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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jun 23, 2015 12:43:12 GMT
Episode 1x15 "Model Family"
Mr. Feeny is showing an episode of Leave it to Beaver to the class, probably because the copyright has expired and ABC can get away with it. The scene starts with the ending scene of the Beaver episode, which is kind of meta when you think about it. Mr. Feeny leads into the plot for this episode by citing a 1950s census which indicated that the model American family had a mother, a father, and two children. A quick Google search determined that was a fib. The average number of children in a household was less than 1.5 for every year of the 50s.
This misinformation is used to set up the next assignment for the students.
Cory's use of "nerd-o-rama" mirrors Shawn's exclamation of "surprise-o-rama" in the previous episode, and I stand as bewildered now as then. Maybe it was funny 20 years ago, I don't know.
After the title sequence, we're at the mall with Eric and his buddy Jason. This is Jason's first appearance and it's incredibly exciting for me. He's played by this fellow, Jason Marsden.
Where do I begin! Jason Marsden is one of my favorite voice actors. He's a skilled screen actor as well, due in no small part to that award winning grin, pictured above. He has an extensive (and still growing) IMDB page, so I'll refer you there to really understand how awesome Mr. Marsden is. Some highlights are Max from the Goofy movies, Chase Young from Xiaolin Showdown, Noel from Final Fantasy 13-2, and more recently he was one of the spirits in those two flashback episodes of Legend of Korra a few weeks ago. But his best role, by FAR, was Craig Boone in Fallout: New Vegas. Boone is one of the most well-designed and captivating characters in the history of video games, and Marsden brings him to life flawlessly. Jason Marsden Bonus Badge muthafuckas.
Listen to that voice. It's silk. It's a river made of silk. Why doesn't the audience laugh after he says "It's a game"? I thought that was hilarious.
Anyway, a talking pair of legs cons Eric into paying $90 for a modeling portfolio. The whole scene is really funny. Friedle and Marsden are fantastic together on screen and are actually best friends in real life, which makes my heart sing. It's a crippling shame that Jason disappears after Season 2.
We're in Cory's kitchen now and the gang are learning how to be each other's model family member. Topanga wants Cory to practice Native American spiritualism and Cory calls her "Little Big Hair", which is another one of those smart jokes that make you love this show. Eric comes home and regales the young'ins with the story of his afternoon, but they point out that Eric has been scammed. Cory informs his parents and Amy thinks they should let Eric sort out his own mistakes, to which Alan reluctantly agrees. Their patience appears to pay dividends as Eric tells them that he knows he fucked up and is going to the mall to get his money back.
To our surprise, it turns out that the "modeling agency" actually got a gig for Eric that pays $50. Eric breaks the news to his parents and concurrently quits his job at his father's store. Alan tries to restrain himself, and gives us the fourth facepalm of this episode.
Now it's time for the kids to deal with their family crisis in class. It's about three minutes long, but every moment is genius so I'll just post it and then we can talk about it.
Shawn remarks that he does a good geek impression, but what's more fun is that he's doing a great Minkus impression. The breaks in his sentences, the constant nodding... It's a perfect imitation of how Lee Norris plays Minkus and I love it. Minkus does a pretty funny job too, I just wish I could make out what his name tag says. It doesn't look like "Stuart" or "Minkus" or "Shawn", so I wonder what it could be... Topanga doesn't really sound like Cory. I'm not sure what she's trying to do here except be aggressive, but Cory's not even an aggressive person so I don't get it. The biggest flaw in this scene lies with the audience for not erupting into hysterics at "A person's body is his temple." I distinctly remember watching this for the first time with my sister, and we both died. Look at Cory's face while he says it. It's completely perfect. And we even get our little life lesson about families at the end. This is definitely one of the top five scenes of the first season.
So that's done, time to resolve Eric's story. He and Jason are at the mall for Eric's photo shoot, along with Eric's new groupies. Their chemistry is fantastic yet again.
We learn that Eric's gig is actually to wear a lobster costume and sit in a dunk booth above what is supposed to be melted butter. Jason dunks him. Who wouldn't, honestly. That lobster costume is pretty fantastic.
Eric begs his father to give him his job back. Alan gives him a lesson about being a responsible adult, and ultimately Eric settles for a weekend nightshift position.
