Christmas Cheer

Hello all, and happy holidays. Christian suggested we write something about the Christmas episodes this year and I think that's a great idea. I just finished watching them all in one sitting, including Turnaround and Meets Home for the Holidays, and I thought I'd get the ball rolling with some general thoughts on each and a tentative, not at all final, personal ranking.



Santa's Little Helper (S1): The opening of this episode is a mess, it's almost like they switched writers after a few minutes. But once you make it past that switch, the humor improves and we end up with a strong look at Shawn's hatred of receiving charity. They manage to draw a clear line between giving gifts in the hope of being thanked, and doing it out of love, as well as Shawn's different reactions to the two. The fact that this part of Shawn's character stays consistent for the rest of the series makes me enjoy this one a lot more, right, it gains enormous value after seeing the whole series. The sincerity with which Amy is able to laugh at Morgan is equaled only by how sincerely Minkus doesn't understand why Shawn hasn't given him five dollars. I love that Minkus doesn't understand. As book smart as he is, he's still just a kid. It's incredible that they got this one so right in their first season.

Apologies if I go a little long on these, it's my first chance to review them! I'm doing my usual Episode Rating and MVP giving, but I'm also adding a Christmas Rating. This measures how much of a Christmas episode it is and I'll try to give that some consideration when trying to choose a best Christmas episode. The scale goes thusly:

5 Golden Rings - Super Christmas-y
4 Calling Birds - Mainly about Christmas, but there's at least some plotline where it doesn't really matter that it's Christmas.
3 French Hens - 50/50 split on Christmas and non-Christmas content. 
2 Turtle Doves - Not really all that much about Christmas, but it does take place at Christmas and there's some Christmas stuff going on, at least a Christmas subplot or something. 
1 Partridge - Might as well not even be Christmas for all the Christmas-y it is. 





And speaking of the opening (which you started with), I'm going to get something off my chest right now because it happens twice in these episodes -- Feeny being depicted as reading the entirety of A Christmas Carol aloud. It's a novel. A short novel, but still a novel. It's like 100 pages long. No one's going to just straight up read that entire thing aloud in a sitting. Think about how long it would take you to read 100 pages in something and then, like, x1.5 because it takes way longer to read something aloud. I get that at the end of "A Very Topanga Christmas" everyone's fallen asleep, so maybe it did take a while, but like Feeny would likely be hoarse and parched after the tens of thousands of words he just said. I don't know if M.J. has it in his head that A Christmas Carol is a short story or what, but it's not. It's a book. And it's not like Feeny's reading some picture book adaptation of it that boils it down to its essentials - he's clearly reading the original text. What was that all they did in school that day? No wonder Cory and Shawn were dicking around - that's a colossal waste of everyone's time. But yeah, you're right, that whole opening's bad and really has nothing to do with the plot. Also, kids like A Christmas Carol. It's got ghosts and magic and Christmas and shit. Of all the things to whine about. Man, Cory and Shawn were really insufferable twats in Season 1. They're awful in the next scene at the cafeteria too. These are our heroes? It's impossible to watch that cafeteria scene and not like Topanga and Minkus way more than this whiny prick and his idiot sidekick. 

Once we get into the meat of the episode, it does improve, although it does have Season 1's general issue of just plain not being all that funny. I'd say half the jokes fall flat, the writing just was not as funny in this era of the show. Still, I think this is our first indication that the Hunters are not as well-off as the Matthews (though the idea of Shawn's dad being laid off from a company doesn't really square with who Chet turns out to be) so that's an important step. It's also the first indication of Shawn's infamous hatred of perceived charity. Although, as we established, he actually does graciously accept hand-outs all the time, it's like only if he gets clued in on the fact that it's charity that he gets pissed. I feel like a scene like this could happen to Shawn:

You: "Hey, here's a million dollars. Enjoy."
Shawn: "Sweet! This is awesome! I can't wait to spend this! Thanks!"
You: "You're welcome. Just a little charity from me to you."
Shawn: "YOU SON OF A BITCH!" *blows up the bag of money with a cherry bomb*

That said, Cory is really a smug little turd about the way he gives the present and handles Shawn's reaction. I think about this episode a lot and Feeny's message about not giving a gift to "get the thanks" at times when I don't feel like I'm receiving enough gratitude or credit about something or other. 

