Maddie on Deck alongside the Sprouse twins, Brenda Song, Ashley Tisdale, Debby Ryan and Phill Lewis. I've very much enjoyed his portrayal of Joshua Matthews - the role and his performance of it brought what I think is exactly the kind of growing journey Micheal Jacobs had in mind for Girl Meets World and the type of vision that made Boy Meets World a rare teen-family sitcom of its period worth remembering beyond just for its humor or other standard TV sitcom metrics. As much as I hated Meets the Tell-Tale Tot it certainly wasn't any fault of Shelton and indeed his performance (and the performance of other gifted actors like Sabrina and Rowan) were still spot-on.
I can go on and on and fill this entire blog with a glowing eulogy for a guy who's already 80% on the way to recovery. These type of things happen, and it's fortunate that Shelton was able to recover from this accident - which brings up another quick point I want to emphasize. I myself am a motorcycle rider and I occasionally blog about it on another blog called Oppositelock which is part of the user community of the automotive blog Jalopnik (yes the Gawker Media one). Emphasizing rider safety is an important issue for me and for other blog contributors who feel passionate about riding. I myself have had my own butt saved multiple times due to proper motorcycle protective wear including and most importantly a helmet, a safety device that was also critical in saving Uriah Shelton's life. If there are any people who ride out there that read this blog and Christian's blog, please remember to gear up before you ride.
I've been meaning to comment on this but I forgot to. I just want to send Shelton my well wishes and I hope he has a speedy recovery. A week before this happened, rapper Fetty Wap was involved in a motorcycle accident. He's okay now, but since he is blind in one eye, he lacks depth perception and he didn't even have on a helmet. There's really no excuse for that, or any reason for him needing to be on a motorcycle at all with one eye but it should have never happened. And this was the day after his debut album came out.
I also hope people knew to take these accidents seriously and not try to make jokes out of it. I've never driven in my life, so you could imagine how I feel when I hear about someone crashing their freaking motorcycle and falling off. It almost rips my soul apart. Stay safe when you ride and keep your head up, Uriah. We hope to see you back on Girl Meets World real soon.
Side note: "Girl Meets the Tell Tale Tot" is interesting enough in my eyes to warrant a review. Eh, sometime.
I've been meaning to comment on this but I forgot to. I just want to send Shelton my well wishes and I hope he has a speedy recovery. A week before this happened, rapper Fetty Wap was involved in a motorcycle accident. He's okay now, but since he is blind in one eye, he lacks depth perception and he didn't even have on a helmet. There's really no excuse for that, or any reason for him needing to be on a motorcycle at all with one eye but it should have never happened. And this was the day after his debut album came out.
I also hope people knew to take these accidents seriously and not try to make jokes out of it. I've never driven in my life, so you could imagine how I feel when I hear about someone crashing their freaking motorcycle and falling off. It almost rips my soul apart. Stay safe when you ride and keep your head up, Uriah. We hope to see you back on Girl Meets World real soon.
Side note: "Girl Meets the Tell Tale Tot" is interesting enough in my eyes to warrant a review. Eh, sometime.
M-I-K-E, the Blogger Man
Hello everybody. I'm MikeTheTVBlogger, and as Unknown has already told you, I will be the co-author of this Nickelodeon and Disney blog. I have done previous blog work myself on a few episodes of live-action and animated shows, and hope to continue that work separately now that I have found a good job here. I'm not sure how to add to Unknown's posts yet but that will get straightened out soon. This is all a formality though. I would just like to let you guys know who I am and once Unknown gives me the green light, I'll start doing some reviews of my own and eventually some joint ones with the guy who made this possible.
A few months ago, I touched on the fact myself that kids live-action shows rarely ever get any reviews or analysis of their own, mostly because the genre itself has been in limbo for at least two years. There was once a time when Nickelodeon was producing live-action shows that were not only amusing, but had charming, relatable characters and captured the essence of being a kid. Now a lot of the food they serve has a little more artificial flavor if you catch my drift. Same as Disney Channel, but their business practices are a little more methodical.
So let's get this party started! Unknown, you can take it from here.
Hot damn, you got this post all linked up and everything! You're already ahead of me in getting this worked out.
For those of you who are not me and him, I linked to Mike's blog on the post about other sites down below. Check it out.