This was a wonderful episode. Good laughs the whole way through, and a fun story. And Jason Marsden. I thoroughly enjoyed writing this review and I think that's reflected in my writing (in stark contrast to the other reviews this week). It's interesting how polarized the first season has been. I either have a ton of comments and clips and pictures, or I think to myself "What the fuck can I possibly say about this monstrosity." Thankfully it was the former this time. I hope you had as much fun as I did.
1 for plot, 1 for humor, 1 for character development since Cory learned about fatherhood and Eric learned about adulthood, and .75 for the life lesson. I'd really like to give a perfect score, but the life lessons here just weren't as strong as some of the earlier ones. The duo that wrote this episode, Ed Decter+John J. Strauss, also wrote episode 9 which did get a perfect score, as well as episode 7 which was a piece of smelly garbage. Looks like they got the hang of it after their first attempt and their last episode is number 20, so let's look forward to that.
3.75/4 with 3 Badges and a Jason Marsden Bonus Badge. This is a must watch episode.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jun 23, 2015 12:43:48 GMT
Episode 1x16 "Risky Business" Mr. Feeny has given the students an assignment where they invest $1000 of imaginary money and... I don't know... see how it goes? It's a great setup since, after all, Mr. Feeny is their Investment Finance professor and 12 year olds need to know this stuff. Minkus made a bunch of money in the stock market with Topanga as his partner and Team Cory/Shawn (Corwn? Shory? Idk) has done no work. I'm not sure why these gifs always freak out when white is in the background. Makes it look like one of those shitty sneaker commercials from the 90s. You know what I'm talking about. Like this. www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2GhJ3jkwfwMinkus is being smug after class and the two teams decide to bet on who can make the biggest return on 10 dollars of real startup money. This clip is noteworthy because it marks the first time in the series that Topanga made me laugh. Wait a minute... Wuh... Wuh wuzzat guy doin in the back of the frame there... Who... what's he... is.. is he playin his Game Gear or somethin? Just sittin in a window sill playin, I dunno, Sonic the Hedgehog, on his Game Gear? That's hysterical, he's totally playing a Game Gear in a window sill next to a garbage can. Ahahaha, oh wow, Game Gear Bonus Badge. You know, that is a flagrant misrepresentation of that device. The Game Gear eats through batteries faster than the actors work through this scene. It never would have made it. He probably has the trash can on hand so he can throw out his Game Gear when he realizes it's a piece of shit. Also there was a slight miscommunication between the wardrobe people and Common Sense because Shawn is wearing like eight shirts again. Anyway Shawn's idea was to bet their money on horses via his uncle Frank. While waiting for the results of the race, Shawn reads a Valentine's card placed by Alan for Amy to find, and in doing so correctly pronounces the word "rendezvous", which is astonishing. The boys' horse wins, netting them 99 bucks. They celebrate with their native mating dance. Ya gotta love that. I also want to mention that there's a really annoying laugh in the audience during this episode. Listen for it if you watch this one. Our heroes decide to use this story for their class assignment. Minkus is salty and calls shenanigans, but Mr. Feeny is surprisingly supportive. Remember how much of a bastard he was about Cory's dream of playing for the Phillies back in episode 9? I was expecting something similar here and I'm glad I was wrong. As always, Boy Meets World keeps us on our toes. Mr. Feeny uses their results to point out the "high risk high reward" nature of free enterprise, which is very true and very important. That's some fine teaching, Feeny. Some... Feeny teaching, fine... ...Finey teaching... feen.... Cory and Shawn decide to take their luck and push it, push it, to the limit, limit. And they win! $680, or in modern terms, 0.68 bitcoins. That's fuckin bookoo bucks for a 12 year old. (TIL "bookoo" is a bastardization of "beaucoup". That makes so much sense.) Shawn has moved up to nine shirts. Shawn leaves to go buy a pizza at 12 minutes and 38 seconds into the episode. Morgan wants Cory to fulfill his babysitting duty of providing entertainment. But then... Shawn... calls... That clip starts at 13 minutes 35 seconds. It took Shawn less than one minute to go from Cory's bedroom to Bob Stoopchek's Pizza World. Now just solve for the hypotenuse of the... parabola integral... adjust for relativity... and we get that that's impossible. As soon as Cory's gone, Morgan's childhood cuteness is once