Creepy asides, random pro-SJW rants and somewhere in there reviews of Nickelodeon and Disney Channel shows. And still trying to figure out a layout that doesn't suck.
I'm not sure what kind of quote to put in here to open it up: I suppose I could point out the lack of intoned irony regarding a character saying "Millennial straight guy" considering this is based off a comic series that pretends the 50s never died; I guess I could quote how Cheryl tells the core cast about her Twitter account; I guess I could pull any snippet of dialogue like "You missed curfew last night/Yes, by 7 minutes! I was with Archie and yes has red hair but he is nothing like Blossom!" or even better the line right after that, "Stay focused/I refilled your Adderall." Or maybe make fun of The CW's lame slogan, "Dare to Defy" (uh huh). But I think the BEST quote of all to pull for this show is this:
What is it? Exactly the hour-length format trainwreck iO9 said it was going to be, with attempts by The CW to try to disguise it into a single-cam drama but ultimately that failed. Where did it air? The CW, which apparently stands for "Couldn't Watch" Who stars in it? The most recognizable name in this whole thing is Cole Sprouse. No, I don't mean for people familiar with the type of shows we review - I mean literally, period. Cole actually gets to be the biggest name star out of this whole thing. Ross Butler, who you may recognize from KC Undercover and Teen Beach 2 (another trainwreck so hopefully he's used to that sinking feeling of the production set being a disaster) gets to be a guest star here. Pretty much everyone else is a, as the meme'ing kids say these days, a Literally Who? Why are we reviewing this? Now you'd think we'd be reviewing it because of the Cole Sprouse connection because we've reviewed awful series starring former Disney and Nick stars before, but nope, not this time! I'm watching it just to see if it really is the bizarre train wreck iO9 claimed it to be based off of ComiCon previews. ...sadly, it isn't. Oh, it is indeed a trainwreck just not a bizarre one. But more on that later. Once upon a time there was a show on a network called The WB that in turn was called Dawson's Creek. I don't know if I can really call the show revolutionary, though in hindsight it did perhaps give birth to the whole mid-late teen and even young adult dramatic genre that's sprung up a lot on both its successor network and on many, many others, eventually virtually taking over its own network entirely in the form of ABC Family and finally fully transforming it into Freeform (which The CW so, so desperately wants to be within the confines of an FCC Over-the-Air Broadcast license). But what it certainly was was controversial, namely in, I believe, depicting a sexual relationship between a female teacher and one of her students. And then later came Gossip Girl which defined the mid-older teen/young adult dramatic genre for its era, and now Pretty Little Liars that does it for the current era. And back just before Gossip Girl you had Smallville, a (at first) highly praised drama for taking both the prequel formula and the Superman mythos and turning it into something that was both relevant to teens at the turn of the Millennium and a truly imaginative take on a decades-old property, before it started rapidly falling apart (whether in the true sense or in a more spiritual one, it pretty much gave birth to all the DC comic properties on The CW and went a long way to making The CW The DC Channel). And half a decade ago already there was also Hellcats, a show about high school cheerleaders which at least just by word-of-mouth I think did a better job at what Riverdale's trying to get at minus the crappy genre/murder mystery shit, and starring both Ashley Tisdale and Aly Michaylka which given the era they represent are practically Disney Channel royalty. I'm not really familiar with those shows; the last thing on either of The CW's parent networks I saw was just before they merged, and Riverdale is the first CW show I've seen full-length ever. Based strictly on word-of-mouth I do regret never having seen Gossip Girl and Hellcats actually, and to a somewhat lesser extent Dawson's Creek although it's been my experience that many shows from the 90s and these teen and young adult dramas from that era especially age very, very badly. Like, forgotten refrigerator leftovers bad. Fortunately for Riverdale, it doesn't have to worry about that because it's already gotten to that point, right in the first episode! The biggest sin Riverdale commits is the biggest sin any piece of fiction can possibly commit - become terminally boring right out of the gate. I can't call the pace "molasses slow" because I just don't feel like insulting molasses right now. Actually, let me put up a visual demonstration of the pace of Riverdale's first episode:
Really, nothing happens. We're given a set up on how the show twists around the Archie mythos with a murder mystery surrounding the Blossom twins with incestuous implications, and after that it's a giant who cares. The high school tropes would embarrass a Lifetime special (trust me I would know). To borrow a phrase from AV Club in one of their The Secret Life of the American Teenager reviews, it feels like the writers are actually aliens from outer space that spent their entire lives watching teens on cheesy Earthling comedy television, and then tried to write their own drama show. The developments would be agonizing provided they even technically exist. To quote Savagegeese from that video right above, "it's literally one big joke," except nobody's laughing. There isn't even any enjoyment from a so bad it's good factor. Even on the reimagining factor it falls flat on its face and absolutely fails; it feels like they simply slapped Archie-legacy names on characters for...for what, exactly? Name recognition? How many people alive even remembers Archie? It got so bad that the entire publishing company behind Archie Comics was staring into the abyss of bankruptcy. There's almost literally no reason for for this to be "Riverdale" or Archie-anything. Oh, and speaking of Dawson's Creek Archie is involved in an affair with his teacher because...I don't know? Because they're desperately hoping you'll be reminded of Dawson's Creek and might confuse this show for good? In one scene Betty and Veronica try out for cheerleading and in a desperate bid to make it on the team Veronica forces Betty to make out with her (and by forcing her, I mean literally, in the somewhat sexual assault-y lets-suck-whatever-good-taste-remained-in-this-show sense) and the scene is flooded with this ridiculous dramatic music like we're witnessing a major character and plot turning point. It manages to avoid being boring only by being the stupidest scene in the episode's first half hour. The only good thing to come out of it is that Cheryl rightfully shuts them down by pointing out how stupid it is. Not that it prevents the show from going overly-dramatic straight into stupid territory at all, including right in the immediately following dialogue. I believe iO9 also pointed out how...odd Cole Sprouse's opening narration is and, yeah, it's pretty freakin' weird. What helps it be especially weird is that Cole has all the cadence of a Freshman trying to put together a video for AP History. I know he more or less retired from acting after SLoD until now apparently but he simply sounds seriously, seriously out of practice. For narrating a voiceover, no less. He "reinvents" Jughead by writing what he claims to Archie is a novel but is really an expose on the truth behind Jason Blossom, names retained and all, hence the narrative overlay. It's exactly as contrived as it sounds. There is one scene that's worth watching, when Veronica is with Betty and Kevin and they see Archie down the hall and Veronica asks "is that your boyfriend?" and they both quickly deny with a flimsy "no." Yeah, I know it's not exactly the most original thing to happen in this decade but it was the only thing the episode managed to pull off. And the commercial breaks. I swear, there's only 35 minutes of actual show here. Which is actually to my great relief so I'm filing it under "things good about this show." I think the show's creator is actually also the creator of NBC's Undateable...another show we'd previously reviewed due to its Disney Channel connection and another show so unbelievably bad, to the point where it's considered the worst show this blog's yet reviewed. Well guess what it now gets to have company because it's now tied with this unfortunate borefest of a shitshow. Episode Grave: F Minus Minus. Some blogs or review sites will assign F grades to shows that still manage to be entertaining on some level, even only on a So Bad It's Good basis. Well, not this blog! We'll tell you if there's anything salvageable for entertainment including if it manages to be so bad it loops around back to being good, and our final scores will reflect that. But no, there's absolutely nothing redeeming here. It's so bad I'm bringing back "Episode Grave" with the intentional misspelling, because it's so bad it kills. It's not just the worst thing this blog's reviewed in the new year so far, it's tied for worst thing period so far. Minority Report and The Mysteries of Laura were better than this. Again, if this is coming from the same human-shaped talentless hack of a turd that created Undateable, I'm not surprised. Episode MVP: We actually have several tied for this believe it or not. We have Madeliene Peitsch, for