Sunday, January 29, 2017

20 Greatest Meets World Characters: #7. Topanga Lawrence

#7. Topanga Lawrence






Played By: Danielle Fishel, (1993-2000, 2014-2017)

Episode Count: 213 (143- BMW, 70- GMW)

Role: Cory's long term girlfriend and wife, Riley's mother, the voice of reason 

Signature Episodes: Cory's Alternative Friends, Wake Up Little Cory, Hair Today Goon Tomorrow, A Long Walk to Pittsburgh 1&2, A Very Topanga Christmas, Torn Between Two Lovers, Starry Night, Graduation, Resurrection, It's About Time, The Provider, (Girl Meets) Popular, Her Monster, Goodbye

What's always impressed me about Topanga is the balance of her character. It would have been easy to write Topanga as a wacky caricature in season one, but she consistently balances her weirdness with intelligent level headedness. Cory's Alternative Friends is the obvious example, but I want to look at one line in particular. After performing Donut In The Sky, Cory asks Topanga if she's going to be "one of those girls that doesn't shave her legs." The easy caricature answer is some throwaway line about why she won't shave her legs, but instead she says "I haven't decided yet." I love that line. In a great scene in a great episode, that is my favorite line. Because remember, this is Topanga's first episode. We're not sure what to make of her yet. And that line tells us hey, she's not a cut and paste archetype. She's not making her decisions based on some subscribed ideology. She thinks things through, in contrast with Cory and Shawn, but we also see how well she works with them in episodes like Model Family and Boy Meets Girl. 

Season one Topanga worked way better than it had any right to. A big part of that was that balance, but also the small dose size. She's in most of the episodes, but only contributes to the story in a handful of them. The "trio" isn't really a thing yet. So for season 2, I imagine it was similar to dealing with Minkus, where they knew they couldn't keep it up, and resolved to make her more normal to integrate with Shawn and Cory. Still though, season 2 has her in a strange place. Cory wants to be a player like Shawn, and there's valuable character development in Cory spending time with all these different kinds of girls. At the same time, the writers knew they wanted to pair the two eventually, so we end up with an interesting division of episodes. The majority are about Cory dealing with the ins and outs of dating, like The Beard, Wendy's episodes, etc, there's some other girl. But when it's actually about a real emotional connection, that is, Wake Up Little Cory and Fear Strikes Out, we get Topanga. And that was really smart, because neither of those episodes would work with a one-off girl, so it was good to have this static role of someone Cory is becoming attached to. Turnaround actually managed to do both of those. Cory wanted to go with Topanga, but she not only thinks that a turnaround dance is "destructive gender biased thinking," she's also going to New York for Christmas shopping (another BRILLIANT display of her character's balance), so Cory ends up with a one-off girl dealing with dating stuff. I have to pay special mention to Wake Up Little Cory real quick, in which Topanga displays an IMPRESSIVE amount of strength and really showcases her commanding personality. (For further reading, I recommend my review of that episode here) By the time of Girl Meets World, that commanding side of her is mostly a punchline, and that's endlessly frustrating.


In season 3 she's Cory's girlfriend. She's a reason to tell stories where Cory doesn't have to worry about girls so much. That's about it, but the "trio" is becoming more solid with Topanga as the smart one, the safety net, and the voice of reason.  Season 4 has a lot of "being Cory's girlfriend," but there's plenty more to love. Early season 4 has the fantastic Hair Today Goon Tomorrow, another INCREDIBLE showcase of her balance. "Looks don't matter, Cory. Except oh crap, they also totally do matter." Then again in Quiz Show, when she starts off as a brainy academic and ultimately finds herself twirling her hair for the camera. It's so great, like, pick a girl on television. Most of the time she'll either check the box on all of "don't have to shave legs, turnaround is stupid, looks don't matter, I want to answer challenging academic questions" or "shave legs, omg Christmas shopping, I want to be pretty, yay I'm on tv." But Topanga skillfully walks the tightrope between these two tired and awful representations of women, and we end up with an awesome, balanced, believable character. Long Walk to Pittsburgh is far from my favorite for her character, but it's a cataclysmic event for the overall story, once again fueled by her own independent decision. So that's good.