again exploited by the writers as she does the most cringe worthy dance I've ever seen, which drives the audience wild. Overcome with the excitement of dancing to shitty funk-jazz, this happens: Need to throw up? That's fine, I'll wait. Looks like Morgan owes her brother six cupcakes. The breakaway door does actually shatter, but it's hard to see in the gif. The pot is clearly glued to that stand though. Shoulda glued the stand to the floor while they were at it. That's why I always use Elmer's™ © glue. Gee whiz, it sure is the best! =D Cory and Shawn return with their signed baseball cards and notice that the side door is broken and that Morgan is missing. Cory figures she's been kidnapped. Drastic, but understandable. He finds his sister in the tree house and over-acts the fuck out of his guilty apology speech. Cory takes responsibility and tells Morgan he's going to pay to fix the door. Good for you Cory, there's some character development. Mr. Feeny announces that the "Matthews Hunter Consortium" was the most successful corporation. That's a good name, and "consortium" is a cool word, but "Shory" is easier to type. Not your proudest moment, Minkus, and Sarcastic Feeny strikes again, completely stealing the scene. So Cory and Shawn never face repercussions for betting on horses. Neither Mr. Feeny nor Cory's parents find out about it. Their winnings all go toward fixing the door, but they've still got those signed baseball cards. Seems like a solid net gain to me. "Don't gamble what you can't afford to lose" is good advice, but I'm really not a fan of how they're trying to sell it. Morgan was an idiot and broke a door. That could have happened with the entire family home, it has nothing to do with gambling. And Cory didn't actually lose anything, he only thought he did for a couple minutes. Maybe that's the message, "Nothing really bad is going to happen if you gamble, but you need to stay responsible." I can dig that. This episode was written by Ken Kuta. His only other episode was 12, which I liked, but I actually had the same thought about that episode's life lesson: "Good lesson presented poorly." Presumably you all want these gifs as much as I did, so here they are. If you want other parts of that scene, or these two without the text, let me know and I'll whip it up for you. The story was fun to watch. It's extremely unusual for risky and illegal activities to work out in these shows so it kept me guessing right through the end. I kept thinking "Yeah okay, when do they lose everything and get lectured...", but that never happened. Right on. 1 for plot. There was a lot of funny stuff, but just as much unfunny stuff, so 0.5 for humor. Cory showed genuine self-motivated responsibility, so 1 for character development. Good life lesson presented poorly, so 0.5 there. 3/4 with two Badges and a Game Gear Bonus Badge.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jun 23, 2015 12:44:08 GMT
Episode 1x17 "The Fugitive" Yup. It's THAT episode. Probably one of the most remembered episodes of the first season. Whether or not that's a good thing, we'll find out. It was written by Jeff Sherman, who also wrote episode 2. If you're hoping for a Harrison Ford joke, you'll be disappointed. It's storming outside and Cory, realizing that he can't go play baseball like he wanted, goes up to his room to discover a very damp Shawn. I assume we're supposed to be taking this scene seriously since the audience doesn't laugh, but I mean... look at him. Shawn constantly runs his hands through his hair, but now, when it's actually physically blocking his vision, he just leaves it there? His clothes are unusually dark and he even tells Cory not to turn on the light. The whole scene is a laughably transparent attempt to set the mood. The first thing Cory does after the title sequence is turn on the light. Shawn instructed him maybe 5 seconds ago not to do that, but it seems they've both forgotten. Shawn takes off his dark jacket to show us a bright yellow shirt and then pushes back his bangs. It took less than 10 seconds to undo all of the mood setting that I was just talking about. Whatta we doin 'ere, Jeff Sherman? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FEEL!??!?!?? Shawn confides in his best friend that he blew up a U.S. mailbox (you know, those little blue metal ones) outside Alan's grocery store with a cherry bomb. This has been in the back of my mind for several years, I guess it's finally time to look up "cherry bomb" on Wikipedia. Ok, well they're illegal in Canada, but so is FREEDOM, so who cares! There's even a "Popular Culture" section of that Wikipedia article, but it has no mention of Shawn Hunter. Time to fix that! Bam. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_bomb#Popular_CultureLook at me. Contributing to the zeitgeist. Why did Shawn blow up the mailbox, you ask? He found matches on the ground and lacked the impulse control necessary to not light the fuse on an object called a "cherry bomb". IT HAS THE WORD "BOMB" IN THE FUCKING NAME. COME ON. Cory agrees to grant Shawn asylum for a few days and hijinx ensue as it's suddenly time for dinner. This is odd, since Cory wanted to go play baseball only a few minutes ago. It's all pretty funny and ultimately Eric discovers his new roommate. Cory bribes his brother into secrecy by agreeing to take over his chores. Explosions, lying, bribery... We're seeing the dark sides of our heroes today. Time for school. How do all these people know about the mailbox AND that Shawn is a suspect? Were there witnesses on the scene who were able to identify this 12 year old? That seems likely. Mr. Feeny starts reading The Tell Tale Heart to the class, which is a nice touch. Boy Meets World loves to relate its plot elements to literary themes, and it's usually done well. We first saw it in episode 8 with The Diary of Anne Frank and that was a great episode. Later, Alan is interrogating Cory in Cory's bedroom. It's clear that Alan knows Shawn is hiding under the bed. I hope this is an intentional parallel to the heart being hidden under the bedroom floorboards in Tell Tale Heart. Alan gives Cory a speech about how "you can always come home", but he's really just trying to tell it to Shawn. After Alan leaves, Cory and Shawn argue over how to proceed. Cory thinks it best to involve his parents and calls Alan back upstairs, but Shawn escapes through the bedroom window. Now Cory has to talk to his parents about what's happened. Turns out everyone knew all along, including Morgan and Shawn's parents. Why in the name of Nidaba the Sumerian Goddess of Writing did this episode have to be written? What the FUCK kind of parenting is going on in this episode? Shawn has added trespassing to his list of no-no's by camping out in Feeny's classroom, where Feeny does indeed show up and offer some words of wisdom. Why was Mr. Feeny out of breath the whole time? Look, honestly, I want to take this scene seriously. I really want to. But look at Shawn. He's been wearing Cory's clothes the whole episode since he's been staying in Cory's room, and it just looks ridiculous. I can't even pay attention to what's going on. It's the same problem when he argues with Cory right after Feeny leaves. What a fucking terrible decision. Unless, and this is strictly desperation talking, it's trying to be artsy by saying "see how ridiculous you'll end up looking if you make bad decisions?", but no one would believe that. The show ends with Cory convincing Shawn to go home but it's so bad that I just don't even care. I can't care. I'm drained. I've been trying to write this all afternoon and I keep getting distracted because this episode is fucking terrible. This review is fucking terrible. For the first time so far, Boy Meets World is being genuinely preachy, and it's not at all fun to watch or write about. And we have to come back next episode and pretend that Shawn isn't a domestic terrorist. It would have better if they did this as the season finale. It's particularly difficult because while this episode is a shit-tornado, it's also important. The reckless bad-decision-machine + reasonable safety-net friendship dynamic is pretty central to the series, at least for the first few seasons, and this episode really sets that in motion. It's critical character development. I have to give it the badge and that makes me angry. I hate this episode. I have always hated it. The premise is ridiculous, the actors know it's ridiculous, and I just don't want to think about it anymore. The only part that kept me sane here was the 10 seconds of Tell Tale Heart, but it wasn't really ever mentioned again, and its theme isn't properly represented. The guy in Poe's story goes mad over the guilt, but Cory isn't ever overcome with guilt, he didn't even do anything wrong. Shawn doesn't feel guilty either. He's just being whiny and annoying. Everything about this is wrong. 0 for plot, 1 for character development, 0.25 for humor, 0 for life lesson. 1.25/4 and a big middle finger from yours truly.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jun 23, 2015 12:44:33 GMT
Episode 1x18 "It's a Wonderful Night"
Sounds like a Christmas episode but this season already had one so I dunno.
Judy Queen of Zits will be babysitting Cory and Shawn this evening, but they hatch a plan to focus her attention on pus related issues so they can watch I'm Blowin' Up Yer Head Part 6: Stumpy's Revenge ©.
Cory and his older brother banter in their room, it's kinda funny, and we learn that Eric is about to go take his driver's test. Eric looks pretty fly. Purple button-up shirts are top tier, yo. I wear them shits all the timeeeeeeeeeee.