being a pretty attractive redhead, I guess. We have who I'm going to call "Pussycat #2" for, uh, being pretty, again. We have the commercial breaks for making sure we at least don't have to suffer much. We also have "Savagegeese" up there for pointing out the pitfalls of using too high a weight of oil in your car during the winter months which is also helpful, along with Worker & Parasite for being more entertaining than anyone in this show. And finally to any brave souls who managed to make it through this ordeal in its entirety. Episode LVP: Cole Sprouse's agent. Extra Thoughts - yeah there's a reason why this is premiering on the last Thursday of frickin' January. No way this is going to last past this half-season, or at least if there is a God it won't. - LaToya Furgueson (I hope I spelled that last name right) of the AV Club actually gave Riverdale "Chapter 1" a B+ of all things. I have no idea how to explain this other than 1.) she was on drugs or drunk, and I don't blame her or 2.) the thing is that I've always suspected AV Club to be a little more lacking in integrity than they're willing to admit, especially with Todd Van der Werff who is more than a little prone to writing TV show and movie reviews as if he actively wants to display his wishes for wanting to write for former Gawker and Jezebel instead, if not VICE (that last one's pretty bad). I'm not going to let you down the same way, dear readers. I'll let you know upfront that I completely lack any integrity from the very beginning. - Despite having just poked fun at Gawker I'm going to post this preview from Gizmodo that tempers some of the expectations that were had for this show back in May: http://io9.gizmodo.com/what-in-gods-name-is-going-on-in-this-riverdale-synopsi-1777821851 Apparently, a lot of the positive reviews for this show really are for its So Bad It's Good factor, but I'm still not seeing it. - it turns out PopTV airs reruns of Dawson's Creek so there you go. Just this morning (after I finished the above review) I was able to catch a little bit, and in the 36 minutes of this one random episode in the middle of Season 3 that I saw (the first bit of Dawson's Creek I've seen since they were still premiering brand new episodes, if not ever) I can easily tell it's vastly superior to any hope of quality Riverdale can possibly ever grasp at. - And on that note I'm actually blown away by how absolutely gorgeous Michelle Williams was back in the 90s (and still now, for that matter). And yeah, one of these days I'll take some sensitivity classes so this blog can be more than a collection of extremely sexist observations on actresses. I promise.
Before I get to my concluding thoughts on Girl Meets World and why it ultimately "failed," I think I should cover some of the practical issues pilots and season finales tend to have - especially after seeing the reactions to Meets Goodbye on Girl Meets World Reviewed and on IMDb and elsewhere. And especially after reading Mike's reaction. If anything, hopefully this explains the exact structure of why Meets Goodbye was the way it was, down to the Boy Meets World cameos (though that's probably going to be inherently obvious). I wrote about how wonky pilot episodes can be when we reviewed the pilot for Stuck in the Middle. How successful or how wonky a pilot episode ends up being is dependent on a variety of factors, not the least of which naturally being the simple, raw skill of the cast and production crew behind it. Much of what makes the pilot of Game Shakers the way it is is because it was made in an era when Dan Schneider has just given up and spends all his free time just counting all that automatic cash being raked in from a very desperate Nickelodeon too afraid to let him go. Confession time: I've yet to see a single episode of Breaking Bad, but strictly just from what I've heard about the show and cast and crew in general I'm willing to bet it was probably pretty good regardless how pilots typically go. If the circumstances allow for it, they might even have it screened ahead of time by a carefully selected audience (or at ComiCon) and edit and improve the pilot based on audience reaction, up to completely tearing down the existing footage altogether and completely starting over and reshooting the pilot back from square one - which is exactly what happened with the Game of Thrones and Westworld pilots. But for the vast majority of TV pilots the luxury of having an audience reaction before official premiere doesn't exist. These type of audience screenings and expensive reshoots typically exist when there's major money on the line, so much so that even further adding to that cost with a complete pilot reshoot seems worth it to protect future investments in the show. It's easy to identify what kind of show that is by how much attention the network throws at it come every September - and your typical broadcast or basic cable network can only afford one or two pilots for a show like that every season, on top of the ones that are still ongoing. For most other shows, they live or remain stillborn based strictly on the strength of their first go-around - if it's even just meh-tastic, it'll live on even if it gets stuck with a mid or late-season premiere, but otherwise that's the end of that, they've had their one shot and for everyone involved it's time to try something else. The vast majority of the TV viewing public will never be aware that the vast majority of these failed pilots even existed. If we're lucky maybe someone will leak it on YouTube, but even then it'll fade into obscurity for everyone except those who either stumble upon it by sheer chance or know exactly what to look for from the start. But conversely, for certain types and genres of shows, the financial barriers are so relatively low that if audiences (or network execs) think a show premise has promise, or they're really banking on using it as a star power vehicle but they're not super-happy about the pilot, they'll go ahead and order an (often quick) complete reshoot from scratch. This is what happened to both I Didn't Do It and Shake it Up. In the case of I Didn't Do It, they ended up removing a character because it was felt the core cast was too big otherwise and doing other adjustments. In the case of Shake it Up it was actually because of the character Tinka - originally cast for Stefanie Scott, but she ended up declining the role after they'd already shot the pilot with her in order to take on a bigger role in A.N.T. Farm so they had to do all the Tinka scenes all over again with their second-preferred choice (and for both shows, the rest is history). Particularly in the case of Disney Channel and Nick multi-cam comedies, but multi-cam comedies and even comedies period in general, they're so quick to shoot (it's typically a business week per episode from script read to having film ready for post-production for most multi-cams) and so cheap to do so that if the exces think a reshoot is in order it's trivial to do so compared to the eight figures it took to finally get the first episode of Westworld going. Certain genres of drama shows also tend to be cheaper than others, especially the "procedural" I talk about in the SitM review - you can identify these shows in that they have a tight and small core cast of central protagonists (usually just two, no more no less, because buddy cop shows sell) usually surrounded by a slightly larger peripheral cast whose existence is entirely centered on the central two, namely to provide them information to get the plot rolling, and pretty much everyone else is going to be a guest star; and every single episode plot (the A-plot at least) revolves around some mystery the two main stars have to solve. For obvious reasons it's overwhelmingly usually a murder or crime investigation which is why the term "police procedural" is used interchangeably, but it's increasingly more common to see shows that break away from the police drama element but keep the procedural formula (especially after the massive success of the most famous show to pull this off - House M.D. [or just House]). Perhaps you've also caught on to another large, critical detail that tends to separate cheaper shows, especially the single-cam 44-minute format drama shows, from the hugely expensive ones - formula vs. story-arc. Not that formulaic shows can't have story arcs (in fact practically all of them will to some degree, even Law & Order: SVU which tends to be very standalone per episode) and it's pretty much impossible for story-arc driven shows to avoid at least some formula, but it's pretty easy to tell what tends to be the main driver of a show. The aforementioned Game of Thrones and Westworld are very obviously driven by epic story-arcs that follow a very logical, linear timeline - missing out on one episode risks being completely lost. And speaking of which, so is Lost, and Once Upon a Time and even Backstage and The Lodge on Disney Channel (and hell even The Other Kingdom and Make it Pop! on Nick - although obviously in the case of those Disney and Nick shows they're going to be much cheaper than all the others, and even Lost and OUaT are going to be significantly cheaper than Westworld and Game of Thrones if not barely more expensive than their procedural counterparts - but it still probably stands that those single-cam shows on Disney and Nick are still more expensive than the usual multi-cam comedies that dominate both networks). Now compare these to the formula-based shows - again, the procedurals in particular for dramas