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chicafrom3So I watched the first episode of Girl Meets World! Thank you, Internet!
It has a lot of potential. It also has a lot of flaws, NGL; some of them are basic pilot-episode flaws that don't really worry me (the girl playing Riley needs to settle into her character a little more, Farkle is obnoxious and they either need to cut him or retool him to be less terrible, the exposition was heavy-handed and rough as hell, and I'm pretty sure all the references to Riley making the world her own were only put into the script because they thought it would make good trailer material), some of them are obviously an attempt to capture on what made BMW work and that does worry me a little (the kids are too obviously xerox copies of Cory, Shawn, and Minkus, though we haven't seen enough of Lucas to tell whether he's going to be much like Topanga at all, and Riley/Lucas is too obviously being set up to be Cory/Topanga 2.0, when Cory and Topanga weren't even Cory/Topanga until season two or three), and some of them are just standard Disney kidcom flaws that make me cringe (I already mentioned Farkle, who is a nerve-grating mix of Minkus 2.0 and the standard Disney Channel kidcom obnoxious nerd, but really the biggest tipoff of what channel this is airing on is the super-over-saturated sets, which don't even attempt to look realistic).
But that is all fixable! And I'm sure a lot of it will be fixed. (Probably not Farkle and the sets, given that this is the Disney Channel. But a lot of it.) And it already has a lot going for it in the positives column, both in terms of nostalgia (every scene Cory and Topanga shared together got me teary-eyed, and we're not going to talk about the Feeny cameo because I will bawl) and as its own show (I know I criticized the kid playing Riley, but she's already leagues better than most of the other Disney Channel actresses, and the kid playing Maya is fab; I already have a feeling the relationship between Cory & Maya is going to be one of my favorite parts of this show if they follow through on it, which they pretty much have to). Some of the humor was standard cringeworthy Disney Channel kidcom, but more of it was genuinely pretty funny. And Auggie is frigging adorable.
There's also ... I don't know exactly how to phrase this. Boy Meets World was groundbreaking and amazing, but it also had a lot more freedom in its early days than Girl Meets World is going to have, simply because fans won't stand for it anymore. I don't mean in terms of addressing issues -- because let's be real, here, while BMW tackled a lot of serious issues it didn't start doing so until season three or thereabouts, and it didn't become a staple of the show until the kids were in the later part of their high school careers -- I mean in terms of continuity. Seriously, look at the very early days of BMW; Shawn wasn't even established as Cory's best friend (rather than as part of a group of friends) until midway through season one, and his lower-income background didn't get established until even later. Characters had siblings for an episode who were never mentioned again. Topanga was introduced as a guest character for an episode in the first season as the weird girl with a crush on Cory, then later was retconned into being his childhood best friend he'd always been in love with. The writers played around with characters and relationships, figured out what works, and only settled on a continuity later (and even that got screwed around with in later seasons); Girl Meets World is most likely going to have to stick to a plan for the backstory from the beginning. They don't have the freedom to play around and find out who works as a BFF for Riley, it has to be Maya. They have more freedom with the love interest -- I'll be interested to see if they commit to Lucas being Riley's OTL or if they explore away from that as they get more comfortable -- but because of the current TV climate there needed to be a love interest from the beginning, even if they later change paths on who Riley ends up with. And they certainly aren't going to have the freedom to randomly change characters' backstories and personalities to better fit the story they're telling, à la Topanga's famous transformation from weird hippie chick to overachieving Hollywood nerd. (Can you imagine if at the beginning of season three, Lucas transformed from Texan transplant to quintessential Brooklynite or something? I would laugh so hard, though.)
(And who knows, maybe I'm wrong about all of that and we'll get those kind of continuity snarls in Girl Meets World, either because of the writers figuring out what works or as a nod to BMW canon. Lucas will get a magic character transformation in the third season, Maya will constantly mention random family members who will never be mentioned again, at some point it will be revealed that Riley and Lucas met at age three and fell in love and never forgot their childhood marriage promise. WHO KNOWS.)
That was a really long tangent, holy shit.
Anyway, the point was that I've had a lot of hopes and fears for this show, and watching the pilot just made me more hopeful. I think they can make something really good, both for nostalgic BMW lovers and for kids who've never seen an episode of BMW in their lives, though Disney running BMW marathons will probably lower the number of the second group. Also, we've already been promisedappearances from Shawn, the Matthews parents, and Joshua Matthews, as well as more appearances from Feeny, plus the original Minkus (who is supposed to be Farkle's father???) and Harley Keiner of all people so I am very excited for all of that. Will Friedle has apparently said he doesn't want to make an appearance, though he supports the show and visited the set; that's sad, because I'd love to see Eric all grown up, but it's fair enough. I haven't heard anything one way or the other about a Morgan appearance, although I don't even know which actress they'd use (which is another thing GMW would probably not get away with doing), so. And no word on Trina McGee making an appearance, which just makes me sad because I always wanted to believe Angela and Shawn ended up together. Maybe we'll see her again further down the road. (Also no word on Jack or Rachel showing up, but to be honest I didn't expect them to. Did anyone?)
Also, there were a lot of spoilers leaked during the original pilot that they ended up changing for the aired pilot, and I think they were all changes for the better. Originally Riley was supposed to have an older brother, but that probably would have confused the timeline too much (as it is it seems Riley must have been conceived almost as soon as Cory and Topanga got to New York) and also emphasized the Generation Xerox thing even more. Topanga was also supposed to own a pudding shop that was the popular hangout for Riley's classmates; her job isn't stated in the aired pilot, but TPTB have said that she's a lawyer, which is definitely a change for the better. I mean, Topanga owning a pudding shop would be a cute, quirky thing, and kind of a callback to her early characterization and Chubbie's as the popular hangout, but they moved to New York in the first place so she could study law and having her not be a lawyer would be weird. (And would call into question how on earth they could afford that place in New York City. It's huge!)