It slows down after that. In Season 5 her relationship with Cory is something for Shawn and Angela to look at from the outside, and Angela doesn't give Topanga much to play off of as a friend. Then A Very Topanga Christmas paints her commanding personality as an annoyance instead of a strength, and yeah, I see the value in looking at that trait from both sides. But the episode's only function is to make me frustrated with a main character, and not in a meaningful way like when I'm frustrated with Shawn, because there's no growth. Then the breakup arc makes things worse because Lauren is so likeable and Topanga is made to look like the bad guy even though she's really not, and her big resolution episode in Starry Night just isn't any good. She gets into Yale, which presents a compelling conflict for our heroes, but then she... proposes during the graduating ceremony... That's always been the most unrealistic moment of her relationship with Cory, I don't like it. Prom-ises Prom-ises is great for her though. This is a respectable teenage girl who enthusiastically wants to get freaky with her boyfriend. In the 90's! You'd almost think that wasn't allowed on TV back then. It's another moment on the long list of standout progressivism on this show, and it's an especially nice memory with what's to come.


The last two seasons aren't good for Topanga. She wants to get married, then she doesn't. Thanks for wasting my time. And suddenly, she's adamantly abstinent. She and Cory were a layer of fabric away from sex in Prom-ises, what the hell happened? It doesn't match up with anything we've ever seen from her. And look, I could live with it in the background, but it's a relentless, un-funny punchline, and I don't think any single viewer appreciated it. At the very least, we get a dose of balance when Cory convinces her of the tradeoffs between sharing their lives and physical intimacy in The Truth About Honesty. And that's a good lesson, I just don't like how we got there. She revives weird Topanga in Resurrection, and that's great, but we never see it again before Girl Meets World. Then State of the Unions lights a powder keg under everything. We have to deal with another breakup arc, and this one is even more unbearable. Topanga's completely unreasonable, it's so annoying and we have zero empathy for her nonsense reasoning, unlike in the Lauren arc, where she had a good reason to be upset. They get married, they go on a honeymoon, where Topanga mentions she "wore out" Cory the night before, which, refreshingly, does sound like the awesome Topanga of earlier seasons. But that's about it for season 7, other than her internship moving them to New York and effectively ending the series.


Girl Meets World is not impressive for Topanga, but it's better than seasons 6 and 7 of BMW. Meets Popular was good and did a lot of things right for Topanga that are pretty much never done again (I'll defer you to my recent revisit post for that episode). After that episode she's mostly the babysitter for Auggie and Ava, which is a tragic disappointment. Her main contribution to the show's humor is to glare at Cory so Cory can say "Golly isn't your mom scary and stuff" and then the audience laughs. It's seriously depressing. Her strength shouldn't be a punchline. I can't stress that enough. We got a second big Topanga episode in Meets Her Monster, which was a fantastic episode where we finally see her as a real mother and not Auggie's babysitter, but at episode 3.16 it's pretty late in the game for me start caring about her relationship with Riley. And of course she once again has the honors of kicking off the series-ending story, but that was, sadly, always more about Riley and Maya than Topanga.


It's an honest shame what they did to Topanga. After seasons 6 and 7, I just did not care about Topanga going into Girl Meets World, and seeing her relegated to boring B and C stories almost every episode did not help. But then Meets Her Monster happened, and I started to remember. I remembered all the good things. I suspect that happened to a lot of people, honestly. The absolute worst arc in Boy Meets World happened because Topanga got sad at her parents divorcing and started being an idiot. It's hard not to get locked into that. But after Meets Her Monster I broke free, and when Christian and I started deciding who would write which post, I knew I had to write for Topanga. She was written brilliantly in seasons one through five. She's in the trio! She's the third to Shawn and Cory! Their safety net, and their voice of reason. If she'd had better treatment in the later seasons and in GMW, I would absolutely see her higher on this list. 

45 comments:

  1. This is Cryptid.

    Okay, now this is a really good write-up Sean. I can feel your devotion for Topanga Lawrence-Matthews seeping through the computer screen.