Amy and Alan are going to some high profile event for people in the real estate biz. I was pretty sure we would never hear about Amy's real estate job again, so that's nice. Eric comes home from his driver's test, and since this happened at the beginning of an episode, there was really only one thing that could happen.
Jason Marsden is here now, so it's automatically a good episode. His delivery and tone are all spot on again, and honestly he makes Will Friedle a better actor. Will just seems more comfortable with Jason than Ben Savage (Cory). I don't know if the friendship caused this, or this caused the friendship, but it makes sense either way. But even Jason Marsden can't fight the most perplexingly frequent wardrobe decision of this season. I think Eric is just as confused as I am.
The plan was for these half-sweatered gentlemen to go on a double date that evening, utilizing Eric's expected driver's license, but there's a Kennedy in that Krushchev since Eric failed the test. So they decide to lie to Alan. I think any parent on the Earth would immediately respond by asking to see the license, not out of suspicion but the same way you ask to see an award or a plaque or whatever. Alan doesn't though, so... here's a clip of Jason being funny.
Once more the audience doesn't laugh when I laugh. It's a point of pride for me, honestly. "Okay, that's just logic" was enough for me to burst. His voice is so perfect and I would keep gushing if I hadn't already in an earlier review. Alan decides to lend Eric his car keys. Eric and Jason act surprised. What exactly was their plan? What did they think they were going to drive for this date 10 seconds ago? Grand Theft Auto 6: Philadelphia? Anyway Judy Queen of Zits calls and cancels so Eric recruits Feeny to be the new babysitter.
We're 9 minutes in now and the actual story is just now starting. That's a bad sign.
This next bit you need to see for yourselves.
Ya like that, Rider Strong? Ya like lookin at that?
LOOKIN AT YOUR FUTURE??!!
(Rider Strong was in some bad horror movies. He tries to pretend they weren't bad. But they were bad.) More importantly, what the fuck. They're less than two yards away from Feeny and Morgan, Feeny was positioned directly facing the television, and Cory changed the channel after Feeny was already fucking looking at the TV. It's like all those times your dad or your college roommate caught you watching porn but didn't wanna embarrass you so they pretended they didn't see anything. Except Feeny's not pretending. I don't know who could have possibly written this scene. Usually people like to say that Boy Meets World doesn't talk down to its audience, but that right there was a direct insult to my intelligence. Like enemy NPCs in stealth games, or Skyrim, or something.
Eric got his father's car towed, so the next scene occurs at the towing place. This is the same set that will be used for some Hunter family mechanic shop in the future. Eric and Jason get trolled by their dates and then the girls leave to be rescued by some "junior with a Camaro", but not before the towing company guy tries to molest one of them.
The hell was that. Mr. Feeny arrives to rescue Eric and learns that Eric doesn't have a license. Feeny orders Eric (and I do mean orders) Eric to go wait upstairs until Amy and Alan get home. Then we are once again assumed to be of amoeba-level intelligence.
Yes it is, George Feeny. Yes it is.
So the parents get home and everybody's in trouble. Shawn and Jason both bail on their respective best friend to avoid trouble. Is that the life lesson?
The Matthews brothers are both grounded for two weeks. Eric must spend that time studying for the driver's test, which is stupid because he didn't fail the written part of the test, he was just bad at driving. Cory must spend that time watching educational television, which is stupid because you have got to be fucking joking me.
This episode was written by Susan Estelle Jensen, who previously wrote a piece of shit (episode 5) and a Taco Bell (episode 10). ...Because, you know, Taco Bell isn't the best but it's...
it's pretty good...
I don't know how I feel. There was a lot of junk and wasted time here, but I'd rather talk about what they did right. It goes back to what I talked about in episode 3, Feeny not having children. We got to see how old George can handle himself with various types of children and he does pretty well. His tea party with Morgan is funny and cute, and I can't think of a single other point in the series where we've seen that side of Feeny. He was also willing to help Eric and was really cool about the whole thing until he learned that Eric didn't have a license. We might have expected some "Oh Eric you moron how did you get towed", but instead we saw another new side of our favorite sixth grade teacher. On the other hand, he still knew how to be strict and firm when necessary. Aside from being completely blind and deaf toward I'm Blowin' Up Yer Head Part 6: Stumpy's Revenge ©, I think Mr. Feeny did a super swell job! Certainly deserving of a character development badge.
