Girl Meets World (Season 1): A Look Back

You guys, I can not begin to tell you what "Boy Meets World" has meant to me over the years. I watched it religiously as a kid until the final season which, I guess, coincided with the advent of a Friday night social life and, as a latchkey kid, kept at it through syndication on weekday afternoons even more so. In those early days, the '90s and early '00s, I certainly really enjoyed the show. Was about as conversant on it as I am now, but I don't think the magic of it had clicked with me yet. My true adoration was reserved for primetime hits like "Seinfeld" and "Friends". I was aware, even then, that "Boy Meets World" represented the best of TGiF, but that was faint praise. And then in high school I lost track of it entirely.

Episode Review: "Girl Meets Demolition" (#1.21)

Hey all, sorry to you all (and co-writer, Sean) for the delay in getting this recap going. I had a pretty busy and unpleasant weekend. Before we start, I've seen a lot of back and forth among boards and other places about the specific classification of this episode. Is it in Season 1? Is it in Season 2? Does it exist in some seasonal vacuum altogether? And what's it called? "Girl Meets Demolition"? "Girl Meets What the What?"

Episode Mini-Review: "Girl Meets Flaws"

Still a few episodes I haven't done yet for Season 1. So, here's a little mini-review. No Sean for this one, but he'll be back for Girl Meets Demolition tomorrow. It's been a while, so if you don't remember this one, it's the one where Farkle's picked on by Lucas' fellow jock friend Billy.

So, I respect what they were trying to do with this episode, bullying is an important issue in the lives of kids today. But I found their take on it a little simplistic and ultimately of very little benefit. Yes, many bullies do it because they themselves are insecure, but merely pointing this out to them is probably not enough to, like, solve it. Farkle's bullying should not have been so easily stopped, and Billy's redemption shouldn't have been so easy and quick and neat. It's not realistic, and so kids who are actually dealing with bullying don't really have anything to take from such a portrayal. I think it would have been better for Billy to just... stay as he was, and for the lesson to be for Farkle to not let someone like that bother him. It's not like we ever saw Billy again, why redeem him?

More realistic, from my point of view, was how it was handled on Boy Meets World. Cory was bullied by Harley and his cronies, and it never really got any better, no matter how much detention the bullies got. Eventually he just sort of learned to live with it, and Harley left, and it was over. He and Harley never made up and became friends during the course of their high school careers - yes, Harley eventually seems to have realized he was wrong and he and Cory became friendly, but this happened in his adulthood after, it seems, Harley took some real licks. 

Speaking of Harley, this was a much more effective episode for him and would have been better served as his introductory episode (It was intended to be, but many episodes were aired out of order, including his two. And it's the execution that matters, not the intention) as it's clear who he is, and we learn how he came to be the janitor here. I'm glad that it's not just some big coincidence that he and Harley ended up at the same school, but in fact Cory and Harley must have run into each other, Cory saw Harley had fallen on hard times, and he did a decent thing and got him a job (I wish we'd actually seen that.)

Still, Danny McNulty is rusty as hell, having clearly not done much performing in the interim between stints as Harley. Really rusty. I'm not sure if he'll be back in Season 2 or not (honestly... I don't need him to be) but if so, he's going to have step up his game. Ben and Danielle started off a little rusty too, but they weren't anywhere near this level. 

It wasn't a great episode. A lot of Disney-ish humor, a grating amount of Ava Morgenstern, a lesson that rang false. Still, I'll give them some credit from making an attempt at a relevant tween issue. 

P.S. I don't believe for a second that a young, intelligent African-American athlete like Billy would have no idea who Jackie Robinson is. Bullshit. 

Episode MVP: I dunno, Ben Savage? No stand out performances.
Episode Rating: C

Anthony Tyler Quinn returning to Girl Meets World!

Joining the cavalcade of returning Boy Meets World stars in Season 2 is Anthony Tyler Quinn as Jonathan Turner! 

He'll be in an episode called "Girl Meets The New Teacher" which has the synopsis "John Quincy Adams gets a new English teacher" so...  who knows, we may end up getting a lot of Mr. Turner.  Of course, Harley works at JQA too and we still barely saw him.

There's been no indication that Rider Strong's in this episode too, interestingly. While Turner and Cory spent enough time together that it'd be interesting to see them interact again too, I can't imagine they wouldn't take proper advantage of Turner's return by having Shawn there. But perhaps that will be saved for a second Turner episode.

Anyway, sound off! Excited for Turner's return, and some long awaited answers to our questions about his fate? Do you like all these returns in general, or would you rather GMW stand on its own accord? Honestly, at this point, who's even left to return but Matt Lawrence and Maitland Ward? 