and pretty much any given comedy regardless of camera format (though there are exceptions - Every Witch Way comes to mind as a rare one for multi-cams in particular, at least in the English-speaking market and maybe even among comedy telenovelas in general - but they tend to be rare enough to not have enough statistical pull). Because they adhere to a formula, for the most part you can completely skip an episode (as I had been doing for, uh, pretty much most of GMW Season 3 and smaller chunks of Season 2) and get caught up immediately on the very next one with little or no problem, if not with every single episode being completely standalone stories that can be viewed in almost any order without any appreciable difference in comprehension (just as how I was first introduced to the first season of Jessie, Austin & Ally and the first two and a half seasons of Good Luck Charlie as I caught up viewing all the episodes in reruns over the course of a month and a half in whatever order they happened to be airing at the time - hooray for Disney Channel's idiosyncrasies!) This formula in fact tends to be a major driver towards how these shows end up being cheaper in the first place - having a set formula to follow means the episodes tend to be easier to write and episodes easier to shoot and produce as you've now introduced at least some elements in scale-economy into your production, and in Hollywood burning time really is burning money. Now, the big part of having a formula your show and characters follow is making sure the audience is capable of following that same formula - and that's how we get to why and how pilots can end up being major suckfests. Procedurals are pretty easy to hop right into - everyone pretty much understands the concept of investigating a murder - but pretty much every comedy you have is going to dedicate the pilot almost exclusively to setting up and explaining the formula. If it has a quirky character (and it's a comedy so of course it will) the pilot is going to explain the quirky character. Not explain why the character is quirky, mind you - just spend every minute of his or her screen time pointing out check out how quirky this character is! If these characters get into a lot of whacky situations (and it's a comedy so of course they will) then the pilot's plot will be nothing more but pointing out hey! These characters get into whacky situations! If there's some sort of high-concept premise involved, then that high-premise concept is going to be explored (or if not, instead, again, giant arrows pointing out hey! This show is about wizards!) Think back to the first episode of Girl Meets World: all the insistence that yes, Riley will be meeting The World in this series! Or the first episode of Best Friends Whenever which was pretty much almost pure setup of the basic premise. Those are all "The Pilot Problem" in action. And on top of that you've also got the fact that often this is the first time many cast and crewmembers (if not most) are working together for the very first time, and it takes time and a few episodes to have all of those components gel with each other. So the first few episodes might end up just being wonky while the cast starts to get into their acting groove and the crew processes what works and discards what doesn't. For most Disney Channel and Nickelodeon shows it ends up that the entire first season is pretty much just a giant break-in period for the cast, crew and other elements of the show, which is why usually the first season is noticeably of reduced quality compared to later seasons especially when the show does end up becoming very good as with Liv and Maddie and The Thundermans (though there are exceptions as Jessie and to a lesser extent Good Luck Charlie prove). And there's the flipside, the series finale. Just like the pilot has to establish everything and set it all up, the finale (at least in most planned finales) everything has to be broken down and every and all lose plotlines have to be tied up as neatly as production constraints will allow. And let's talk about the production constraints, especially in the case of GMW - no doubt Jacobs and the rest of the crew had to be aware of the possibility that Season 3 would be it (if nothing else they've got plummeting ratings staring at their faces) but it ended up being in a weird limbo state - on the one hand, it was still getting the best ratings on the network, but on the other hand the margin between it and the lowest-rated show was razor thin (just off the top of my head in some cases less than 200,000 viewers) and more importantly ratings across the board for the entirety of Disney Channel had nosedived so bad (again, GMW, the highest rated show on the network, could no longer get even anywhere near 2 million viewers) that to those savvy in the operations of Disney Channel the possibility that the days of four-season shows might be gone. There was enough ambiguity in that situation that Jacobs and his crew simply had to wait for official word from the network to be sure. And keep in mind that these decisions aren't made at the last minute for last minute's sake - there's no doubt that a strong case was being made to renew GMW for a fourth season despite the network-wide ratings tumble, and a lot of cost-benefit analyses were no doubt being performed. That takes time - in fact, a lot of time. It's likely the network informed Jacobs as soon as they made a decision (and there's usually a solid, hard deadline for the network to make these decisions too as a courtesy to the people effected by it if nothing else, to allow them to move on to other projects if necessary) but the timing still probably resulted in a bit of a production squeeze - or if the decision was going to be made after any possibility of producing a proper finale was outright gone, then you'd have exactly what you just witnessed last Friday where there was enough ambiguity they could pick up straight where they left off if they did get renewed. Add to to that of course the obligatory appearance of just about every original-flavor character they could possibly get as a reprisal, including both Morgans. This wasn't just to close out the GMW storylines and plotlines, but to close out those that may have been hanging loose from Boy Meets World despite the fact that, you know, it still got its own proper finale to close those plotlines already but whatever. A lot of those plotlines were forcibly reopened just with the mere existence of GMW, opening up a lot of questions from the audience regarding whatever happened to Morgan anyway? that the show was now obligated to answer. Of course, given the sheer number of characters that simply started to just eat up a lot of time that could've been given to other storylines (so much so that Harley and Minkus didn't even get to speak!) and the insistence that a lot of the episode still be spent with the core five navel-gazing, and you end up with a lot of different things going different places and little time spent there. And even when we do have planned finales we can still end up with messes like the Jessie finale which, well, I still maintain is a complete and utter clusterfuck. I don't know why they just went with the standard 25-minute length but whatever. They had a ton of plotlines to close out - how will Jessie manage to justify leaving her nanny job for Hollywood? Will Jessie be able to make it in Hollywood anyway? What will happen to the kids without her? How are they going to resolve the Jessie-Tony ship? That's a fair number of plotlines, and especially given the half-hour they had to play with they pretty much just rushed through them. In fact just the other day I was rewatching There Goes the Bride and I think that made for a better finale than the crap we ended up getting. It didn't necessarily close out all the storylines but it provided better emotional closure for the ones it did close - hell, in fact given that it was the third to last episode of the third season I have to wonder if it wasn't Jessie's Girl Meets Goodbye. Maybe it was already planned when they weren't sure they were going to have a fourth season - granted, two episodes (well technically three) did end up airing after that but Rides to Riches could've easily been shoved aside further back into the schedule and Aloha Holidays with Parker and Joey could've been filmed after they already knew they were getting a fourth season after all. If you're looking for a more tidy finale as far as these Nick and Disney KidComs are concerned, I guess the iCarly finale is probably as good as you're going to get since its premiere which considering that was just over four years ago is pretty damn sad. Well, that and the Good Luck Charlie finale. The GLC, with a full hour to play with, did a pretty good job closing up the plotlines and did its best to remove as much ambiguity as possible regarding what kind of future the characters are going to have beyond the theoretical confines of the show. The iCarly finale did pretty much the same, except I could've lived without the inane plot with Gibby going to the mall to get another head scan. So, yeah. That tends to be the nature of the multi-cam beast. You have a quick set-up with a premiere, you have a thrown-together (well, hopefully not) finale that (hopefully) satisfies the audience, but the real money is of course made in-between. It might mean that the end might suck to the point where the show's done an outright disservice - but that's just one of the risks you run being a multi-camera show fan.