What the hell did any of that have to do with "It's a Wonderful Life"? Is that title referring to something else? I don't get it.
Gonna go ahead and say 0 for plot, 0.5 for humor (thank you Jason Marsden), 1 for character development, 0 for life lesson.
It's a real shame, too. This could have been fantastic if the story were centered on Feeny experiencing the trials of parenthood. Now that I think about it, I can't believe there ISN'T an episode exploring that. Not one. This is as close as it gets, and they just barely scratched the surface. Can you even imagine? I should write the script myself, dammit. That's such a good idea.
This gif is unrelated but I wanted to include it.
Karma, bitch.
1.5/4
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jun 23, 2015 12:47:55 GMT
Episode 1x19 "Kid Gloves"
It's time to select extracurricular activities, despite already being well into the second semester. This scene... is wonderful. It's a golden nugget of pure Boy Meets World joy. Mr. Feeny is overflowing with sarcasm, and Shawn and Cory are doing their "dumb humor", the term I'm going to use to describe those jokes which are founded on characters being unintelligent. Dumb humor is something that all sitcoms try to use. It's either hilarious or painful, and the deciding factor is predictability. You can see every punch line coming in an episode of Two and a Half Men or Big Bang Theory, but on Community or Modern Family or Boy Meets World the characters are dumb in surprising ways. There are several good examples in this opening scene, but here's my favorite.
And of course Mr. Feeny's condescension is a delight, as always. I recommend watching this scene in its entirety. If memory serves, the rest of this episode stinks so let's enjoy it while we can.
It's Cory's (presumably 13th) birthday and his father gives him a necklace with little silver boxing gloves on it. Cory isn't very happy with his gift, especially since Eric got a buck knife for his (presumably 13th) birthday.
Alan is hoping for an outpouring of emotion from his son, but Cory doesn't really have much to say since he doesn't understand the gift. Morgan is used to getting presents on her brothers' birthdays, but Alan and Amy have decided to discontinue that tradition. So our favorite father is stuck with two disappointed children.
It's almost time for Scuba Club so we're in the domain of all non-standard scenes, the cafeteria. As Cory, Shawn, and Topanga reveal their bathing suits, they each garner their own cheers and woos from the audience, which is... I dunno... uncomfortable to say the least.
There's some banter and it's not funny and Mr. Feeny turns out to be the dive master because who else was it going to be.
We're over halfway now and there just hasn't been much to say. It's like they had two underdeveloped episode ideas, one about Scuba Club and one about the silver gloves, so they decided to throw them both in a saucepan, sprinkle in some bad jokes, and stir it over medium heat until it was 22 minutes long.
Cory lost the gloves at the pool during Scuba Club. Alan comes into his sons' room to explain the significance of the gloves to Cory. Eric comments how much he loves the knife he was given, and the other two Matthews men do this:
I don't have the slightest idea what this means. My guess is that it's supposed to mean "what a pile of a crap", and they're miming shoveling a pile of crap. I don't know what else it could be.
Alan explains that he won the silver gloves by getting 2nd place in the entire U.S. Navy for boxing. It's a cool story and it makes Cory feel like shit.
Cory sneaks off the pool where Scuba Club occurred to try to find the gloves, leaving Eric to cover for him with the story that he went to Shawn's for dinner. This cover is jeopardized when Shawn shows up. It's really convenient that guests always show up at the door where the Matthews family is.
Shawn: "Why didn't he just call?"
Remember when Shawn tried to sabotage Minkus's hamburger with salt and pudding, and he commented that he's "just not happy unless [he is] doing stuff like this"? Maybe he just intentionally makes trouble for Cory all the time. Maybe that one line with Minkus's hamburger is the secret to the entire series. Shawn is really just a master genius troll, intentionally ruining Cory's life.
We get some first person footage of Cory swimming, and he sees a bunch of random stuff but can't find the necklace. Mr. Feeny shows up and tells Cory it was stupid to "dive alone" and orders him to go home. It's never explained what Feeny was doing there. Feeny Ex Machina indeed.
Maybe Feeny captured a Plot Fairy, and now he uses its magical plot resolution dust to teleport around the Boy Meets World universe. Makes as much sense as anything else. I google image searched "plot fairy" and this was the first result, so they must be real.