Um. I guess the real point is that I'm very excited for a Disney Channel kidcom, and I hope future episodes have more of Topanga than the pilot did.
I wonder if Cory will be Riley and Maya's teacher for every year of their life from this point out like Feeny was for the original gang?
It has a lot of potential. It also has a lot of flaws, NGL; some of them are basic pilot-episode flaws that don't really worry me (the girl playing Riley needs to settle into her character a little more, Farkle is obnoxious and they either need to cut him or retool him to be less terrible, the exposition was heavy-handed and rough as hell, and I'm pretty sure all the references to Riley making the world her own were only put into the script because they thought it would make good trailer material), some of them are obviously an attempt to capture on what made BMW work and that does worry me a little (the kids are too obviously xerox copies of Cory, Shawn, and Minkus, though we haven't seen enough of Lucas to tell whether he's going to be much like Topanga at all, and Riley/Lucas is too obviously being set up to be Cory/Topanga 2.0, when Cory and Topanga weren't even Cory/Topanga until season two or three), and some of them are just standard Disney kidcom flaws that make me cringe (I already mentioned Farkle, who is a nerve-grating mix of Minkus 2.0 and the standard Disney Channel kidcom obnoxious nerd, but really the biggest tipoff of what channel this is airing on is the super-over-saturated sets, which don't even attempt to look realistic).
But that is all fixable! And I'm sure a lot of it will be fixed. (Probably not Farkle and the sets, given that this is the Disney Channel. But a lot of it.) And it already has a lot going for it in the positives column, both in terms of nostalgia (every scene Cory and Topanga shared together got me teary-eyed, and we're not going to talk about the Feeny cameo because I will bawl) and as its own show (I know I criticized the kid playing Riley, but she's already leagues better than most of the other Disney Channel actresses, and the kid playing Maya is fab; I already have a feeling the relationship between Cory & Maya is going to be one of my favorite parts of this show if they follow through on it, which they pretty much have to). Some of the humor was standard cringeworthy Disney Channel kidcom, but more of it was genuinely pretty funny. And Auggie is frigging adorable.
There's also ... I don't know exactly how to phrase this. Boy Meets World was groundbreaking and amazing, but it also had a lot more freedom in its early days than Girl Meets World is going to have, simply because fans won't stand for it anymore. I don't mean in terms of addressing issues -- because let's be real, here, while BMW tackled a lot of serious issues it didn't start doing so until season three or thereabouts, and it didn't become a staple of the show until the kids were in the later part of their high school careers -- I mean in terms of continuity. Seriously, look at the very early days of BMW; Shawn wasn't even established as Cory's best friend (rather than as part of a group of friends) until midway through season one, and his lower-income background didn't get established until even later. Characters had siblings for an episode who were never mentioned again. Topanga was introduced as a guest character for an episode in the first season as the weird girl with a crush on Cory, then later was retconned into being his childhood best friend he'd always been in love with. The writers played around with characters and relationships, figured out what works, and only settled on a continuity later (and even that got screwed around with in later seasons); Girl Meets World is most likely going to have to stick to a plan for the backstory from the beginning. They don't have the freedom to play around and find out who works as a BFF for Riley, it has to be Maya. They have more freedom with the love interest -- I'll be interested to see if they commit to Lucas being Riley's OTL or if they explore away from that as they get more comfortable -- but because of the current TV climate there needed to be a love interest from the beginning, even if they later change paths on who Riley ends up with. And they certainly aren't going to have the freedom to randomly change characters' backstories and personalities to better fit the story they're telling, à la Topanga's famous transformation from weird hippie chick to overachieving Hollywood nerd. (Can you imagine if at the beginning of season three, Lucas transformed from Texan transplant to quintessential Brooklynite or something? I would laugh so hard, though.)
(And who knows, maybe I'm wrong about all of that and we'll get those kind of continuity snarls in Girl Meets World, either because of the writers figuring out what works or as a nod to BMW canon. Lucas will get a magic character transformation in the third season, Maya will constantly mention random family members who will never be mentioned again, at some point it will be revealed that Riley and Lucas met at age three and fell in love and never forgot their childhood marriage promise. WHO KNOWS.)
That was a really long tangent, holy shit.
Anyway, the point was that I've had a lot of hopes and fears for this show, and watching the pilot just made me more hopeful. I think they can make something really good, both for nostalgic BMW lovers and for kids who've never seen an episode of BMW in their lives, though Disney running BMW marathons will probably lower the number of the second group. Also, we've already been promised
Also, there were a lot of spoilers leaked during the original pilot that they ended up changing for the aired pilot, and I think they were all changes for the better. Originally Riley was supposed to have an older brother, but that probably would have confused the timeline too much (as it is it seems Riley must have been conceived almost as soon as Cory and Topanga got to New York) and also emphasized the Generation Xerox thing even more. Topanga was also supposed to own a pudding shop that was the popular hangout for Riley's classmates; her job isn't stated in the aired pilot, but TPTB have said that she's a lawyer, which is definitely a change for the better. I mean, Topanga owning a pudding shop would be a cute, quirky thing, and kind of a callback to her early characterization and Chubbie's as the popular hangout, but they moved to New York in the first place so she could study law and having her not be a lawyer would be weird. (And would call into question how on earth they could afford that place in New York City. It's huge!)
Um. I guess the real point is that I'm very excited for a Disney Channel kidcom, and I hope future episodes have more of Topanga than the pilot did.
I wonder if Cory will be Riley and Maya's teacher for every year of their life from this point out like Feeny was for the original gang?
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