    Once again, I will need time to articulate my thoughts on the character, but bravo. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

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    1. Thanks. I've been looking forward to this one.

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  2. Topanga was good in season 7 after the divorce/marriage arc. Baby Back Ribs, Provider, even Cory and Topanga Got Their Groove Back? She's a lot of fun there.

    Fantastic writeup overall

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    1. I agree with the provider, and it sets the stage for her being a power lawyer in GMW. That one deserves mention. The other two are fun, but I don't know if they're any more than just fun.

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    2. I take it back, the provider is the one where they claim it's their first fight EVER, which is totally dumb

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    3. It wasn't laid out very well, but I interpreted that as their first married fight. That could just be because I do like a lot of the episode other than that though, and that fight is something they had to have at some point, because in the long run, Topanga was always going to make more money than him.

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    4. They are very very explicit about it being their first fight in their lives.

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    5. ... that's because they're stupid and like to rewrite history, and get all their friends to back them up.

      Yes, I know you're right; but I -do- know people who will talk about it being their first fight ever when it's in reality, just the first fight after being married.

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  3. On the terms of just Girl Meets World, without BMW fan service, Meets Her Monster was by far the best episode of the series. So there's that

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    1. It's up there, but I'm not sure I'd put it ahead of Yearbook or Semi-Formal (which is excellent for reasons besides Eric and Jack, although that helps)

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    2. Christian has a point--as good as "Her Monster" is, it's pretty filler, with little dynamic plot or character development.

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  4. That was really well done.

    I think I have said this before, but looking back at BMW after I watched for the first time, the two moments I found the most emotionally affecting belonged to Topagna, which was completely against the run of play for the series.

    I have confessed my affection for GMW to exactly one flesh-and-blood person. He's in this thirties, and it turned out he watched BMW when he was a teenager. He asked about Topanga.

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  5. Hmm. Okay, I had Topanga as 6 due to the influence she had on others; but yes, that season 7 break-up arc was frustrating as hell. My partner and I have rather strong disagreements about her abstinence, and I think I've mentioned before that she feels that part of her abstinence is due to Cory pushing rather hard at it in some episodes.

    For the record, Beverly Hills had a 'teen sex before marriage' thing in their first season, which was way back in 1990. The 1990s was the start of storylines where premarital sex happened and not necessarily as a demonstration of 'bad girls'. By the time of their Graduation, it was almost at the point where couples abstaining till marriage was no longer the norm - which would be admirable, except that it doesn't really follow Topanga's character; which really suggested to me that whilst love would have been an absolute necessity, marriage not so much.

    What -was- unique for the time, and if it hadn't been the whole 'I have to marry to justify giving up Yale' aspect would have been deeply admirable, was the fact that -she- proposed. This was stupid. Look, I have no actual problem with Topanga deciding on Cory over Yale. Even ignoring the retcon of 'we've been in a relationship since we were two', they had clearly been building something very special. But you can give up a marvellous education for a very good one for love; without having to marry.

    I'm still unconvinced Topanga should be below Riley though. Although her appearance on GMW has largely been terrible - in some ways even worse than Amy, who was never meant as anything but a mother for the most part. Cory should have been the one to take time out to run the cafe. He should have been the one to babysit Auggie if they couldn't get a sitter.

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    1. I simply cannot comprehend abstinence being the result of Cory wanting to have sex. Are you saying it's out of spite? That's not how you treat someone you love. Either way it doesn't really explain what changed after Prom-ises. If she had been like "when we're ready," that would be fine, but it's this arbitrary "not until we're married" that comes out of nowhere.

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    2. My partner feels that Cory was coming across in season 6 like the moment they slept together, he'd be gone. Season 5-7 especially we have quite differing views on the kind of person Cory is; and she's a lot more forgiving of Topanga's problems. For example, she feels the break-up in season 7 was understandable, and that Cory should have been more patient and understanding. I pretty much feel that no matter how much her parents divorce had thrown her, doubting her relationship with Cory based on her parents was pretty crappy, and that any kind of relationship based on love she should have gone to that person (in this case, Cory), and leaned on them for support not tossed them away.