You're here, so as far as I'm concerned you've got the green light already. Feel free to add to the MBAV review below, or go ahead if you want to add anything for the Monstober premiers (I get to have the joy of living on the West Coast so I get to see it dead last after everyone else - though this also means I see it at the same time as the actual people who star in these shows. Go fig.) So I guess if you want to kick it off it's yours if I don't get to it yet. Including GMW though I don't know how much I can add on top of what Christian and Sean have already done at Girl Meets World Reviewed (I already gave what I feel I can say about it in the MBAV review).
As for editing, I've found the easiest way is to just click on "New Post" then click the blog title (Nick and Disney Channel dot dot dot) and it will take you straight to the current post listing. Oh and I guess go ahead and choose a font and color! I'm not that married to red so if you want it go for it.
That's going to be a bit of trouble since I'm an author and lack administrative power but if you want to make me co-administrator, that will help things move a lot faster. Oh yeah, for anyone reading this, I'm using green now. It's still Mike, but we need to make sure we have something to contrast. And I'll get my ball rolling with a Girl Meets World review of an episode that really needed to be looked over a little more. Or a LOT more.
Let's see if I can do that. I might need to modify the sharing of each individual posts, let me see if I can try that and see if it'll let you do anything else.
Oh, there we go! You're an admin now, you should be able to have at it with all the posts here!
A few months ago, I touched on the fact myself that kids live-action shows rarely ever get any reviews or analysis of their own, mostly because the genre itself has been in limbo for at least two years. There was once a time when Nickelodeon was producing live-action shows that were not only amusing, but had charming, relatable characters and captured the essence of being a kid. Now a lot of the food they serve has a little more artificial flavor if you catch my drift. Same as Disney Channel, but their business practices are a little more methodical.
So let's get this party started! Unknown, you can take it from here.
Hot damn, you got this post all linked up and everything! You're already ahead of me in getting this worked out.
For those of you who are not me and him, I linked to Mike's blog on the post about other sites down below. Check it out.
You're here, so as far as I'm concerned you've got the green light already. Feel free to add to the MBAV review below, or go ahead if you want to add anything for the Monstober premiers (I get to have the joy of living on the West Coast so I get to see it dead last after everyone else - though this also means I see it at the same time as the actual people who star in these shows. Go fig.) So I guess if you want to kick it off it's yours if I don't get to it yet. Including GMW though I don't know how much I can add on top of what Christian and Sean have already done at Girl Meets World Reviewed (I already gave what I feel I can say about it in the MBAV review).
As for editing, I've found the easiest way is to just click on "New Post" then click the blog title (Nick and Disney Channel dot dot dot) and it will take you straight to the current post listing. Oh and I guess go ahead and choose a font and color! I'm not that married to red so if you want it go for it.
That's going to be a bit of trouble since I'm an author and lack administrative power but if you want to make me co-administrator, that will help things move a lot faster. Oh yeah, for anyone reading this, I'm using green now. It's still Mike, but we need to make sure we have something to contrast. And I'll get my ball rolling with a Girl Meets World review of an episode that really needed to be looked over a little more. Or a LOT more.
Let's see if I can do that. I might need to modify the sharing of each individual posts, let me see if I can try that and see if it'll let you do anything else.
Oh, there we go! You're an admin now, you should be able to have at it with all the posts here!