Personally, I'm on board. I actually think a few of the returns GMW has done (Minkus, Harley, the upcoming Chet and Angela) aren't super necessary, but Turner's actually someone I would like to see pop up in an episode, just because we need some closure there and I'd like some confirmation he and Shawn kept in touch. But I don't need to, like, see him on the reg either.

Episode Review: Girl Meets First Date (#1.20)

Hey everyone, I'm Sean. You may know me as ConfidenceKBM, author of the recently completed Boy Meets World Reviewed. I'll be teaming up with Christian here to talk through the increasingly divisive Girl Meets World, starting with episode 20. We're in figure-it-out-as-we-go mode for these team-reviews, so for this first attempt I'll just give my general thoughts then pass it over to Christian for his own thoughts and commentary on my thoughts, and continue that with a couple more passes back and forth.

Christian uses the default font in purple, so I'll be using this different font in gold. Let's get this world meeting started. No snacks will be provided at this time.

I don't know if this dead horse is still worth beating, but nothing that Cory does in the first two minutes resembles anything a real teacher would do. And it's fine, it's fun, but one of the core themes of Boy Meets World was how important yet undervalued teachers are. But now in GMW the teacher is simply a court jester for the students to throw rotten vegetables at. So that's upsetting, but like I said, dead horse. The highlight of the opening is Farkle's Belgium reaction, which actually made me laugh out loud for once. Unsurprisingly, it's an action resembling his father more than himself.

NEW FORMAT!

Hey everyone! Long time no speak! Enjoy the break?

I'm announcing a new format change! Starting with tonight's episode, "Girl Meets First Date" myself and ConfidenceKBM, author of the dearly departed Boy Meets World Reviewed will be teaming up for these episode reviews, making them more a conversation about the episode than a straight review. Twice the reviewers, twice the fun!

Expect a back and forth analytical conversational exchange to be posted here throughout the weekend.

I will be continuing my process of awarding an MVP Award to a performer and rating it on a grading scale. KBM did not do either of these things for his blog, electing to award a star rating based on a few different criteria, so he may continue with that or utilize my system or WHO KNOWS?\

Seeya guys in a bit!

Design change?

For the first time since creating this thing, I fiddled with the design. Added a shabbily put together banner, changed the color scheme to blue and purple to reflect the logo. Thoughts? Like this? Like the old one better? Want it to be different entirely? Couldn't care less? Let me know!

Morgan to return!

Hey guys,

To keep this blog alive in what is apparently more than a month long wait until the next episode of Girl Meets World, here I am popping in with news.

So, the GMW writers confirmed today that Cory and Eric's sister, Morgan, will indeed appear, and while they didn't specify Season 2, if they're confirming it, it's probably Season 2.

Oddly, though, when asked who would be playing her they said "We'll probably start chronologically." which means... what? Maybe it just means Lily Nicksay, but it also kind of sounds like it means she'll be in two episodes and in the first she'll be played by Lily Nicksay and in a later episode she'll be Lindsay Ridgeway? 'Cause... please don't do that. That sounds stupid. Just pick one. I don't even care which. I'd probably prefer Nicksay, but Ridgeway did have the role longer, so she's fine too. But pick one. The other one can cameo as someone else sometime.

Besides this casting ambiguity, though, I'm actually excited for the idea. Sure, Morgan was largely useless on Boy Meets World, but GMW can be a chance for her to prove her relevance to the franchise, much like it appears to be Josh's chance to do the same. She'd be in her late 20s now, and would offer a great opportunity to be a 'cool aunt' for Riley, giving her a younger, possibly hipper, female role model to look up to than Topanga. Riley should have one of those, someone representing the kind of person Riley wants to be in 10-15 years.

So, any thoughts on this? And is there a consensus on who should play Morgan?

Episode Review: Girl Meets Farkle's Choice (#1.19)

Episode Title: "Girl Meets Farkle's Choice"
Episode Number: 19
Boy Meets World Episodes Borrowed From: I can't think of anything for the main plot, but the subplot with Topanga and Auggie reminded me a bit of Season 1's "Class Pre-Union" where Morgan had an obnoxious friend with an obnoxious mother, and Amy and Morgan like... taught'em a lesson.
Cory's History Lesson and Relevance: Poor little Canada is our greatest ally, so we best not take them for granted. He's really condescending toward Canada. I guess it's relevant, but I don't necessarily grant his premise.
Episode Review: 

Let's get some other topics out of the way since... who cares about this episode? It was announced this week that both Trina McGee-Davis (Angela) and Blake Clark (Chet) will be returning to Girl Meets World in Season 2 - joining Will Friedle, Rider Strong, William Daniel, and a cadre of other BMW vets for that season. What do we think of this? I already spoke about my thoughts about the idea of Angela's return in the "Master Plan" review - I'm not against the idea, as long as it's to provide Shawn with closure and not reunite them. Chet, though? Why Chet? Don't get me wrong, I like Chet a lot. Probably my favorite non-main-cast-member BMW character. But the guy's been dead for 15 years. The actor has aged since then. They went to the ghost well once-too-often as it is. I think this is a mistake. But - is it kind of a "Screw it. We want to bring everyone back at least once. And how else do we get Blake Clark on?" situation?