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    3. I will concede that Cory didn't handle Topanga's abstinence well. If he was going to change her mind about it, acting like that wouldn't be how it would work. And the same time it did suck, and kind of came out of nowhere, so if his reaction was one of "Wait, WHAT?" I do get it.

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    4. That said, the idea that Cory was JUST after sex doesn't jive with his steadfast devotion to being with Topanga. That's not who he is, and she knows that. If sex was all Cory wanted, fighting for Topanga tooth and nail in Season 5 would have made no sense. Homeboy probably couldn't have slept with Lauren anytime he wanted.

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    5. "For the record, Beverly Hills had a 'teen sex before marriage' thing in their first season, which was way back in 1990. The 1990s was the start of storylines where premarital sex happened and not necessarily as a demonstration of 'bad girls'. By the time of their Graduation, it was almost at the point where couples abstaining till marriage was no longer the norm - which would be admirable, except that it doesn't really follow Topanga's character; which really suggested to me that whilst love would have been an absolute necessity, marriage not so much."

      Except that Beverly Hills 90210 was targeted toward older teens, while TGiF shows skewered younger. I can't recall any teens on Family Ties or Step by Step or Full House or Sabrina the Teenage Witch having sex either. I think most people who watched Boy Meets World were like me, quite a few years younger than the characters themselves. My sister is roughly Cory and Topanga's age, and she had already moved on to other shows - shows like Beverly Hills 90210.

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    6. Not Family Ties, Family Matters.

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    7. Yeah, as I said it's more my partner's argument than mine. The problem with Cory's dealing with her abstinence, the moment they mentioned they were abstaining, is he could only deal with it well if they actually wanted to do a storyline where they perhaps think about going further. And they didn't (whether it was a Disney call or not I don't know, but I suspect yes).

      And yeah, I know Beverly Hills was skewered at an older audience; but the comment in the initial blog didn't specify 'teenage girl in a show aimed at younger teens'.

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  6. This is Cryptid.

    I don't have as much time to comment on Topanga as I'd like--I'll be back tomorrow or the next day--but I'll chime in on the abstinence bit.

    I'd like to point out that in "Prom-ises, Prom-ises" Cory and Topanga learn that Alan and Amy, despite presumably being on birth control, are expecting their fourth child.

    That may have been enough for Topanga to say "Okay, I've got a lot of plans for college, and having a baby isn't near the top of the list. I want a baby, but not yet. And I want to be absolutely sure."

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    1. Oh I think that is -absolutely- why they didn't go through with it then and there. Unfortunately though, this makes her proposal look even sillier. If she has plans for college and really wants to make sure she gets through college first? She shouldn't be contemplating marriage before she even -starts- college - given marrying someone but not being willing to sleep with them would be... incredibly sucky.

      And as Sean does point out in his response to me (though it's more my partners argument than mine), the indication given is not a 'lack of readiness' but more a 'we have to wait till we're married'. Topanga never, before season 6 anyway, came across as someone for whom marriage was that all-important step required. I could have bought that for a lot of characters in the franchise - but not her.

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    2. I'm with Will. That explanation works for the night of Prom-ises, but it doesn't line up with season 6 and 7. And it's not like full on intercourse is their only option, but Cory hasn't even seen her butt until the end of season 6. It's STILL a terrible time to potentially get pregnant, but that doesn't stop them after they get married.

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    3. For me, I don't think there's really a rational explanation we can come up with. It doesn't really sound like what the deal would be with Cory and Topanga, and it doesn't match with how Topanga had been portrayed. In Season 4 the idea of them having sex came up twice, "Dangerous Secrets" and "Learning to Fly", in both situations her only problem with having sex is she didn't think she was quite ready yet. In "Prom-ises, Promi-ises", it was less that she wasn't quite there, and more just the timing was weird and it had started to be that they were forcing it because they felt like they *had* to have sex at prom. At no point was sex before marriage part of it, and at no point did I extrapolate that it also meant they weren't doing *anything* else beyond kissing.