My Babysitter's a Vampire Review: The Movie
I heart boys who sparkle! Alternatively, A debate team trophy?!What is it? Single-cam made-for-TV kids/family comedy movie of the tween/early teen variety
Where did it air? Family Channel in Canada originally (or YTV, I don't remember off the top of my head) but Disney Channel here in the 'States
Who stars in it? The incredibly lovely and terribly underrated Vanessa Morgan (originally an LA native, BTW) along with the equally lovely and terribly underrated Kate Todd, and again the equally terribly underrated Matthew Knight, Atticus Mitchell, and Cameron Kennedy
Why are we reviewing this? Because as far as made-for-TV-movies-but-not-DCOMs go MBAV is one of the finest Disney Channel's ever aired. Hell it can easily go toe-to-toe with the best Halloween-themed actual DCOMs, or the best DCOMs period (yeah in case you can't tell I love this movie)
It's October now, which means all the obligatory Halloween themes and for Disney Channel in particular "Monstober" which despite all the yearly Twitter buzz and excitement can be a mixed bag. Girl Meets World: Of Terror 2 more than kind of sucks (I tried watching it too, and I just can't, the song they use for the number[s] is just too, too horrible - you can tell they got a regular staff writer who literally doesn't know a thing about song writing and is quite possibly also tone deaf who has a vague idea of what the 20s is like from watching Brian de Palma's Untouchables and nothing else, instead of an actual skilled songwriter who can make shitty songs not sound like shit and oh yeah actually make them sound like songs instead of script instructions with all the inspiration and passion of a cardboard cutout of Joaquin Phoenix and his glaze-eyed stare). I think the Jessie Monstober episodes are kind of hit-and-miss within the same episode, especially all the way back in The Whining which for me was the first signal that the show was going to head downhill, straight into "Tonight's Jessie has been preempted so we can bring you 24 minutes of kid-friendly humiliation porn starring Debby Ryan" territory. The tendency is to either go overboard, like with the three-plot non-canon story-within-a-story arc - which has worked better and not so well with some shows - or barely even try with a soft story about going trick-or-treating and just encountering the same problems they always do at school anyway - which again has worked better and not so well with some shows too (it really speaks volumes about how much Liv and Maddie has evolved that the first season was about mistaken identity at a school Halloween dance, and the second season had Helga).
And then there is the theme-ing of the network itself which, especially for the bumpers/Wand IDs tends to be obnoxious and, how do I put this, trying too hard. We get it, it's Halloween, stupid holiday puns are your fetish, take your stupid puns and shove it, give me back Debby saying "What's up" and Dove Cameron saying "yay!" and Piper Curda also saying "yay!" goddamnit.
That aside Monstober is still probably the best month of the whole damn year for Disney Channel programming. Fa-la-laidays are overrated and suck, and the rest of the year is just the rest of the year. You don't like the Halloween-themed episodes, that's ok, they take up like only 1/5 of the programming schedule (and front/back-loaded at the very beginning and end of the month too so there, now you can schedule avoiding them) and Disney Channel will still spam Girl Meets The Secret of Life a billion times until you've memorized Farkle's formula for figuring how long it takes to wash a car and then be proven wrong. The Halloween-themed DCOMs are almost always a treat, particularly Halloweentown which tends to be spammed a lot especially during the Replay/graveyard slots, plus are always on Watch Disney Channel this time of year with Twitches. Oh, on that note, Watch Disney Channel has opened the flood gates and now anything even remotely resembling a Halloween-themed DCOM is up on Watch Disney, including Now You See It which isn't exactly a Halloween DCOM and premiered in...like, January 2004? Disney Channel's also been having Maker Monstober since last year when they bought out the Maker YouTube channel which is probably the best thing out of the entire year's schedule and showcases a lot of independent creatives, so there.
Anyway, I'm supposed to be talking about this movie called My Babysitter's a Vampire. You won't find it on Watch Disney Channel because it's an import from Canada's Family Channel which Disney Channel has a partnership with (or used to until they launched Disney Channel Canada just last month, either way they don't have the rights to put it up on Watch Disney Channel despite being on the network proper) which in all honesty probably explains why it's so damn good and even more mature and darker than the usual stuff on Disney Channel, even compared to the Halloweentown movies. So sorry, you snooze you lose but it's not hard to find on say Netflix or Amazon Prime and I'd say it's worth the $1.99 or whatever.
If you've already seen it, you've noticed coming in it's different from a DCOM in every way imaginable from the cinematography and direction to the scriptwriting, even though many of the same people who work for Family Channel also work for Disney Channel down to the cast themselves (Atticus Mitchell - by far the only person I've see named Atticus outside of The Middle and Harper Lee novels - was with Debby in Radio Rebel which is chock full of Canadian vets, and Vanessa Morgan who by the way is crazy insane hot was with Sarah Hyland who is also crazy insane hot in Geek Charming and has been on a few Disney Channel shows namely A.N.T. Farm). There's just a certain "Canadian" feel to it that I actually kind of like, if only because I associate it with taking more risks than Disney Channel's in-house stuff. Kind of like how all the procedural dramas on CBS tends to have the same uniform extruded product feel in cinematography and even in the tone (both in the figurative sense and down to the actual colors) of the video captured by the camera itself even though all these disparate shows may be produced by different studios owned by rival networks behind the scenes (though this fall season only like one or two CBS dramas aren't produced in-house).