I don't mind Morgan's Santa subplot here - and I particularly enjoy that everyone has a sense of humor about it, like Amy struggling not to laugh when telling Alan or actually laughing when Eric fakes like Santa called and died on the phone, I'm glad you called that out too. Amy and Eric have good mother/son chemistry in this episode, sure is a shame she winds up despising him. Still, it feels like it would be more compelling if all the pivotal scenes actually happened onscreen and didn't get recounted after the fact. Like what's this thing where Morgan says an elf came by and called her a demon child and Alan's like "He's gone now, you don't have to worry about him again." Did he come by earlier? Seriously, why is all this happening offscreen? What, did that scene get cut for time or something? The elf shows up later, it's not like they didn't have an actor for him. 

Also, this Bob Stubchek cat sure owns a lot of stores. Bob Stubchek's Sports World gets namechecked here, and we absolutely hear of a Bob Stubchek's Burger World somewhere else. Looking into it, there's also a Bob Stubchek's Pizza World at some point. I wonder if there's others. Has this been a running gag throughout Boy Meets World and we missed it? Pizza World is the one I remember, anyone got a source on Burger World? I would love to know where that name came from though.

Minkus being told "Merry Christmas." and reacting with a shocked "Really?" like he can't believe someone is actually expressing simple human courtesy is the saddest thing that's ever happened on this show. And, that's saying something, because one time that lunch lady died. 

I like the end where Cory and Shawn play each other for the basketball, but it doesn't really matter who owns the ball, because they don't really have any other friends and have no one else to play with. 

Episode Rating: B. The meat of the episode is good, but there's a lot of unfunny crap surrounding it and they really dropped the ball on how they handled the Morgan subplot. That could have been a funny story if they'd given it an extra scene or two. If you don't know where to cut to make room, I'll give you a hint. It's literally everything in the first 5 minutes. 
Episode MVP: William Daniels. My guess is that he or William Russ are MVPs of every episode in Season 1. Rider and Ben handle the serious moments well too though. But Willy D. for sure. Yes, for the backyard scene, but also for his delivery of "Hello, Morgan. I am Santa."
Christmas Rating: 5 Golden Rings. (Doesn't get more Christmas-y than this, folks. Main plot is Christmas-related, subplots are Christmas-related, school lesson is about A Christmas Carol, it's Christmas Christmas Christmas up in here.)

Turnaround (S2): You get a bad feeling about this episode in the beginning. I never feel comfortable when the audience starts laughing at our first sight of Ingrid. This girl is thrilled that a boy she likes wants to go to the dance with her, and there is no universe where that's something to laugh at. But fear not, this is Boy Meets World, and not something on, like, CBS. The whole thing gets flipped upside down and turns out to be a commentary on shallow people like Cory and Shawn and anyone else who laughed and said "ha ha Cory has to go to the dance with the nerd girrrrrrrrl." And again, because this is Boy Meets World and it's a great show, it's still not that sort of black and white "what's on the inside is what counts" lesson. Ingrid's a jerk! She sails Cory down the river whenever some other guy comes along. They're all jerks, they're all vain, and nobody really ends up happy. I love it. That being said, turnaround dances are indeed "destructive gender biased thinking," and I don't like how comfortable Feeny is with the concept. Then again, he ends up making a move on some woman at the end, so it's not like he really cares about the rule. I love Turnaround a lot, and it's not reaaaaaaaaally a Christmas episode, but they do one of those "happy holidays" photo cards at the end of the episode so fuck you, it counts.

It's going to be interesting watching these holiday episodes all in a row, because I don't usually skip around year by year like this. So, going from Season 1 to Season 2, I see that the personalities of the characters have started to solidify but we're not quite there yet - particularly for Cory, who's still got the high voice, small nose, and general slacker air of Proto-Cory, but it starting to develop the neuroses and awkwardness of True Cory. Eric similarly is somewhere between his Season 1 self, and his true self. Not dumb yet and still Mr. Cool Guy, but definitely much funnier. Shawn's more or less Shawn though.

I know you say it's not nice when the audience laughs at the reveal of Ingrid, but she does look over-the-top frumpy. This is no Hollywood Nerd who's clearly pretty but is wearing glasses and no make up. Her dress looks like it belongs to a 19th century pioneer woman. 

I like Alan taking Cory to task about going with the girl he said yes to, but it actually doesn't sound like him to order him to handle his social/romantic life a certain way. It seems more on-brand to say something demonstrating Cory's being a dick, but to actually let him make the decision himself. But I suppose if Cory could just back out and dump Ingrid, we wouldn't have a plot. 