We'll always have a place here........ "What a way to go out. Out like a sucker." - Erick Sermon Disclaimer: I end up getting pretty angry near the end. I'm mostly exaggerating so don't take it seriously but some of it is me legitimately snapping after having to witness something like this. Oh, trust me, we totally get your anger. We also get Christian and Sean's anger. Literally everybody has at least one reason to be angry about this. This is absolutely the time and place to vent. What is it?: 30 minute multi-cam sitcom and series finale Who stars in it?: Rowan Blanchard, Sabrina Carpenter, Peyton Meyer, Corey Fogelmanis, Amir Mitchell-Townes, that girl who plays Smackle, Cece Balgordotsomething. A bunch of guest stars who were regulars or recurrings from Boy Meets World make an appearance. I'm sure William Daniels and the guy who plays Turner are going to be the two most people care about (it is for me). Both Morgans show up to make a meta-joke. Harley Kliener doesn't say anything at all for some reason. Where does it air? Disney Channel, or insert literally a billion posts about how it should've been on Freeform all along until your head starts to hurt Why are we reviewing this? Because it is the series finale of what had taken over as Disney's flagship show after Jessie ended, although I think that torch ended up getting passed to K.C. Undercover instead, despite any intentions otherwise. So Girl Meets World has now come to an end, an end that seems increasingly permanent now that Netflix has explicitly declined to pick up the series (ouch, and I'm not saying that to be facetious, that's a legitimate ouch on behalf of all the fans who have stuck to this show for three seasons and have campaigned to have this show continue on Netflix specifically - not the least of which is Rowan Blanchard and Micheal Jacobs themselves). Is it physically impossible for the series to continue on in some official form? Strictly speaking no, but the incentive (the key ingredient to make it continue) just isn't there now. Can the series continue in some unofficial form? Not likely from the official crew and cast themselves as their time is simply too valuable to be spent on no-pay projects, but that doesn't mean that some enterprising kids can't put up even some sort of 8-minute long video on YouTube acting out their favorite GMW moments, or that some creative writers can't write their own vision of how Riley and Maya's lives can continue in fanfic form. Weird how you say that about fanfics considering my idea for one. It's an episode about Riley and Maya's desire to be independent when they fantasize about owning an apartment. It's called "Rowan and Sabrina's Laugh-In" because it will be written in the style of old sitcoms. Well, either that or the girls will be in a dream where they are transported to a past era of television. Just an idea. Some people are debating whether or not that article is legitimate about Netflix. And by some people, I mean IMDb. It's actually pretty hilarious that they didn't pick it up. Honestly, if it wasn't for Fuller House existing, GMW would be a lock for Netflix. Although...*shudders* fanfiction. I once read some fanfiction about Jessie Prescott and Emma Ross. I don't think I've still recovered. My biggest worry actually isn't about the show itself (when you get down to it, everyone involved will be fine with opportunities to ensure employment) but what the future of Girl Meets World Reviewed will be. They've already said that once they're done running down the greatest Boy/Girl Meets World Characters list and maybe a few other things, with little incentive to review the other shows on Disney Channel or Nickelodeon and with a subsequent dearth of material to write about, they'll pretty much just be shuttering down. Girl Meets World premiered late June 2014 after the premiere of the Zendaya DCOM Zapped! with a "preview" being made available an entire month early in May 2014, so "officially" that's almost exactly two and a half calendar years to have squeezed three seasons in - a short run no matter how you look at it. But Christian didn't get the ball rolling on GMWReviewed until very late August of that year (almost exactly a year before the birth of this very blog) when GMW already had something close to half a dozen episodes under its belt. Presuming they keep the Greatest Characters list rolling until February that'll be a scant two years and four to five months thereabout - I don't know if that's a short run or an eon for the life of a blog, but it also seems to be dearly cut way too short. I suppose it's an inevitability though as they've never at any point expressed any interest in continuing the blog past the show itself, so even if GMW did get that magic number fourth season on Disney Channel we would just find ourselves at the exact same place, just a year delayed. Maybe if Disney Channel moved to Freeform or Netflix to continue for six or seven years total like its parent series - but like I implied at the very beginning of this post and as countless others, trolling or otherwise, have pointed out on the IMDb boards, that's wishful thinking at best and pure delusion at worst. This was always going to be a Disney Channel series, and while the possibility to incentivize Disney Channel to break new ground and break that season limit wasn't exactly entirely out of the question, it would have to be under circumstances not even the regular 6-8 million viewership of Wizards of Waverly Place was able to create, even after 106 regular series episodes and a one-hour special one year after the fact. It was a tall order to ask for and calling for a lot of bets to be made on the adult peripheral demographic to show up in droves for nostalgia's sake, and a number of factors including the rapidly changing demo landscape of the network (for absolutely the worst) just made sure it wasn't in the cards. But that's enough eulogizing the series, I want to eulogize Christian and Sean's blog now. It was an amazing blog and as I've said repeatedly this very blog wouldn't exist without them. So whatever they end up deciding and whatever direction they take the blog - even closing it out entirely - and whatever projects they may collaborate on or continue separately, I wish them luck and I absolutely and eagerly look forward to it. Christian and Sean are living legends. They will definitely be missed but I really want to do a crossover review with them and just talk about the Meets World universe in general. As for us, well...I think I've beaten to death the fact that we're not going anywhere so howabout instead I'll leave it open to the readership to decide what the next review should be on. I feel like it should be something special since it's not just a show that's ending, but effectively a small business closing down (there are upwards to well over a hundred people behind the scenes making sure this thing hits the airwaves) and as far as I'm concerned, above all a few of our dear friends closing up shop on their blog, too. If you've ever had a favorite place - a small mom-and-pop cafe, an independent bookstore, maybe even a public library - announce that in the very near future they'll be making their very last sale or scan their very last checkout, yeah, that's exactly how I feel right now. I want to do my part to make sure the end of Girl Meets World Reviewed feels exactly the same as when that cozy place on the corner announces they'll be serving their final customers. A warm, fuzzy celebration of the community gathering together, but not necessarily a goodbye - howabout a thank you instead. So if there's a way I can turn a review into that, I'll be more than happy to have you guys help me with that. And of course Mike will be doing his countdown of at least one series reviewed of all the shows in 2016. Trust me, I can tell you from personal experience it takes some serious time so I don't blame him one bit for having these reviews come in as they are. And remember, he also has college to deal with. But yeah, we're still here, we're still reviewing Girl Meets World one last time (well, one last new episode at least) so here we go! What I saw from the Trump inauguration was pretty uninteresting. His speech was standard if not completely disingenuous. And Jackie Evancho can't hold a candle to Beyonce. Well she's like 16, man - and Beyonce's like, older than even me so if nothing else she's got experience and practice behind her that Jackie doesn't. If I was in her shoes I'm not sure how I'd feel - and that's assuming she even has mixed feelings about it. If any of you'd bother to go back and read our sole standalone Bunk'd review so far (Nov '15, that's how far back it was) you'll know my opinion that discretion and anonymity are always preferable to infamy especially when you're still a teen, and looking at just a quick Google search maybe Jackie Evancho would've done just as well to decline. Man, young people sure suck at avoiding getting shafted nowadays. Trump should get right on that and actually help out our education system [pause for laughter]. By the way, Obama's expression is how I felt for a good portion of this episode.
Only the finest and dankest of memes straight from 2006 on THIS blog!