      The issue seems, to me, to have been either A) Disney cracked the whip and didn't want to portray premarital sex on a teen sitcom or B) MJ decided to use this for humor's sake by having Cory desperate to have sex and Topanga refusing. It could be a case of both, with MJ doing B as a result of A.

      Really, what I'd prefer if A was the case for MJ to just... not bring it up. Just don't portray whether Cory and Topanga are having sex or not. Kids who are too young may just not think about it at all, and for us regular people, we can just assume "Of course they are." I never really thought about if they were having sex until they brought it up and told me they're not.

      It's also all complicated by the fact that every other character, basically, is confirmed to be having premarital sex. Eric's been implied to be having sex since at least Season 4. Shawn and Angela were having sex unmarried, in Season 7. Why the discrepancy? Maybe it was because Cory and Topanga were more an idyllic "couple-to-look-up-to" I don't know. But it all was weird, and I don't like it.

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    4. And as we all know, from attws, FEENY'S BANGIN IT OUT ON THE REG TOO, GO FEENY

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    5. 'I like camping. I don't fish. You do the math.'

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    6. Which, given that, really makes his retirement to a fishing community in Jackson Hole a big mistake. No wonder he hated it there.

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    7. I believe it was because Cory and Topanga were the lead couple. It still makes it a mistake, and yes, a better way could have been to just not mention it. Topanga even has that mention of 'we have an elastic band...' or some such in a season 6 episode; and why even bring that up if all they were going to do is heavy making-out? They did -that- in public at least once or twice. You'd only bring that up if you were thinking of doing something you'd be embarrassed for your friends to see you doing.

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    8. Oh and thank you for reminding me of those Season 4 episodes. "Learning to Fly" is particularly the one I was thinking of; as Topanga rather heavily implies that if she'd gone, she was worried about -her- not jumping him. And to be fair, "Dangerous Secret" is more, I felt, because Cory was pushing at her to go further not because it's what he wanted, but it's because it's what he thought they 'should' do.

      And I'm pretty sure it was even implied that Alan and Amy didn't wait till they were married either. Which is why I think someone dropped the ball - Eric in particular, but even Shawn and Angela, didn't have the life-long commitment that they were selling us that Cory/Topanga had (leaving aside whether that was presented properly, or if it made sense); and yet -they- were the ones waiting. Which is why it feels like a Disney directive - a push for the 'marriage is all-important' climate that some groups were really pushing at during the late 90s.

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    9. Yeah, I agree with Will, the Dangerous Secrets ep wasn't really about Topanga not being ready - to be honest, she could have been interested in her own right, but a suggestion of 'Let's have sex, my best friend is!' would put most people off. Cory might as well have worn a sign saying *he* wasn't ready just by phrasing it the way he did, and Topanga's repeatedly suggested that a particular turnoff for her is him bringing up Shawn when discussing sex.

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    10. Because nothing kills the mood like bringing up the best friend that you've shown repeated insecurities about. She didn't look exactly -pleased- in "Learning to Fly" when in response to her saying she thought he was sexy he said "wait till I tell Shawn".

      I know that Topanga's insecurities about Shawn, in particular during Season 7, are a source of frustration, but in some respects I can't blame her. Whether talking about actual romance or something a bit more physical, Cory always seems to bring up Shawn at times when he really shouldn't be thinking about him; though that does die down after they're married.

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  7. Topanga...the real linchpin of our beloved Trio. We know that Shawn and Cory are the two best friends anybody could have* but they really become a grounded duo when Topanga enters the mix. She makes the world they inhabit feel even more real. What impressed me with how she was presented, even when she was clearly being mishandled, was that she still felt like Topanga. When it came to overall 90s TV, she was one of the best written women characters out there.

    Yet, when it comes to GMW...she might as well not been there. Just a waste of such a dynamic character. And when she was used, it made us all want more, because we knew she could be more. Topanga is one of the real tragedies of GMW.