Huh. This episode features a rare 1994 reference to the internet. Also, I see they're still figuring Topanga out because she was depicted as being bored and unengaged in Turner's class. It's actually weird Topanga's even in this one. As we've said, Season 2 only features Topanga in like half the episodes, and it has a habit of making Topanga be Cory's love interest in episodes she appears in, and then having Cory have other love interests when Topanga's not in the episode. It's really weird, like there's two Season 2s going on concurrently, one where Cory likes and is maybe sort of dating Topanga and one where Cory has no ties to anyone and is casually dating people. And then Season 3 comes along and they're like "Okay, we're going to go with the Topanga timeline." But this is a rare episode where Cory's got casual one-off love interests and yet Topanga is acknowledged to exist, although they do explain her absence at the dance and acknowledge that Topanga would be the obvious choice to be Cory's date.

Ingrid mentions she's Swedish and she has an Aunt Uma who lives in Sweden. Judging by Shawn's excited reaction to hearing that name as if it's inherently sexy, I can only assume this character was named for Uma Thurman, as this episode aired at the tail end of 1994 the year she became a household name with Pulp Fiction.  Trouble is while Uma Thurman is indeed an attractive Swedish-American actress, the name Uma is Hindi and has nothing to do with Sweden. BAD RESEARCH, BOY MEETS WORLD. Oh wow, my entire world just fell apart. I can't believe I never bothered to look it up. 

Anyway, I'm not really talking about the episode much. It's a pretty good one, but not a great one. The messaging is all over the place, I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to take away from it. I mean, don't be shallow, I guess? Ingrid sure sucked, didn't she? I can forgive her for the way she dumped Cory in the first place, since he was so brazenly obvious that she wasn't good enough for him the way she was and she needed to become someone entirely different to be good enough for him. But the second time was just shitty, they really connected, they both realized they'd messed up, and then she just flounces away without a care and gives a callous retort when Cory's like "WTF?". Also, go on IMDb and look up what Natanya Ross who plays Ingrid looks like now. It's a trip. 

I do like the final scene with the boys, I've always liked that part of the episode. "It JUST happened!" is fantastic. 

Episode Rating: B-. If it's any funnier than "Santa's Little Helper" it's only marginally, and unlike that episode, there's no clear... thesis to walk away from this episode with. It's not that every episode of BMW has to have a lesson to teach but... if it doesn't have that then it should be funnier than this episode is. Still, there's some memorable beats, a nice ending, and there's some nice material for all three of our heroes.
Episode MVP: No run-away favorite in this one but I think I'll go with Will Friedle. He's definitely a supporting actor in this episode, but his scene with Cory in the kitchen is a real highlight and he just gives a better performance throughout then the still-learning youngsters.
Christmas Rating: 1 Partridge. (We get a Happy Holidays card at the end and Topanga's alibi for the dance is she's going Christmas shopping in NYC anddddd that's about it. There's no reason this had to be a Christmas-time episode at all. You could remove all references to Christmas and nothing would need to be any different.)

We got Train of Fools for some ungodly reason in season 3, so nothing to talk about there. I guess in a week we'll rank the New Year's Episodes which are just this and the GMW one from Season 2. 

Easy Street (S4): This episode is way better than it has any right to be. On paper it sounds like the worst idea ever, but it's a Cory and Shawn adventure and those episodes almost always work out. The ending is like, a test run of the ending to Cult Fiction, where Shawn ends up in some stupidly dramatic situation and Cory does his speech. Shawn is apparently about to hand off a box of drugs to some members of the mob, but they couldn't be too specific because it's ABC. It's season 4, so you know the dialogue and humor are top notch, and it's sweet that Shawn wants to buy gifts for the people he cares about. But... you know... it's dumb... they both work for the mob and manage to walk away without any consequences after making hundreds of dollars. This episode gives Lonnie her highest amount of screen time, and it would have been fun to explore her and Eric together more after this one. Oh well. Eric crying when he learns he was unconscious while his naked body was pressed up against Lonnie's is an honest to god Emmy moment. 

In 6th grade, I wrote a *ahem* "novel" that was mainly about a boy named Ethan who has a crush on the sister of the kid he's babysitting for, and all sorts of drama keeps them apart and then just as they start dating, her family moves away. Relatively low-stakes. But, for some reason, I included a subplot wherein Ethan's older brother gets involved with dealing drugs and stole money from his boss and now is in danger and it's got Ethan, a 13-year-old or something, asking his brother questions like "You taking the stuff or just trafficking it?" encountered this story going through some of my old things a few years ago and it's painfully obvious that it was written by someone who's never tried drugs or committed a crime, never seen anyone take drugs or commit a crime, and knows nothing about drugs or crime. Pffffahaahahahahahahaha. It's some mish-mash from shit I guess maybe I'd seen in movies and maybe some Googling I did on the subject at the time. It also comes out of nowhere, has nothing to do with the plot of the book, is really off the mark tonally, is a random thing for these otherwise ordinary middle-class pre-teen suburbanites to be dealing with, and is all introduced and figured out in the course of one chapter and is never mentioned again. I don't even remember how they resolve it. The brother just.... gets out of it somehow.