So we have a...continuation of Meets Sweet 16 which is...no surprise. Like I said in the last review the biggest weakness, this show's Achillies' Heel, has been its tendency to want to tell instead of show. In fact it's been outright enthusiastic about telling instead of showing. In this context it'd get more leeway except...it just ends up feeling like the rest of the series so far. So when you do have to tell those emotionally impactful moments, well...they kind of lose their impact. By the time they got to "Belgium 1831," I was already infuriated with the episode. They didn't even bother to hide the fact that this is just for Riley's situation. They don't even make a joke about how it always ends up that way. It's just.......played completely straight. And at this point, I seriously don't care how Riley and Maya feel about their friendship potentially ending. It's about as pointless as when Homer and Marge's marriage is on the rocks. Is it a treat seeing all these Boy Meets World characters again? Even after we've seen a number of them already and even with a few (Harley, who once again isn't allowed to speak here for some reason) being semi-regulars on this series - absolutely yes it is. Especially Feeny - and I just want to say that at the very least I'm happy that William Daniels has been able to manage at least once a season on this show and has been able to become a keystone on this Boy/Girl Meets World closeout, along with Mr. Turner (I'm not going to say Shawn and Eric if only because the show obligates us the decency to include them automatically anyway - although that's certainly true of Daniels, except I'm glad they're able to include him with health considerations a factor). There is no better time to point out just how much Boy Meets World takes a huge dump on its own child. Whenever anyone from the original show speaks or does anything, my attention immediately goes to them and what they say or do is usually 100 times more interesting than whatever happens with GMW. They even make that clear in the episode itself that Topanga's decision really doesn't matter. While I don't get why they all had to come to the Matthews house for this, it's not that annoying. I was mesmerized by Eric interacting with Feeny for the first time in 17 years, as well as Shawn and Mr. Turner's reunion after 20 years. This is living proof that Cory and Topanga should have been the main characters of Girl Meets World. As I noted with Jackie Evancho above (and, let's face it, this probably applies to the Trump clan still in their teens or younger too) parents taking a dump on their children seems to be the big "in" thing among baby boomers lately (since, say, when Dubya got elected). But that's not to say that this show in particular doesn't do what should be the impossible and manage to have Boy Meets World take a dump on itself. This was one thing in my rush I forgot to talk about - but the whole antagonism behind Eric and Feeny that comes straight out of nowhere? That apparently comes from an online video the crew made and posted somewhere. I'll give a special award of some type (to be determined, and don't expect much because it's going to be worth exactly free) to anybody who can sufficiently prove they've actually seen this video or was even made aware of its existence prior to reading this. I want to say I wrote about the pitfalls of having your primary media rely on secondary media (online clips, etc - especially when you tell exactly no one about it) around here somewhere. Eh, I can always start fresh with a new context. As for Cory and Topanga being/should've been the real main characters...to paraphrase Alton Brown, that's another blog post. One of the most anticipated appearances of the episode - indeed, the entire series - is sister Morgan and how they'll handle Ridgeway and Nicksay. The way they handled it...honestly, is something they can get away with only because it is the series finale. It served it purpose. I'm going to be that guy and say that I didn't like the Morgan joke. I know what they were going for, but it was just a really weird meta joke that didn't come out fully formed. We don't even know where she's been all this time and she just shows up because the plot called for it. And they kept harping on the joke. Eric high-fiving them both was funny and well-timed. Everything else? No. We get the joke, you don't have to keep explaining it. Other than that, well...the opening quote of this post, I think, pretty much says anything else that needs to be said. For some it might be a disappointment, but I'd be hard-pressed to be convinced it's really a surprise. Given that it's the end, I don't think it really matters if they stay in NYC or go to London. The lives of Riley and Maya can now only continue in our imagination - but, again, that was inevitable. There was always going to be some point where we're forced to let go in every way and manner there is except in the spark that lives inside our imaginations. We're comforted by seeing our favorite characters on-screen, to be given officiality - realness - to their perfectly fictional lives, but at some point those lives, fictional or real, have to come to an end. It's a cliche for a reason - the circle of life, and it applies to made-up people portrayed by real people on-screen, too. I don't think anyone really expected the Matthews to go to London. It would have taken some balls, but with the way the episode was written, they made it seem as if them moving was a foregone conclusion. iCarly handled this a lot better in its own series finale. But, like Topanga and Cory say, we and they - fictional and real - will always have a place. It may not necessarily be here, but it'll be somewhere. That said, this series died as it lived. That statement is so true, it's painful. That last speech, if I could break it down, just made me glad that this show was over. "World Meets Girl" was a better series finale than this. At least there, they were actors dealing with the fact that this show was over rather than characters reacting to a realistic situation as unrealistically as possible. Episode Grade: C+. This really is a microcosm of the series as a whole, but it's...passable, I guess. It's just not the greatness that Boy Meets World is so fondly remembered for being. If this grade ends up being lower than the grade I gave for the Jessie series finale, it's only because I need to go back and retroactively lower the grade for that episode to match (at best). It certainly felt warmer than the Jessie finale overall, for what that's worth. Season Grade: Ugh. I intentionally missed out on most of the season which afforded me the opportunity to pick and choose which episodes I watch, which means I pretty much reserved myself the cream of the crop. Based on overall impressions, maybe a C-? Sorry? Series Grade: C-. Ish. It had a lot of potential but it certainly as hell faltered in places, didn't it? I'll have a full write-up grading the series as a whole and expressing in my honest opinion what went wrong and where. I'll have a lot of not necessarily nice things to say - but I'll have some nice things to say too, to try to balance out the karma. Episode Grade: C-. Yeah, I'm not going to beat around the bush here. This was a really disappointing episode. Like I said before, the anger I used to have when Girl Meets World would churn out material like this has turned into pity. I feel sorry that a show that should have been way better than what it was became this. The series finale was representative of a lot of the things wrong with this show. Take away the Boy Meets World stuff, that C- becomes a straight up F. Take away the Boy Meets World stuff and you wouldn't even have an episode to speak of. Like, what, 45% of the screen time was just Boy Meets World characters interacting with the GMW cast and each other? Now that you mention it I don't know if this was really meant as a bookend/closeout to the series proper as so much as just a love letter to original-flavored variety Meets World. Season Grade: B-. This was a really weird season. It was just a mixture of good, decent, and bad episodes from start to finish. It could go from "High School" to "Permanent Record" to "Triangle" to "Real World" like nothing. This show was more or less the same as it was in season two, with no major attempts at growth or trying to tell more mature stories. There weren't even that many good episodes either. I could probably count them with less than two hands. The best thing this season gave us is Mackenzie Yeager. It really seemed like she understood what Girl Meets World should be, and I hope she continues to make a name for herself as a writer. Best (in no particular order): Jexica, Permanent Record, Real World, Bear, Her Monster HONORABLE MENTIONS: She Don't Like Me, Upstate, I Do Worst: SKI LODGE. SKI LODGE IS THE WORST. I NEVER WANT TO WATCH IT EVER AGAIN. The other four, in no particular order: High School, Triangle, World of Terror 3, Goodbye
DISHONORABLE MENTIONS: Hollywood, World Meets Girl, Sweet Sixteen
Extra Thoughts - Snakey404 commented that both this episode and the Jessie finale isn't that bad and, now that I've seen it a second time (well, mostly seen it a second time), I have to agree. It isn't exactly the worst series finale on Disney Channel either, let alone of all time (that would probably belong to a show that isn't even worth mentioning let alone watching in the first place, left forgotten for all of history). I still stand by my original judgement of the Jessie finale, though. - The reason why Harley doesn't talk is that they probably did film a scene, but cut it for time. Which is a shame. There were other places they could've trimmed to fit it in. - At this point I feel like I should thank William Daniels just for being alive. It's my sincere wish that he at least be able to live out the entire calendar year of 2017, and I'd be ecstatic if he lived out the entirety of 2018 too. Hell, I'll pray he lives beyond the next decade. He really is a national treasure at this point and that's no hyperbole. I can imagine Christian and Sean feel the same. - For the record I think the younger, brunette Morgan is hotter. Just sayin'. - I'm going to go ahead and link Spongey444's review here (it's really short): http://spongey444.deviantart.com/journal/First-Impressions-Girl-Meets-World-Finale-658616929
EXTRA THOUGHTS
-That joke with Riley and Maya forgetting about their third friend was actually pretty funny. It felt straight out of Boy Meets World. Then they mention her again, and then a third time where we actually see her in the class. They didn't need to keep the joke going, it was funny the first time and then they decided to let it linger. It would have been funnier if they mentioned how people become forgotten when they move, and then the third friend reintroduces herself to them. Scene over.