When you're dealing with a ridiculous fantastic premise there's two ways to go about it - you can either go all-in and treat it completely seriously and reverently - which tends to have mixed results, but a good creative can make it work brilliantly and even have it remembered as high literature (see anything Tolkien) or you can just throw up your arms, openly admit that you know it's fucking stupid and just roll with how fucking stupid it is and have fun with it - which tends to be the safe and comfortable route but can be overdone into shittiness (see almost anything Seltzer and Freiberg). I think it's pretty obvious that My Babysitter's a Vampire is going for the latter but without overdoing it. In fact if anything it does it in a weirdly constrained way (in a way where you can tell it's mainly constrained by budget as so much as the quality of scriptwriting or imagination) but in a manner that helps reel it in. It spends some time to set up the universe it resides in (mainly this movie-within-a-movie Twilight parody called Dusk - you can tell this thing was made when Twilight was still at the height of its popularity) and then we get to vampires, and then action, and then end scene. I'll get into more of that stuff a little later.
My Babysitter's a Vampire is made by FreshTV which is actually weird because they've done almost nothing but animation - Total Drama Island and 6Teen on Cartoon Network is made by them. In fact I think MBAV is their only live-action production. It's also kind of weird because I kind of hate Total Drama Island and 6Teen, or at least I never really got into it. But lo and behold it's the same writers for the MBAV movie/series (oh yeah I'll get into that later too) and Total Drama Island/6Teen so there you go. I just found 6Teen to be meh, and TDI a little too stuck in how gimmicky its premise is, but in MBAV the script seems more loose and willing to veer off into a weird direction it thinks will work, and then making it work.
It really shows in the fight scenes - I guess they know fight choreography is going to be limited so they do what they can even if it means having to make the fights intentionally goofy. Like in the climax when Benny (Atticus Mitchell) is fighting vampires at a movie theater while at the same time flirting with the girl behind the snack counter and pretending to be a Jedi (it makes sense in context). This is also the only time on Disney Channel you'll see someone fight a vampire by shoving a fork through his head or having a debate team trophy get speared through his hand (it's the pointiest thing they could find), which will never not be awesome, thank you Disney Channel sensors for allowing that one.
There's only two things that really bug me about it. The first is how Erika (Kate Todd, who again is crazy insane hot) picks up the intricacies of being a vampire really fast, even more than Sarah (Vanessa Morgan) and by the time of the series becomes this all-knowing vampire expert. Like in the series sometimes it'll be like, Sarah's like what the heck is that and then Benny's like I don't know let's read the book and then they read the book and Benny's like this doesn't tell us anything and then Erika literally drops in and is all like, exposition goes here. If you've seen the movie you know she pretty much has to pick up all this vampire stuff up instantly. Maybe it's because she's such a big Dusk fan she researched all this shit beforehand, or Jesse the Bad Guy told her all this in the 15 seconds they spend together. The other thing is that Erika does this big heel-face-turn so she can be a big star in the TV show suddenly and without explanation, all off-screen no less. She and Sarah are fighting, and then Erika tells vampire Chad from High School Musical to go fight Sarah instead, then Erika disappears from the whole frickin' movie, and then the next time anybody sees Erika it's at the very end of the movie where she's just chillin' in high school and everybody's like, yup, everything is back to normal, of course we can completely trust this vampire girl who five minutes earlier was trying to kill us to be our friend and help us fight supernatural bad guys.
So that's all I got, take it away Mike!
...well it doesn't seem like Mike's very interested in taking this one so I'll just give it the final go:
Episode Grade: B+. A little wobbly and it doesn't make any pretense of it being bigger than it is but it's already recognized as a Disney Channel/Family Channel holiday classic.
Episode MVP: Again, it's really hard to assign one just because everyone plays their part in accordance so well, nobody really stands out. I think I'll give it to Atticus Mitchell just so I can use this space to point out he's also in the first season of one of my favorite shows, Fargo on FX.