If that all sounds good to you, then boy are you going to love Easy Street! Easy Street is a rare misfire for Season 4 and is likely the worst episode of the entire season which, as you also make clear, is saying something because it's not that bad. When I watch this one, which is rarely, I'm usually watching it among Season 4 episodes so it sticks out as badly, but coming after two average episodes from two seasons that I consider weaker (for this show) it doesn't seem so bad. The plot is stupid, the climactic scene is downright embarassing for its heavy-handedness, and I'm pretty sure it was written by people whose knowledge of the mob extends to having seen The Godfather once a decade ago but it was on in the background while they were making Thanksgiving dinner so they only kind of remember it.

 Besides that, though, I mean... it's funny. It feels like Boy Meets World when Boy Meets World was at the top of its game, so the humor's on point and the characters are on point.

Some classic moments happen in this episode, and one right at the top ("Shawn, wake up, it's both of them." "Great, now I don't know which class I slept through.") I was wondering if in your review you noted (as I did) that Feeny's showing up in Turner's class is never explained (I kept expecting him to be like "Anyway, everyone, I have an announcement to make..." but it never happened.) and is really just a weird device to get Cory and Shawn to explain their new jobs, which could have been done any number of ways. And indeed you do reference that in your review. I have to say though, even though they're doing a GMW-style using the classroom to discuss what the heroes and only the heroes are up to, at least the class isn't depicted as paying rapt attention to them. Turner and Feeny are at the boys' desks and everyone else is working on something else or talking amongst themselves. That's at least better. 

When Cory's explaining who he is to the two mobsters, he mentions he got this job because he's looking to make a little extra money this summer. No, Cory. You're looking to make a little extra money this Christmas. It's Christmastime. That's a pretty stupid mistake. But anyway, yeah, everytime they're talking to the mobsters or dealing with the mobsters I hate it. In addition to it being stupid, I don't think those guys are fun mobsters or are particularly well-cast. For one thing, they're both REAL old and not very intimidating and one of them appears to have a speech impediment (they're played by two veteran comedians, Buddy Hackett and Soupy Sales, so that's why, but I still think it's bad casting, especially since the two names likely mean nothing to any fan of Boy Meets World. This is like when Herbie Hancock showed up in GMW all over again. At least no one's applauding.)

As soon as they leave the mobsters, though, I'm back to liking it. The scene with Cory and Shawn in the kitchen is good (I also like the "The wind chill factor is, like, Jupiter" line that you loved in your review) and I dunno. It's kind of just a trip to watch Cory and Shawn bitching about their part-time jobs. Since these two never work.

I am very impressed by the fact that as soon as Cory learns these two are mobsters, despite how clearly scared he is, he up and quits right there and then to their faces. Braver men then Cory would likely be very scared to tell two mobsters that you quit and to refuse to do the favor they asked you to do and have already paid you to do. Yet Cory doesn't even hesitate, he's frightened but can't abide by being part of this for even a moment once he knows the deal. Good for him. Despite his status as being "the good one" in comparison to Shawn and/or Eric, Cory sometimes can be a real piece of shit.  Like, for instance, in both the two Christmas episodes I've watched so far. In this one, he's true blue.

Out of character for me, the Eric storyline doesn't do much for me here. I generally like Lonnie and liked what her brief presence in Season 4 brought to the table, and I really like their dynamic in the one where Eric teaches her how to play it cool on dates, but this one's not great. Eric is downright obnoxious and embarrassing in all his interactions with her, and his bitching and moaning about not getting to see her naked is creepy. Also, as a part-owner of the store she works at, it's pretty wanton sexual harassment. Not as wacky to watch in 2017 climate. Yes, Eric's harmless and I believe Lonnie knows that, but she still shouldn't have to deal with this from one of her employers. And even besides that, it's also just not a particularly funny bit.

God, now it's the last scene. How did Cory find Shawn? Shawn asks him, and Cory never answers and we never find out. It seems like the only way would be if he went to the restaurant and was like "Where's Shawn?" and I don't see why in the world those guys would tell him. The whole scene's bad. Ben and Rider do a good job, and Ben in particular does a good job trying to imbue this embarassing dialogue with heft, but him saying shit "You're a worthless coffee boy and they don't care if you live or die!" or "Oh, a teddy? Well, let's put it under the tree and play let's guess the street value of the teddy!" is just... patently absurd. It would sound off if Shawn said it, for Cory to say it, is just... what the fuck? Honestly, this whole thing, if you're going to do it, Turner should be playing Cory's role here. He should be the one getting Shawn on the straight narrow, he should be making up for the crack about being a no one waiting for lottery tickets (which Turner did say, and he never winds up having to apologize for), explaining the connection to the Frost poem, and he should be the one who knows what's what about what Shawn's doing right now. It makes way more sense for this to be Turner than Cory. That is a pretty great idea, having Turner at the end instead of Cory. That lottery ticket jab was mean.