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  8. yep I'd love to know what happened to Topanga where she went from totally free, new age T in BMW to we can only kiss typically type A control freak personality..
    And if memory serves Cory only saw her ass in S6 somewhere. Cory never saw her in a bikini or they never accidentally touched things while making out?
    I thought the whole sexless thing, particularly as they were doing a lot of kissing, was unrealistic and frankly total BS.
    But as Topanga said, "We're going to do it when I DECIDE", Revealing her for the total control freak she was. God bless Cory and his patience because if I was dating someone for years and no sex but loads of kissing I'd probably have dumped her ass.
    GMW was infinitely worse I don't think Riley ever had a BF let alone a serious willing kiss aside from Farkles romeo Juliet chin kiss.
    Welcome to Disney world I spose

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    1. But as Topanga said, "We're going to do it when I DECIDE",

      To be fair, I had no problem with this. My problem was that prior to season 6, that didn't seem like a 'we're going to wait till marriage' deal. As pointed out in another comment, at the end of season 4 she admitted to struggling with waiting, it almost happened on prom night (though that did seem kinda forced in some respects, from both of them), and then at season 6.. nothing but kissing. And not small little kisses either. It's like their relationship took this gigantic step back from "I think I'm just about ready" to "marriage is required for that kind of step".

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    2. I always thought it was the network laying down the law about the whole no sex part in BMW but we saw way worse in GMW with Riley. I mean she never seriously kissed anyone (that I saw)
      I took the opportunity to address some of those issues in Fanfic (now non existent online) but prom night C/T snuck back to A/A house and basically just fell asleep together in Cori's bed. I never actually touched the mechanics of sex with C/T but left it to the readers imagination what they did.

      S6 Topanga's parents divorce (thereabouts) where she moved out of the dorm and broke up with Cory. He dumped her, having had enough of her crap he decided to move on.
      He left that college, went elsewhere and dated a whole lot. Several years later they did hook up and eventually marry but I left them apart in S6.
      That's the beauty of Fanfic :)

      Topanga was awesome in GMW but her character was under utilized where it could have been so much better also Danielle wrote a couple of really good GMW eps. But her character was never fully explored.

      The huge mistake they made with GMW was that it was written for tweens and they should have made it a furtherance of C/T relationship instead of focusing on Riley. Writing it the way they did the series was pretty much doomed from the start.
      A lot of potential in the GMW series that just evaporated.

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    3. I agree with a lot of what you say there; and whilst I do read fanfics a fair bit, especially if it goes an alternate route rather than just a new story that doesn't change the way the characters are viewed at all; I probably wouldn't have read that one. I think the divorce was terrible; and whilst I couldn't have blamed Cory if she couldn't lure him back, them getting back years later would make it feel like nothing was really achieved.

      The big disagreement I have is The huge mistake they made with GMW was that it was written for tweens and they should have made it a furtherance of C/T relationship instead of focusing on Riley." This was always going to be what it was. Disney wanted a coming-of-age show. They may have changed their minds about marketing at this age group; but that's what they wanted. This is not to say there couldn't have been some Cory/Topanga storylines, Alan and Amy had a fair few over the years; just that the focus -did- need to be on Riley.

      Even if they'd initially shopped around after Disney made their offer, the best that would have happened is something like Fuller House, where the adults have an equal importance.

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    4. "I always thought it was the network laying down the law about the whole no sex part in BMW but we saw way worse in GMW with Riley. I mean she never seriously kissed anyone (that I saw)"

      I actually think GMW's premature demise actually spared it from being too bad. The gang were Freshmen when the show ended, and I don't think it's uncommon to not get past chaste kisses and hand holding at that age. If she'd gone all the way through high school without any of that (or at least *talk* of it) that would have been more problematic for me. But considering Riley doesn't strike me as someone who'd be comfortable going anywhere physically at this point, I was fine with it.

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    5. Thanks for the comments :) I generally try to make my fanfics more realistic and real world based on my experiences and, for the record, didn't even try to fanfic Riley.
      In finishing just to clarify one issue more like comparision.
      Kissing.
      In BMW C/T were all over each other with some serious kissing. Riley, at the same age, nada.
      Obviously Disney put the brakes on re kissing and most forms of physical intimate contact. I just found the comparison interesting.