Retro Episode Mini-Review: #1.14: "Girl Meets Friendship"

So, there's six episodes I haven't reviewed. The first four, because it was pre-blog, and "Girl Meets Flaws" and "Friendship", because I hate them. So, I'm going to do mini-reviews of them all sort of ad hoc in no order and on no time table. Up first, "Girl Meets Friendship" because it happened to be on TV this morning and I have a day off. 

Episode Title: "Girl Meets Friendship"
Episode Number: 14
Boy Meets World Episodes Borrowed From: Season 2's "I am Not a Crook", full-stop. Also Season 1's "Father Know Less" as a subplot.
Cory's History Lesson and Relevance: Democracy vs. Dictatorship, which, sure, very relevant to an episode about elections.

Episode Review: 

This episode sucks. I also suspect it was one that was written and produced much earlier. People still feel like they're being introduced, and we're going with some earlier dynamics - Ben Savage is still a little rusty, Farkle's got his evil streak that he doesn't really have anymore, Maya's all upset about not bothering Lucas with her jokes which she doesn't really do anymore, Lucas is... relevant to the plot which hasn't been a thing in a while. Oh, and because Lucas is relevant, it sucks. 

I talked about this before, but the most bizarre part is this weird 'The Rebel' kid that they try to introduce. I'm not sure they even tell us his name. He just kind of shows up in one scene, isn't relevant again for the rest of the episode, until the very end when he again just kind of shows up to like... tell us what a Secretary of State does. And he's not remotely rebellious, so I'm not sure why they refer to him that way. Unless rebellious means calling Lucas "Harmonica" and calling Maya "Art"? But otherwise he's just nice and smart and polite. I don't know if an earlier version of the episode included him in a larger role or something and most of it got cut? And they never use him again. But they clearly had some idea that maybe he was going to be a character, and maybe Maya's love interest? I really don't know what the hell's going on with this kid. It seems like they replaced whatever role he was going to play with perhaps Josh? It was a good move. This kid is the weirdest thing. I can't get past it. 

So, the episode is a blatant rip-off of "I am Not a Crook." with people running for Class President, making

outrageous promises, and turning on each other. This episode is handled MUCH worse for a lot of reasons. Mainly because it just not as well written. But at it's most basic concept it's messed up too. The different governments thing is stupid (and it's ridiculous that Farkle, even at his most extreme, would want to evoke, like, Fidel Castro and Kim Jong Un in the way he comports himself. Everyone's extremely quick to turn on each other whereas it seemed to happen for a reason with Cory and Shawn, and most of the slander was just between Cory and the Minkus-Clone. Also, the promises they make aren't as funny or as believable. Instead it's people getting too excited about free t-shirts and stuff.  And it ends with them learning that democracy is a better form of government than fascism and monarchies. Like.... thanks, Girl Meets World. American pre-teens all over are struggling with that. 

God, everyone's just such an unlikable snide shit in this episode. Maya and Farkle obviously, but even Lucas. Riley, like, says hi to him when he's on the phone and he snaps "EXCUSE ME. This phone call is PERSONAL." Oh, and he's all bent out of shape because his dad won't fly him out to Texas for the second weekend in a row. Shut up, Lucas. At the end he feels better because Maya and Riley get his friends to send him a video taped message standing in front of the WORST greenscreen for Texas I've ever seen. Why did that have to look so lame? Just give these kids a video camera and have them just actually... go outside. 

Then there's a subplot with Auggie not being able to sleep. And I guess the reason is he refuses to sleep because both Cory and Topanga aren't tucking him in, just one of them is. So, he sucks too. And they do the plot of "Father Knows Less" in miniature in there too, with Cory keeping Auggie up late to watch a baseball game with him.

And, in the end, Lucas and Riley ride off on a white horse, to just tie a nice little bow over the worst thing I've ever seen.

Episode Rating: F. This episode is the worst in the series, and a total failure from top to bottom. It's abysmally written, the plot's bad and made up of two flagrant rip-offs of classic Boy Meets World episodes, everyone is unlikable, and the thing with The Rebel is just bizarre. Nothing positive here.
Episode MVP: Danielle Fishel, just because she's kind of funny in one scene where she's sleep-deprived. And because at least she avoids being tainted with the school plot.