"You know, Shawn, I thought the devil was supposed to be this guy with horns and tail." Ugh, shut up, Ethan.

"Wouldn't it be funny if there really was a teddy in there?"
"Yeah, don't you wish life was like that?"
"I'm beginning to see..... that it's not."

God, that's bad. And really bad delivery on Rider's part.

I do like Alan's line in the tag, "Oh, this is exactly that shirt I saw and told you I wanted and made you buy it and now I have it!" I feel that way about presents too. Aw, and another Happy Holidays from Boy Meets World card.

Episode Rating: C. There are nice beats, and in general it comes from a funnier era of the show, so the comedy is stronger than the other two episodes. But this is a really dumb plot, with a really dumb ending scene, and really doesn't fit Boy Meets World. I get BMW needs to special episodes and maybe cults and child abuse are topics that are worth covering.... I don't think "Don't join the mafia!" is a particularly germane lesson for the TGiF crowd of 1997. And Eric doesn't even provide good relief. 
Episode MVP: Ben Savage. Both he and Rider are pretty good throughout, but I think Rider phoned in the final scene a bit whereas I think Ben actually did his best to elevate the material. 
Christmas Rating: 3 French Hens (Takes place at Christmas, and Christmas comes up a lot, but neither plot actually has to be about Christmas. Shawn could have just... had that job. And a blizzard's a winter thing, but not a Christmas thing per say. A lot more Christmas-y than Turnaround, but not quite Santa's Little Helper.)

A Very Topanga Christmas (S5): In my mind, I hate this episode because I hate the idea of Topanga coming over and passive aggressively implementing all of her Christmas crap, and also because promise rings are stupid. The ending theme of the episode is compromise, but Topanga seems entirely unwilling to compromise on anything the entire time, so I don't think it's fair to blame Cory. Dream Ghost Feeny remarks that future Jack "probably didn't run out of the house like a coward," and I agree that it was immature for Cory to run away, but he made a very un-cowardly stand against Topanga about caroling. He didn't want to do it and made that very clear, but she didn't listen. So I have problems with this episode on a thematic level, but the writing is fantastic. Probably the best of all of these. It's hilarious and fun to listen to from start to finish. Shawn and Jack have one of their few good episodes together here, but Angela is oddly missing. Chasing Angela was only two episodes before this one and there's no mention of her. Weird.

Yeah, this one's great, I don't know what your thing was. I guess Topanga is pretty obnoxious about the way she handles thing, but I do think she genuinely doesn't realize what she's doing until it's pointed out to her, and in fairness people keep acquiescing to her requests without argument (with her, they do all bitch about it to Cory) so she may just not see that it's a problem. Cory said he didn't want to go caroling and she wouldn't let it go. I would agree with you that it was entirely innocent on her part if it weren't for that scene about the caroling. And I mean, she is trying to be nice, and she does, like, make everyone pancakes and she bought an expensive gift for Eric it sounds like! Her only really out of line thing was making them drive to Vermont for a tree. (That's a straight-up 7 hour drive, there's just no way) And yeah, Cory just handles it all so poorly, running out like that and then not even speaking to her when she comes to the apartment and apologizes. And regardless of how he handled it, his issue was stupid anyway, "I thought Topanga and I were exactly alike, but now I see we're different people." Seriously, Cory? You thought you and Topanga were exactly alike? That's insane. You're clearly not. 

But, these are minor quibbles, it's a very funny episode and in particular Eric is absolutely on point this whole episode. I steal "I only do it because people have come to expect it" whenever I can, and the best line of the episode is Eric's "HOW? HOW can we have both?" about having cider and egg nog.

But in general, I just like the plot. I like the... everyday-ness of it. No mob drama like last year, no saving Christmas for a bunch of adorable orphans like next year, just a simple story of a couple spending their first Christmas together and navigating how to honor both their ways of doing it.  Also, yes, promise rings are stupid but 1) it's still SUPER in character for Cory and Topanga, 2) Eric mocks them for it thus indicating the show knows it's stupid too. My one complaint is not loving that they had to go all A Christmas Carol/It's A Wonderful Life about it, but it's actually a relatively short part of the episode, and it's almost worth it for one of Jack's only funny lines in the entire series: "I don't really know you too well, but thanks for marrying me!'