Cory walks home, I guess, and his parents were honestly worried for his safety. That seems like an overreaction to me. He wasn't actually diving... Are 13 year olds generally not allowed to swim by themselves? I think I was... Whatever. Mr. Feeny arrives, having found the silver gloves in the pool's filter. Cory returns his gift to his father saying that he doesn't deserve it, and wants it back as soon as Alan thinks he's ready.
What was the lesson here? "Be careful with crappy birthday gifts in case your dad won them in the Navy?" My dad is in the Air Force, does this lesson still apply to me? And that first scene was really promising. It was like the golden breadsticks appetizer before the burnt grilled cheese main course. Like, burnt black, that shit is not even eatable. And the grilled cheese has peanut butter and jelly in it because they just weren't sure what kind of sandwich they wanted to make. But looooooooooooooord knows, your mom is gonna go get a knife and start trynna scrape the burnt-ness off the bread, "oh it'll be just as good, just gotta scrape this off". No it won't! IT'S RUINED! What was I talking about?
No one besides Alan and Morgan even seemed interested in the fact that it was Cory's birthday. Not even his mother gave him a "happy birthday". No mention of cake or a party or any other gifts or anything. There definitely was not a clear idea of what this episode was supposed to be when it was written. It's all over the place and I really didn't enjoy it at all.
0 for plot, 0.5 for character development since we learned a little more about Alan, 0.5 for humor, mostly thanks to the first scene, and 0 for life lesson.
1/4 and this might be the first episode without any Badges at all.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jun 23, 2015 12:48:15 GMT
Episode 1x20 "The Play's the Thing" It's time for the spring play, which I guess only involves Mr. Feeny's class. He is in charge of literally everything at this school. The opening scene is mostly Feeny assigning roles to the students. Cory gets the lead, Prince Hamlet, and Shawn is going to be a spear carrier. You know. Like Sheen in Macbeth In Space. I fucking love Sheen. And Principal Willoughby back there almost looks like Mr. Feeny. Well that only took half an hour... Back to the show. There's a sub plot about the Matthews family's annual vacation to the Jersey Shore (back when people took it seriously), which includes a Goofy Golf Tournament. Cory and Alan vs. Eric and Amy. Apparently the latter is consistently victorious, but Eric is willing to throw the game if Cory lends him some money, which Cory neither accepts nor refuses. In class, Cory's being a huge brat about the play. He wants to make it more like an action movie because I don't know why and ultimately quits the play because he's a dumbass. WAIT A MINUTE. WAS THAT.. ! IT'S....! IT'S HIM! HE'S BACK! It's the same kid playin his fuckin Game Gear in the window sill! (see episode 16's review) Like, he actually walks up, sits down, and takes it out of his backpack. I don't think he's even in Mr. Feeny's class. Wow, I love that guy. Is he secretly the main character? Where the hell is his spinoff? Anyway. Yeah. "Prince Haagen Dazs". Pretty damn funny. That's a good scene, and naturally it required Minkus's finesse. The trip to the Jersey Shore has been cancelled since Alan got a pay cut. Cory suggests that his father stand up for himself and throw his weight around to get his original salary back. Alan actually considers it but his dear wife reminds him that it's not wise to take career advice from a 12 year old. (Either this aired out of order or Cory turned 12 in the previous episode, not 13. Probably the latter.) This is something magical about the first season. I can't think of a single dialogue between Amy and Alan that I didn't love. They are amazing together. It's odd that I've never talked about this. They are hands-down my favorite TV parents. They're flawed and they know it, they flirt and fight and banter and laugh, they're well-developed characters... they're real. Well, except for the episode where Shawn blew up a mailbox but forget that one. I want to give an Amy and Alan Matthews Bonus Badge. They're perfect. A caption would only ruin it. Since Cory quit the play, Mr. Feeny had to switch the roles around. Minkus got Hamlet like he wanted, and Shawn has been upgraded to Polonius. Miraculously, Game Gear Man is not in the window sill during this scene. Is he in class? Does GGM even go to class? Maybe he only comes to school so he can sit in the window sill. Come to think of it, where is everyone? Apparently Minkus is a terrible actor, and Shawn's getting pretty into the whole thing. This is awesome! It's wonderful to see Shawn being passionate about something. The best part is that it's believable. Theatre is one of those things that you can't fully appreciate without actually