-I really hate how they introduced "Belgium 1831" the way they did. I'm not even trying to look too deeply into it, Cory was teaching that specifically for Riley's problems. And then we have Maya randomly thank Farkle for his friendship and kiss him on the cheek, which was an admittedly sweet moment. Still, it came out of nowhere.
-The stupid thing about the Boy Meets World gang showing up one last time is that they try to cram their scenes in as much as possible. Why this was 22 minutes and "World Meets Girl" was an hour, I'll never know. This episode really needed more time. Stuff like Shawn adopting Maya doesn't hit the right notes emotionally because we're getting blindsided by it around the same time we hear what Alan and Mr. Feeny have to say about the potential move to London. Eric barely even does anything, it's just surface level dialogue and most of it is just him acting like his season seven self. Harley and Minkus don't even talk. And based on what Unknown said about his scene being cut, that just strengthens my belief that this episode should have been two parts.
-At one point, I legitimately forgot that Lucas and Riley were dating. The show forgot too because it was rarely ever mentioned after "Ski Lodge," and then when they do mention it, it's just awkward. "Hey, aren't Riley and Lucas dating?" "Maybe they are. But life has a strange way of making us see that some things really aren't." "Michael, we're not on Twitter. You don't have to talk like that anymore."
-Topanga apparently sees the bakery as her place where she can just think about life. To believe this, we have to look at previous scenes of Topanga needing the bakery to solve problems, of which we have none. It's a shame her character was relegated to just hanging around Auggie and his stupid friends every other week.
-I hope that when they stopped taping GMW, they burned down the bay window. Or at least burned it in effigy and started doing the Tootsie Roll on the ashes like it was 1994. Whatever the case may be, I hope that window was burned to the ground.
-Sometimes, this show makes me want to die. That last speech made absolutely no sense. Are these people aware that they're a show? And if they're not, then what the hell's going on here? The lesson that we're supposed to learn is pointless because Riley didn't go to London. We didn't learn anything about the world. These kids haven't met the world since the day they were twinkles in their parents' coin purses. And they have the nerve, the gall, the sheer audacity, to reference the last episode of Boy Meets World like they can just apply it here. Like GMW lived up to its potential all along. "Girl meets world." "Now we get it. " Shut the fuck up, you never got it and you never will. Cory realizing the meaning of Boy Meets World was not only a great meta joke, but it was him coming to the realization that he had experienced the hardships of life on his road to being a man and is now smart enough to pass on everything he had learned about the world to someone who hadn't gone through what he had. It was a powerful moment earned after seven years. Here, it's nothing more than a shameless meta reference to let you know, for the very last time, that Girl Meets World is a spin-off of Boy Meets World.
Oh my God. Guys, I figured it out. I cracked the code. Girl Meets World........is a spin-off.......of Boy Meets World.
TAKE ON THE WORLD. I GET IT NOW. THEY TOOK ON THE WORLD FOR THREE YEARS. THEY MET THE WORLD, THEY DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!
WAIT, NO, THEY DIDN'T. THEY DIDN'T MEET ANYTHING. THIS SHOW BARELY SAID ANYTHING MEANINGFUL ABOUT THE WORLD.
GIRL MEETS WORLD, I HATE YOU. GO CHOKE ON SOMETHING.
I have more thoughts than to just post that screenshot but those will be incoming (so consider this a fluid draft in progress). I've already seen the finale and...it's not JESSIE Ooray for Ollywood/Jessie Goes to Hollywood bad which may very well end up being the worst series finale in Disney Channel frickin' history...but it comes very, very close.
Mike certainly seems to be under the impression that I have...very mixed feelings about GMW. Well, he's right. But unlike a lot of other turds I don't blame Rowan - but like a ton of other people (including Christian and Sean) I do blame the writers. I think rather than learning the lessons from the disastrous final season or two of Boy Meets World ("the college years") they merely just picked up where they left off and proved to the world they ran out of steam before the first series even concluded. But, more on that later (probably tonight). If you've read my updates to a post that's kind of buried now, you'll know I've got books to read.
Life knew that this show had to end sooner rather than later. I had a quote from the episode pulled up but I forgot it
I don't care what anyone says, Girl Meets World had a death wish. The fact that they even made this episode along with this Friday's series finale is proof that Michael Jacobs and company knew time was up. Disney most likely told them months ago that the show was cancelled, but they weren't ready to announce it publicly and wanted the writers/producers to keep it a secret. Rider Strong knew it, or else he would have never came out and said that it ended on that podcast. Things just seem a little bit too suspicious. Like, the show's team was uncertain about the future so they made these episodes? Stuff like this has finality, it has a very big feeling of cleaning out the closet. I think the fans just didn't realize this until the episodes came on TV.
Eh, it's pretty standard practice for the network to pull this sort of stuff off. Especially since we have an example of the type of disaster that can result when networks actually bother to be upfront and honest with its audience. It had been known since, I dunno, March '12?, that the run of new Victorious episodes between August '12 and Feb '13 would be the very last, and that run was the lowest rated of that entire show. It went from being a 3-4 million viewers per episode show to less than 2 million per practically overnight and it pretty much kicked off the start of Nick's hard tumble down until when it didn't so much as recover as much as Disney Channel just tumbled harder and further (i.e. the past year). So if being a little disingenuous about the show's fate can help the ratings, well, eh I can't blame 'em. Though in this case it's a bit like trying to close the barn doors after the horses had already run away, joined the circus, got the circus act closed down due to animal rights abuse accusations and then got high-power jobs on Wall Street where they went back and bought the farm and turned it into another strip mall with an anchor store that sells specialty products for horses. As for the show having a death wish, well...I'd certainly agree although maybe not in the sense you're getting at. I'm really, absolutely now convinced that Jacobs just simply didn't change in the least bit since the final dreadful season or two of original-flavored Meets World, and any hope that we had about him putting together another out-of-the-park series was just wishful thinking. Not to mention, as Sean at GMWReviewed mentioned time and time again (or was it Christian?), the vast majority of Boy Meets World's success was a hands-off affair as far as Jacobs was concerned. Being a Star Trek fan and recognizing how the best years of The Next Generation happened after Gene Roddenberry died (or the original series where it wasn't so much Gene Roddenberry as it was Diane Constance Fontana who move a lot of that show's creative decisions, and would go on to do so for a huge chunk of TNG until she simply aged out of being able to do so), or even as a Jessie fan and recognizing that Pamela O'Connell kicking Tuber and Maile (and depending on who you believe, Debby herself even) out to gain more control over the series resulted in its very noticeable nosedive in quality in Seasons 3 and especially 4 - yeah, I think I can get that.
As I watched this episode on Friday night, I was left confused at certain parts. I was having mixed to positive feelings about it. Hell, at one point, I was considering this episode as one of the best of the series. Yeah at no point was I thinking that. I was fully prepared going in hoping so, but I think the constant naval-gazing was a clear signal that it was a no. That is, until I watched it again. I didn't want to have an incoherent review where I said something I didn't mean. That puts you a billion lightyears ahead of me! Watching it again, I really made the right call. The episode was considerably worse this time, and some of it, to me anyway, represented what I despise about this show. But despite all that, I don't really feel any anger towards it. It's not even disappointment. At this point, I just feel pity. I pity this show because of what it could have been and what it ended up being. This is one of the biggest cases of wasted potential that I have ever seen. Episodes like "High School," "Triangle," "Ski Lodge," "World of Terror 3," "World Meets Girl," and all of the other crap we were put through over the last three years were all leading up to this. It's all been destiny. It led to an episode where the kids had to take a hard look in the mirror and examine their friendships in a way they never had before. It also forced the writers to take a hard look at their own show and reflect upon everything they had done over the last three seasons. The saddest thing is I think the writers feel they've already done that - not in this episode, nor in Meets Goodbye, but in World Meets Girl of all things.