Jack's weirdly good this entire episode, his riffing by himself on not knowing Topanga but hoping he'll get to know her and if he doesn't get to know her that's fine too is pretty funny, as is the line "...We pray on the plane." As we've said before, Jack's generally at his best with Shawn (and not with Eric) so an episode where Jack's pretty much just talking with Shawn and figuring out how to be brothers is one of the only good ways to use him. Shawn's pretty uncharacteristically sappy and maudlin in that first scene, and I like Jack's undercutting it with the double "So... what do you wanna do?"

You know, I've never carol-ed or been carol-ed at. I've never encountered caroling. Do people do that?

I like how right before Feeny reads A Christmas Carol (which, again, would take him hours and hours and would never be a thing) there's a brief moment where Eric is holding up underwear and everyone's going like "EH? EHHH?" Blink and you miss it, and it's weird. I guess they got Eric underwear for Christmas and they're ALL delighted by it. 

P.S. I don't think it's weird Angela's not here. She's not yet a cast member, just a recurring character, and Shawn's whole thing in this episode is about spending one-on-one time with his brother and she'd get in the way of that. Plus, I don't think they're serious enough at this point to spend Christmas together. 

Episode Review: A- (Sorry, I think this one's great. It's very very funny, I like the story, I like the subplots, it's all great, and they even make clear that the fantastic element is a dream which they're not always good about.) 
Episode MVP: Will Friedle, easy. As in Turnaround (and all these Christmas episodes so far) he's only a supporting part, but he's really really funny (in an episode that wouldn't be as good without humor) and his presence is an important one as in the beginning he's the voice in Cory's ear telling him Topanga's changing everything and ruining Christmas. 
Christmas Rating: 5 Golden Rings (As with "Santa's Little Helper" this is all about Christmas and, for purposes of the story, has to take place at Christmas. The subplot's also about Christmas, and we even get Christmas TV tropes like the standard It's A Wonderful Life or Christmas Carol type sequence, and we knock'm both out with one fell swoop)


Santa's Little Helpers (S6): It's wonderful that Eric finds his charitable spirit, and this is exactly the kind of story where Jack can have the kind of development he needs, but it goes right off the rails after Eric's first day of gift giving. He's basically stealing gifts and money to give to these kids, and I don't know, it's just not the realistic sort of look that a topic like this deserves, you expect more from this show. That's pretty much the same reaction I have to Cory trying to run the Parent Trap on Shawn and Angela. I have never enjoyed that. And ohhhhhhhh look, a kid asks for PARENTS for Christmas. It's more like a straight to vhs Christmas movie than an episode of Boy Meets World. We all love Eric and his future episodes with Tommy are great, but there's no part of this that feels believable. Shawn explains his fear of a real relationship to Angela, which I appreciate at face value, but I thought we were done with that after First Girlfriends Club an entire season ago. Blah. So yeah, Eric gave away all the gifts but we can forgive him because he's a big brother to Tommy now. Blah. Although thankfully it does end with Feeny reading a Christmas Carol, like the year before. 

It's so weird that we have, really, not that many Christmas episodes and two have basically the same name. Do we think they just somehow didn't catch that? Or did they go "Eh, that one was singular, this one's plural, it's fine." 

Ugh, and right off we have some War on Christmas joke. Ugh, how dare this Social Justice Warrior PC Janitor ruin GOOD OLD PROTESTANT FEENY's Christmas CHEER. Yeah, real subtle there Jacobs.

Oh, interesting continuity, they're mentioning Angela's dad being stationed overseas a full season before we'll actually meet him. I didn't know they'd said a word about him before he showed up and was established as an Army man. Good on them. But yeah, this episode has a LOT of Shawn/Angela relationship drama, that I'm so not excited for. Both have been invited to the Matthews for Christmas and I appreciate that they mention Chet as being MIA and that's why Shawn's not spending Christmas with him. They didn't say a word about why Shawn (and Jack) weren't doing Christmas with Chet last year. 

Cory's in classic meddle mode, trying to get Shawn and Angela back together, and he's got Topanga in on the action. This is one of the rare times it's fine, once they know that Shawn and Angela are both in love with each other, you really do gotta do what you can to make sure they're both aware of that. If they're both sitting there all sad because they think it's unrequited, that's pretty stupid. And it would have worked too if Shawn wasn't such an insufferable shit. And as annoying he can be, he is often funny with it and is in this episode. 