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    6. By the same age? Yeah, I'm not too sure. Riley was I believe 14, maybe 15. So that's like season 3 of BMW. That was well before we started seeing serious make-out sessions; sure they kissed a fair bit and Riley doesn't but well... that's more because Cory and Topanga were more on the same page, mostly, with where their relationship was. The bigger issue is we don't see Farkle and Smackle kissing.

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  9. I can't believe I forgot to comment for Topanga.

    In Boy Meets World, she's awesome. And to elaborate on Sean's points, I love how her first appearance, when she says she's unsure of whether or not she'll shave her legs, is actually a nod to Danielle Fischel's previous appearance on Full House.

    [For point of reference, Fischer played a classmate of Stephanie's (who was maybe ten at the time) who had already started shaving her legs and had pierced ears]

    Topagna was simply awesome, giving the Power Trio a nice grounding foundation. And what.I love is that although the writers clearly had pairing her off with Cory in mind, in the second season she and Cory were friends first, eventual lovers second. This is in sharp contrast to Riley and Lucas's relationship (non-existent though it may be), where the question of them being a couple cast a shadow over each interaction they had.

    And I love Topanga's independence.
    One great moment that Sean didn't mention was "Career Day." Topanga's father Jedidiah spoke to the class and at one point called her by the apparently babyish nickname "Tippy." Cory and Shawn laughed, and instead of being embarrassed and crying "Daddy!" Topanga turned in her seat, snarled at them, and got them to admit it was a great name.

    The abstinence issues came a little out of nowhere, I agree. Sean's not wrong that it seems inconsistent. Probably it was the network cracking the whip, but at the same time, it definitely doesn't make sense for Topanga to be so pro-abstinence, and then insist that she and Cory move in together so they can know everything about each other. In my experience, abstinence and non-co-habitation go hand in hand.

    I definitely think that Topanga's anxiety over her parents' divorcing was bad. It's like the writers had run out of ideas. It was not funny and it didn't feel emotionally earned, considering we spent so little time with Topanga's parents themselves. It was just annoying, and it took up far too much time.

    But on the whole, BMW had a very strong female character in Topanga Lawrence.

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    1. Yeah, the living together and yet -still- being pro-abstinence was the time I most felt sympathy for Cory. I agree that Cory could be a little jerk about it sometimes; but that most likely mainly came from her behaviour earlier more than anything. It seems such a sudden turn-around, and then when they get married a couple of episodes suggest she's just as eager as he is, so it felt even weirder.

      I hated that storyline of her parents divorcing. And then it turned out it was not simply'falling out of love' as was suggested initially; but due to an affair made it even worse. And for them to hide that from Topanga when that was one major reason that it would easily end up differently for her and Cory? That even goes against every appearance for them we'd had prior to season 6.

      Topanga in seasons 1-5 of BMW was in some ways, almost a totally different character than in seasons 6 and 7.

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    2. oh hey your actual account is alive again

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    3. Yeah, Sean. I'm back. And here to stay.

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  10. As much as I enjoy Topanga in Boy Meets World, the same cannot be said for her in the role she played in Girl Meets World.

    Part of this makes me angry, and part of it makes me sad. And I can't shake the notion that network executives had a hand in this--while I have seen very little of more recent Disney Channel shows the fact remains that Topanga, horribly used though she may be, is still one of the best mothers on the Disney Channel to my recollection.

    And I do think that this was a decision put on by the network. Topanga's role in the pilot was relatively small, but I still got the impression that she felt like the old Topanga. But it has been stated that there were "creative changes" that were undergone from the filming of the pilot and the production of the rest of the season.

    There's a special place in Hell for whomever decided that Topanga's role in this series was to babysit the Poster Child for the Campaign to Re-instate Corporal Punishment (And for the record, I oppose corporal punishment).

    I have long believed that the most important person in a little girl's life should, ideally, be her mother. There was so much potential to tell stories with Riley and Topanga. Imagine an episode where Riley develops unhealthy eating habits, and Topanga, recalling her own insecurities with her weight from "She's Having My Baby-back Ribs" is able to give her much needed advice. Or an episode where it's Take-Your-Daughter-To-Work-Day--we were asking for that for literally the entire time the show existed, and the entire year it was in pre-production.

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