Of course, that would be interesting if it hadn't already been done. Try this one on for size. Riley and Maya are worried about their friendship lasting. They say they're forever, but then they start wondering if that's true. The kids don't know if their friendships will survive in the future. Riley doesn't want anything to change or anyone to change. An unforeseen circumstance threatens to destroy the friendship of Riley and Maya for good.
I know what you're thinking. We've seen this story before. And you're right. Because that's what "Bay Window" was about. That's what "Legacy" was about. That's what "High School" was about. That's what "Hollywood" was about. I would have no idea because I just refuse to see that episode on principle. That just smacks of exactly what I suspect of Jacobs and his staff being unable to grow out of the 90s-era tropes they've plied their trade with. Because let's face it: your average, slice-of-life American sitcom family suddenly becoming Hollywood stars out of the blue for exactly one episode (or one extended episode) is exactly the ultra-gimmicky kind of schlock that was popular in the 90s. Fuck that decade. At least for all their faults all these other Disney Channel shows dare to incorporate it into their very premise so you can't complain about it being a desperate one-time grab. And if you really sum it up, that's what Girl Meets World has always been about. It's not about a kid's journey through life, the obstacles they face, and what they learn from their experiences. It's about two kids sitting around commenting on what might possibly happen if they went through these experiences. You mean like the ultimate "tell, don't show" show? This episode was a reflection of that.
Now that I'm looking back at what I've inserted above, even I'm taken back a bit by just how mercilessly snarky I've been on the show. My sentiments about how I've been frustrated by this show have now been spread over several posts (including this one) and will continue to be at least through the end of the month, I figure. And I'm seeing a whole bunch of it on the IMDb board. It seems that everyone's just had it with their frustration now that it's a known, advertised fact that the series will be coming to an end when the reign of God-Emperor Trump begins (and I don't care what cloudcuokoolander knuckleheads say, it's the end of the series, period. Netflix has zero incentive to pick it up now that Fuller House is firmly established and there just isn't any home for it other than Disney, which is why it ended up there in the first place). I know there are guys with really lively names like, uh...."Crotch Rocket" and "some Dan guy" and some other dudes who are really laying it on (this, uhh..,"Crotch Rocket" guy even came out with a rather lengthy, bloviated list of "deadly sins") and you know what...I agree with them. The best way I can put is if...ok, imagine if Disney Channel were a house, and everybody who watched Disney Channel before Girl Meets World were the regular denizens/inhabitants of that house. And now pretend that those inhabitants (which for ease I'll just refer to as "we"/"us") decided to bake a pie and let it cool on the window sill - again, for ease of reference let's refer to this pie as, ummm...how about "Girl Meets World." And then you have a bunch of interlopers come in and they say, "hey, guys, we remember a pie that smells a lot like the pie you just baked. It was a very delicious, scrumptious pie, and we'd appreciate it if you'd let us have some." And we say, "sure, I remember that pie! It was the same pie our moms used to make! I'm trying my best to replicate that recipie, and I hope I nailed it, so why don't you come in and try some!" And then we invite them in and they try a slice of that nice, fresh-baked pie we just made, and their response is "well it's not as good as mom's, but we'll keep trying." And they try the pie again. And again. And on the fourth slice they say "well it's got promise, but it's not as good as mom's" and by the time they finish they're screaming and yelling at us and telling us that our pie is complete and total shit and that we have no business ever making pies again. And yet, they ate the whole damn thing. They didn't even leave any pieces for us. Oh, and on top of that they also insulted our cake and told us it was a piece of shit (let's just call this cake, um, how about "Liv and Maddie") and they also helped themselves to our tiramisu and called it a piece of shit (let's for convenience refer to this tiramisu as "Jessie") and they saw our couch that we lovingly have named "Best Friends Whenever" and just helped themselves to it, all the while spilling all of our "I Didn't Do It" guacamole and "Austin & Ally" salsa all over it (while telling us it tastes like shit) and complaining that our couch is a piece of shit and put all their feet up on our "I'm Running Out of Series Titles Here" coffee table and complaining about how all the decor in our house is shit. Yeah, they do that in my house, I'm a gonna be all FAUUUUULLLLLLLL! CAAAAUUUUN! PAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnCHCHCHCHCHCHCCCCCCHHHHHHHHH!!! them all in their fucking faces.
So yeah, I'm a little frustrated about things. Things way, way beyond just the show itself.
It's reflected in the opening scene when Riley and Maya want to have a surprise Sweet 16 party, despite the fact that neither of them are 16. We never see them throw it, and after the classroom scene, it's not even part of the story anymore, but it drives the rest of the episode where they're supposed to act like they're 16. It's also reflected in one scene where Riley goes nuts when Farkle and Smackle start talking about the possibility of them going to Princeton in a few years. And apparently, this causes Riley to freak out and tell everyone that they're not going anywhere. At this point, I started wondering for the very first time if Riley had special needs. A couple scenes before, she was confident in her friendship with Maya. Then she started getting doubtful, and then she started thinking everything was going to stay the same. I don't understand how someone can "meet the world" like Riley did and not expect anything to change. It was different in the original series because Cory was actually going through changes in his life. Topanga was considering Yale, Shawn was ready to invest his time in his photo assistant job and forget college, Feeny was retiring and moving to Wyoming, Chubbie's was bought out and rebranded. Everything was changing for Cory and that's what caused him to act irrationally. Here, Riley is freaking out over hypothetical situations when she knows what the world is like, and then she goes back to her optimism in the classroom scene. The story here is just really confused and I'm left wondering what I'm supposed to take from any of this.
It feels like a bad compromise because they wanted to cram what they wanted to end the show with on Season 4, but they have to do it at the end of Season 3 instead when their characters are nowhere near emotionally mature enough (and for that matter the actors physically mature enough) to really pull it off, so here we go, we have this shitty tell don't show compromise instead. But telling, not showing has been the go-to form of narrative this show has chosen time and time again. Meets Money and Meets She Don't Like Me have been memorable because they've been some of the few episodes to want to bother to show. If the show had been more engaged in the showing instead of the telling, maybe we'd be here a year from now at the end of Season 4 instead of here now. Hell Jessie has done better in the showing department - but no, I still have knuckleheads barging into the house telling me I'm wrong, and I guess I just gotta keep Falcon Punch!-ing my way out of this one. This is another thing I mean by this show being held back by people stuck in a 90s style narrative. Sitcoms in the 90s could still get away with more telling than showing, if for nothing else because cable hadn't reached the point yet where it provided serious competition to broadcast sitcoms, so you had more of a captive audience. Jacobs and crew are learning very, very harshly that the things they got away with in the 90s just don't apply anymore, and that's even given on a network that's the most tolerant of that kind of obsolete comedy narrative, and insulates them the most from ratings fears. GG Jacobs and crew.
What I believe I'm supposed to learn is that Riley and Maya are best friends and they're going to stay together no matter what happens to them. But I already knew that. The show's covered this topic many times before. Riley literally asks why people become friends if it's not going to be forever. I'm not going to lie, that might be one of the dumbest lines I've heard in this entire series. It's one thing for season one Riley to ask this question. But this is the second to last episode of the series, and Riley is still insecure about her friendships with people, especially her friendship with Maya? I don't get it. In real life, that's just what happens. As soon as I entered high school, I got a serious wakeup call that the kids I knew from junior high were never really my friends. They were just people I went to school with. I know this because at least 85% of them gave me the cold shoulder as soon as they could, and I haven't heard from them in years. I've tried many times in the past to resurrect those friendships, but it was pointless because it was always one-sided. When you stop being useful to somebody, they're going to shut you out and eventually cut their ties with you altogether. In 2017, I literally only talk to two people from junior high, and one of them's my best friend. Even after graduating high school, I knew what was going to come next and I already accepted the fact that I'm most likely never going to talk to 95% of the people I went to high school with ever again. It's something we all go through. It's not the fact that the writers brought this up that annoys me. It's the fact that they constantly bring it up with no new insight or commentary on the matter.