It's weird that Shangela went to talk privately and went all the way to Pennbrook to do it. Like, did you just sit silently in the car. Who even drove? Do either of you have cars? Shawn definitely doesn't. Did you take the subway? Just go outside in the driveway. Or borrow Cory's room for a second. Jeez. Anyway, it's annoying to see Shawn fuck up his own like for no particular reason by refusing to get back together with Angela despite them both being on the same page, and we all know how mopey he's going to be about this for a long time. But still, it's a sad scene well-acted scene, particularly by Trina McGee-Davis, who doesn't get a ton of opportunities to shine. I'm glad you wrote about that, you're right. Trina is great in that scene.

I like the storyline with Santa Eric... to a point. It's totally in-character and believable of him to get so excited at the prospect of being able to bring joy to all these kids that he loses perspective and starts spending too much and stealing gifts from his family. That's a fine bit. And it does bring Tommy into the picture, which is ultimately a good arc for Eric. But...

The ending scene with him covered in snow on the bench is just.... too much even for Will Friedle. Very over-wrought, and he does what he can with it, but what can you do with this collection of lines in exactly this order: "Why did you send me that little boy? Why doesn't that little boy have parents? Why doesn't that little boy have parents? Why did you send me that little kid? And why do I only come to you when I need something?" (That question about the little boy isn't an error, he indeed says the same sentence twice in a row.) Yowza. If you're going to have any screed at God, it's really gotta be President Bartlet in Two Cathedrals level writing. This is a little too "Don't blow me off, God." That coupled with the maudlin music, it was awkward and embarrassing to watch. I feel the better lesson would be for Eric to learn that he's not able to fix everything and just to do what he can, not to buckle down and decide he will take care of Tommy himself and not come to God. And he never gets any comeuppance from stealing all his family's gifts. 

Episode Review: C+ (Very Shangela heavy, which isn't my favorite stuff and isn't really what I'm looking for for my Christmas episode, though at least it's relatively well-executed. The Good Samerictan (eh? eh?) is a nice idea in theory that had pretty meh execution.)
Episode MVP: Trina McGee-Davis. She really sold that breakup scene and doesn't get a lot of moments to shine. Will Friedle did what he could, but really didn't elevate that scene where he talks to God to where it should be, which isn't really his fault. 
Christmas Rating: 4 Calling Birds (Pretty Christmas-y, Eric's storyline is entirely so, and there's plenty of Christmas through out, but Shawn and Angela's relationship stuff is a pretty driving story here and that doesn't really have much to do with Christmas)

Girl Meets Home for the Holidays (S1): Watching this episode for the first ten minutes honestly made me consider that I had been too hard on the first season of GMW. The veteran characters were obviously a treat, but Riley and Maya had plenty of quick, clever lines and I was actually laughing and having a good time. The moment when Shawn and Cory reunite, and even just before that the moment when Shawn first walks through the door, it's still so very very special. It's just a special thing that we got to see during our lives and it makes me happy. That's all I needed. Unfortunately we take a nose dive and I remember why I don't like the show about halfway through when the bay window gets involved and Riley starts making up some bullshit and the writers honestly try to convince us that Maya and Riley are as good together as our heroes. They're good! They're fine! They're a lot of fun for a first season show with two new actresses on Disney Channel. But whyyyyyyyyy did they have to force the comparison to the original series so early? Nobody expects them to be as good as Shawn and Cory so early. No one expects the power of those powerful BMW episodes before this show has earned them. No one expects Maya to be as fully fleshed out as Shawn right out of the gate. There's so much time left, why did we have to force it this early in the series? It just puts a terrible taste in my mouth, because no one is buying it. It's nonsense. And then Riley does some Riley shit where there's feelings and contrived conversations that would never happen in real life and it makes me feel sorry for Rider Strong. 

We're now in "I've already reviewed it territory" so I can be a little less verbose. For reference, you can refer to the Girl Meets Home for the Holidays review to get more detailed thoughts. My major thoughts then as of now are as follows:

1. It's too much with Cory liking Shawn more than Topanga. We know he does, but to have him callously droning on about how he likes Shawn more than specifically Topanga is really annoying, considering these two are supposed to be in love. Cory and Topanga were kind of mean to each other a lot in early GMW, they got better with this as it went along. 
2. Amy - she of the poorly drawn personality - feels like an entirely different, invented person for this one. She was not an overbearing perfectionist mother-in-law to Topanga. 
3. Alan might as well not be there.
4. Josh is... too much here, especially with his "Haha, Dad's old!" schtick. 
5. It's all Shawn, all the time and while I was excited he's back and he helped make this feel more like true BMW, I didn't like how he was kind of shitty to Riley because of his stupid fucking issues.