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Other Children's Entertainment Blogs (That I know of)
One of the reasons why I started this blog in the first place is because there seems to be a serious dearth of blogs dedicated to children's entertainment. I mentioned back in the Introduction (the very first post so you'll have to scroll waay back) there was a blog called Nick and More that's since been defunct after the author simply had enough of it. I've repeatedly mentioned Girl Meets World Reviewed (here's a link in case you need it) as the inspiration to this blog, and until I started actively promoting my own blog it was the only real site I was aware of that did what it did (and just for a single show). Since then a few people have come out of the woodwork who have their own blogs. For starters there's MikeTheTVBlogger, who will from this point forward be co-authoring this blog as well. From there I learned about PieGuyRulez who apparently has been around for a while (he started doing his thing since The Suite Life on Deck and Debby Ryan's career were brand-new) though he's strictly a video blog. To be honest with you I'm not sure what to think about video blogs - ever since the Angry Video Game Nerd and Channel Awesome completely dominated that genre, the whole TV/Movie video review blog scene tends to be very nearly uniform with equal parts or more sarcasm or vitriol that I've found tends to get in the way of an honest, sincere from-the-hip review style like GMW Reviewed (though GMW Reviewed itself and even if not especially myself tends to be guilty of sometimes going overboard on the sarcasm as an end to itself too). Plus it seems like other than that what little "professional" (i.e. they get paid to write this) blogs or opinion sites out there that even bother to do children's entertainment, even only occasionally, only do so in order to accentuate the negative which accomplished nothing but perpetuate the state of bad kiddie TV in the first place (like how Channel Awesome pretty much just wants to convince you that the entirety of entertainment is garbage sometimes even up to and including themselves - not a valid criticism of them, it's just their shtick, but it doesn't technically make for genuine review and they'll more or less openly acknowledge they mostly exist for entertainment, not review), or just come off as excessively mean-spirited and tends to be a turn-off for me at best (like when Deadspin topped off their review of Jessie - "the worst TV show of all time" - with an animation of Mrs. Kipling eating Debby's face, or when Cracked.com subtly implied that Debby should quit acting and take up being a porn star instead. Yeah....) But yeah I'm digressing again....
As I've mentioned Channel Awesome, I guess I'm obliged to also mention that they do kiddie shows too though for the most part it's limited to their core nostalgia market. Still, their retrospectives like Nostalgia Critic's love letter to Animaniacs or Linkara's extensive and thorough videos on the entire Power Rangers series are near-obligatory viewing. Back to smaller-scale, written blogs, @ratingsnick on Twitter has a blog called Disney and Nick Alive! which more or less takes over the mantel of the old Nick and More blog. @DisneyChanNerd also has...Disney Channel Nerd which is kind of a mix of parody news/press release site with some commentary sprinkled in between. And of course there's also now this blog, but since you have to already be reading this blog in order to be reading this sentence you kind of already knew that.
Well, that should be it. Take it away, Mike! If you feel there's other stuff to add - or not, if that's pretty much it.
Welcome, this blog's new co-author!
I've been searching for a co-author ever since I first decided to start this blog. Listening to a single guy spout off his mind without any internal filter is fine and all, but in my experience (and after reading Christian and Sean's Girl Meets World Reviewed) a review blog really does elevate if there's two people going back and fourth. Call it the Siskel and Ebert effect, if you will. There's a reason why those two guys are more remembered than any other reviewer in history - without each other they'd be just two Chicago critics yapping about their own ideas and opinions in art and movies/television within a small circle, but put them on a viewing balcony together they created real sparks. Not the kind you'd normally think of, but the more entertaining kind - to this day you'll have people who swear Siskel and Ebert hated each other's guts, but no, being together just brought out the theatrical in each other. Probably more important than that was that they tempered each other's opinions and positive/negatives, aside from the verbal fireworks - when they disagreed on the thumbs up or down, that's when the validity of a reviewed work really came out. There are things that need to be defended, and there are things that deserve to be trashed, and it's going to differ from person to person. It was my favorite part of At the Movies, it's my favorite part of Girl Meets World Reviewed and it'll be interesting to see how it plays out on this blog.
Anyway, please welcome MikeTheTVBlogger and be sure to visit his own blog, MikeTheTVBlogger.Wordpress.com. He'll be coming in...as soon as I figure out how to add him as a co-author which hopefully will be as soon as he gets back to me. As for MikeTheTVBlogger himself, feel free to add any words here or, you know, whatever. I guess we're going to have to adopt some sort of color scheme too, feel free to choose and I'll just go with whatever contrasts. And if you'd rather not be called MikeTheTVBlogger tell us what you'd rather be called too.
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