I just got done watching a movie yesterday called "Date and Switch." It's about two friends who are trying to get laid before prom, and one of them comes out as gay very, very early in the movie. And most importantly, there's a scene where Sarah Hyland kisses another hot chick. Now for some reason this movie only has a 30% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and I'm like, why? It's actually a really good movie! See the thing is, it's not about some guy's best friend coming out as gay or Sarah Hyland macking on some other hot chick or Dakota Johnson actually being in a good movie; it's really about two friends who decide they need to get serious about dating and they help each other out and be each other's wingman and before you know it, holy shit they've got dates. But they spend so much time with their dates that they sacrifice time they spend with each other and they start just drifting apart. And you know what? I think I like this movie so much because it's relatable. Because that's how friendships end, especially in high school. Because stuff like dating, work, school and just changing interests take time away from friends. Now we're not all lucky enough to be like Riley and Maya where we have such an arbitrarily lucky circle of friends that we can just date our different-gendered friends if we happen to be straight, but it just highlights that this show has completely and utterly failed to be relatable to all but those who are just so outwardly desperate to see Boy Meets World characters again. Boy Meets World was relatable. I can still name episodes that were relatable. Boy Meets World helped me on my fucking driver's test. And you know what, Jessie is relatable. Jessie helped me when my fucking ex-fiancee dumped me and I got fucking cancer. I don't see Girl Meets World helping me in anything like that. And in all fairness I don't exactly see Bizaardvark or KC Undercover helping with that either. God No if School of Rock ever ends up being relatable or helpful then I've probably died and ended up on some sort of Dali-esque sick joke of an afterlife.
I don't need any more reminders that Riley and Maya are best friends and these people love each other. It doesn't mean anything anymore because of how much they bring it up. In the original series, Cory and Shawn were best friends and we knew that. They knew that. They did address the possibility of growing apart, but it was no more than a few episodes. It literally feels like Riley and Maya are afraid of no longer being best friends in every other episode. If that's the case, they really shouldn't be best friends. It takes effort, trust, and understanding to have a meaningful friendship. Even keeping in touch takes two to tango. I find it hard to believe that the characters always feel this way because if these kids are as tight-knit as they appear to be, then they should learn to trust each other by now and have confidence in what they built. People drift away, no matter what. Sometimes, people will stop talking to you with no explanation. It's just a part of life. But if this show actually demonstrated that, then this review wouldn't exist.
I really wanted to like this episode. It's not like I hated everything about it. I laughed a few times, they wrapped up a running gag that I hated since it started, and there was a sense of reflection that did feel earned at times. It's just that after everything I've seen, I feel like this series really has nothing left to say. Maybe a fourth season on Netflix or Freeform or wherever will change things, I don't know and I'm starting not to care. But if, hypothetically, there's another episode where Riley doubts her friendship with Maya, then maybe it will be time for me to stop watching the show. Just a thought.
At this point I might as well just demand the writers write "show don't tell" on a chalkboard 100 times.
Episode Grade: C- Episode MVP: Either Amir Mitchell-Townes or Cecelia Balagot. All this episode did was remind me of how much they wasted the potential of the sextet. Episode Grade: C- Episode MVP: Amir all the way, though I agree with one of our readership on Twitter, you really shouldn't be touching a girl when she's powered down. EXTRA THOUGHTS
-This episode was written by the man himself, Michael Jacobs. It's really fitting, honestly, that this is the guy to write an episode that I believe really defines what Girl Meets World is. Not a compliment or an insult.
-I really liked the opening scene. Riley and Maya's chemistry is a sight to behold sometimes. It's like they speak their own language that no one is capable of figuring out.
-The first classroom scene was really weird. I keep trying to figure out what Cory was getting at, but I couldn't. I really feel like this show complicates the simple things. With Mr. Feeny, I never got the impression that he was saying something complex that his students couldn't understand. This is what it sounds like when Cory talks sometimes: "Life is......DUM DUM DIDDAY!!! Do ya, dap dap, dap! Brrrrrrruh, ooooooohhhh, RAPADOOOOOO!!!! What is going to define you when you...... comma comma comma comidio. Mama say mama sa mamakusa."
-The scene where Maya references "Girl Meets Father" was so odd. I don't even know how it became about Cory being the best teacher there is. I was enjoying the possibility of a surprise Sweet 16 until he started mentioning landmarks. When Maya mentioned what she learned from the test, I genuinely thought it was a joke.
-Zay feels like one of the few human characters on this show. Him being creeped out by everyone's surprise faces, trying to get Smackle going again after she "shuts down," calling Riley and Maya strange. Girl Meets World really could have benefited from having more characters like him to counteract the drama.
-I was ready to pitch a fit about Smackle flirting with Lucas again, but they finally, finally addressed it. It was like getting your filthy tap water turned into imported champagne by Jesus himself. And I actually like the reason for it. It makes sense that Smackle would have doubts about her relationship with Farkle. It's the first one she's ever had and she comes from a place of science, not feelings. And after everything that she said just to see if her relationship with Farkle was strong enough, I had no problem with Lucas and Farkle's sting operation. It had to happen, it needed to happen, and I'm glad the writers didn't drop the ball on the reasoning.
-I'm just pointing this out because it says a lot about this show, but Farkle asks to talk to Lucas outside. Then Zay tries to recharge Smackle's "batteries," and while that's happening, Riley and Maya are talking about whatever. I don't really care about what these two are talking about because I want to see what the other characters are up to. And after the commercial break, that's when Farkle and Lucas start talking. So how long were they out there? I'm surprised we even heard their conversation. I'm going to elaborate on a lot of things this coming weekend, but one of those things is that this show was focused way too much on Riley and Maya.
-Anyone want to make heads or tails of the Auggie joke? I feel like it needed more context.
-Cory walking in with two different socks is one of the most in-character jokes they have ever made on this show. And it was hilarious. It's like they, for a time, remember things like comedy and structure and characterization. And then they forget about it the rest of the time.
-"When did things start going bad?" "Oh, the triangle took all the life out of you." I'm having a hard time figuring out if this is directed at Lucas or the show itself because I feel like it could work for both. Either way, that joke was fantastic.
-I could sit here and tell you that Topanga being made the head of the law firm in London should have been built up a lot more, hinted at throughout the season, possibly been a story arc instead of a plot device. But we've seen how well this series does with story arcs. Besides, that's like me telling you the sky is blue, The Simpsons hasn't been good in years, and Hulk Hogan is a racist. I'm just stating what we all know.
-When Riley and Maya were crying (AGAIN) at the end, I actually felt the emotion the first time. Watching it again, all I could do was laugh. If this show actually has the balls to send the Matthews to London, I'll be impressed. That would be a Meets World moment.
- Yeah, the whole Maya referencing Meets Father out of nowhere was...the most unnatural thing I've ever seen on this show. And I just spent several paragraphs berating this show for being nothing but unnatural. It was just there, bam!, out of the blue and because it references an early Season 1 episode (Christian hadn't even started his blog yet when that episode first premiered) it became almost impossible to follow. Wait, wtf is Maya talking about failing the theory of evolution? Wtf's a boat named Beagle got to do with this? - In other news, I actually like this style of Mike doing the review first and then I just insert my thoughts. It feels more like what Christian and Sean are doing, which I really like, and feels more natural as a back-and-fourth. - also I like the black-and-red better than the green-and-red