In general, I think this is the weakest of Shawn's episodes in GMW, and though I gave it a B+ at the time because, I think, of the shock value of his presence there, I think in retrospect it's too high. I'm going to re-rate it. Especially in comparison to the others, a B+ would be higher than I gave everything besides A Very Topanga Christmas and the writing in this episode just plain isn't as strong as, say Santa's Little Helper which, while not super funny (and this one's not super funny either) at least moments of well-written poignancy. Still, this episode will always have Cory and Shawn reuniting onscreen for the first time in 14 years and nothing can take away how special that is.

Oh, the Happy Holidays card is back!

Episode Review: B-, I think, is a more accurate rating for this one. It is great to see everyone again, and there's little moments throughout that demonstrate it, but it's not really a very well written episode and they make a lot of problematic choices. 

Episode MVP: Rider Strong, for sure, as I said before. In Season 1, Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel are still re-finding their characters and don't always feel like Cory and Topanga (they, especially the better-used Cory, get better at this as the series goes along) but Shawn's Shawn from jump. 
Christmas Rating: 2 Turtle Doves (I mean, the whole premise is that people are visiting for Christmas, but it could just as easily been Thanksgiving or Easter or even Cory's birthday or anniversary or something and it would have worked exactly the same. It's just an excuse to get all these people together, they don't really get into anything Christmas-y.)

Girl Meets a Christmas Maya (S3): So, not only do my thoughts on this one already exist, but they exist from a me that's pretty close to the me of now. This episode was for last Christmas, Christmas 2016, so my guess is what I thought then isn't going to be much different from what I thought now. Whereas, three years ago me who reviewed Girl Meets Home for the Holidays I feel is CHANGED.

That said, right away, the line "Christmas is the best time to be a Riley" was very cute and funny and it's said with such little fanfare that I think I missed it the first time around, otherwise I think I'd have commented on it. Watching these two GMW episodes in quick succession gives me a chance to see how much they both (and particularly Rowan, since Sabrina's older) have matured as performers from the first season to the last. I expect we'll see good things from both - I believe Rowan's actually on The Goldbergs or something now? Also, she's going to be in A Wrinkle in Time! That'll be cool!

I can't really write any more about GMW right now, I watched 7 episodes in a day and that's a lot....  my review from last year essentially stands. 

Episode Rating: B-
Episode MVP: Amir Mitchell-Townes
Christmas Rating: 4 Calling Birds. Secret Santa is definitely Christmas-y and so is spending your first Christmas with your new stepfather and feeling nervous about it. But Maya's issues are just her normal issues we hear about all the time, and this one just doesn't feel super Christmas-y, so it doesn't get the coveted 5 Golden Rings.

I don't think I can say anything about Christmas Maya that isn't in the review. The secret santa exchange is pretty fantastic except for the menorah, I love Topanga's impression of Katy, and I like to think Cory has been dreaming of the day that he and Auggie could play Chet and Shawn. This is one of my favorite Riley episodes for sure. A lot of the characters' quirks end up being unbearably predictable and repetitive on this show, so when they give Riley something unique to do, like throwing glitter for dramatic effect, it makes her shine so much more. Like imagine if Eric just ran "good looking detective" into the ground by bringing it up all the time. That's how Riley's quirkiness comes off to me most of the time, so I love that we got something unique and contained here. It makes me want to give other episodes a second try, but by the end we still couldn't avoid some stupid Cory lesson where he talks in his lesson voice and makes his lesson face. We were perfectly fine without it. It instantly deflates any desire I had to give this series another try. 

Okay so a preliminary ranking for me, based on how much I enjoyed the episodes just now:
1. Santa's Little Helper (S1)
2. Turnaround
3. Home for the Holidays
4. A Very Topanga Christmas
5. Christmas Maya
6. Easy Street
7. Santa's Little Helpers (S6)

That's just to get the discussion flowing, but yeah. All in all, this series has great Christmas episodes, they're not easy to rank, except Helpers is probably always gonna be at the bottom for me.

For me, off hand, it would seem to be...

1. A Very Topanga Christmas
2. Santa's Little Helper
3. Turnaround (Just, as an episode, it's not a very effective Christmas episode)
4. Girl Meets Home for the Holidays
5. Girl Meets A Christmas Maya
6. Santa's Little Helpers
7. Easy Street

So, we're not way off. But A Very Topanga Christmas is the only one I think is a downright very good episode of the show. Even Santa's Little Helper is flawed. 

Seems like personal preference accounts for most of our differences, the only real point of contention is Topanga Christmas. I agree that it's hilarious, but I can't honestly say that it makes me happy. Helper and Home For put a real spark of joy in my cold dead heart, but Topanga Christmas doesn't make me hopeful for the future of their relationship or for future Christmases at the Matthews house. It doesn't make me happy for Cory, so it's hard for me to place it higher.