being on stage. Anyway Cory watches everyone rehearse and it's another great scene (thanks again, Minkus). That's actually what he says. After watching rehearsal, Cory realizes that he fucked up pretty hard, but Mr. Feeny isn't going to kick Minkus out of the role. Cory still thinks Shakespeare is boring so Feeny does a monologue from Hamlet and it's fucking bad ass. Back at home we learn that Alan confronted his boss, but didn't end up quitting. We get a life lesson here and it goes beyond the standard "don't be a quitter" spiel. The real message is that you can't make selfish decisions when people are counting on you, which is exactly what Cory did when he quit the play. We're seeing the pattern of this show now, where the sub plot usually only exists to tie the life lesson into the main plot. Sometimes it's pathetic, like episode 19, but this one was spot on. The outro bit consists of a rogue spear carrier ruining the play. What the fuck scene of Hamlet is it supposed to be anyway? Okay so Minkus starts from line 129 here. shakespeare-navigators.com/hamlet/H12.htmlThe stage direction immediately before what Minkus is saying is that everyone except Hamlet exits the stage. It doesn't look like that happened here. For real though, that soliloquy is fantastic. You can actually hear Minkus saying "Or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon 'gainst self-slaughter." In other words, "it's too bad God doesn't like suicide." Isn't that awesome?! In my entire public school career Hamlet was never assigned to me. Too busy reading garbage like Everyman and Waiting for Godot and A Streetcar Named Pbbtthhh. This is the best episode so far. The story is a ton of fun while maintaining believability. It's hilarious. We see character growth from Shawn, Cory, and Alan. The life lesson was good too, particularly its presentation. We feel genuinely bad for Shawn when he pleads with Cory to come back to the play. It's a very real example of Cory letting everyone down, so Alan's lesson fits beautifully. This was written by the dynamic duo, Ed Decter and John J Strauss, who previously gave us episodes 9 and 15, which were also fantastic. (And 7 but shhhhhhhhhhhhh) We never did learn why Eric wanted to borrow money. Go watch this episode. I loved it. 4/4 with all the badges and an Amy and Alan Matthews Bonus Badge.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jun 23, 2015 12:48:56 GMT
Episode 1x21 "Boy Meets Girl"
The title of this episode is a play on the name of popular 90s sitcom "Boy Meets World".
The class is watching an educational film about hormones and puberty stuff on one of those projector things. Topanga is WAY too pleased with this movie. But the guy next to her just knocked Game-Gear-Window-Sill Guy off of the Favorite Character throne.
Seriously, she holds that face for the entire scene. Cory makes a joke about George Burns. I don't know who that is but the audience thinks it's funny so it's probably not. The film ends and Cory explains to Mr. Feeny that hormones are for chumps and he doesn't wanna deal with it. Shawn and a girl brush hands as they reach for his dropped pencil and the sparks fly even though our boy is wearing a sleeveless jacket.
The Lonely Island have a song about what we just saw there.
Shawn discusses asking girls out with an oblivious Cory. Minkus suggests his method of reading Perky © magazine to understand how girls think. The girl from class makes the plot easy for us by asking Shawn out, who can only manage to giggle and nod in response.
She exits by saying "See you later, Terminator" in the 12 year old version of a sexy voice.
.... .... See you later...
.....Terminator...?
That line is so horrible that it's actually almost clever, since the Terminator says "I'll be back."
Now Shawn's wearing different shirts so it's either the next day or his date went SUPER well, and he's regaling Eric with the details of his romantic rendezvous. Apparently they snuck into a movie and Eric gives his approval. That's pretty rad. Imagine if someone snuck into a movie on Full House or a Disney channel show. They would do a two-episode story about how wrong it is and at least one character would cry. Anyway, Cory comes in and doesn't like that he's being excluded, but he also doesn't want to talk about dating so it's quite the pickle.
And then this.
Let me explain why that was genius. Everything up to this point has been telling us that hormones have commandeered Shawn and this unnamed girl, and that they dig each other. We've seen Shawn's reckless side and hey, they snuck into a movie. What's more, we've also seen and heard (mostly heard) about Eric's romantic exploits, and we know that Cory is still immature toward the whole thing. We've been primed, so when Shawn delivers his line perfectly and we see the absolutely priceless reactions of Eric and Cory, everything just collapses together and it's fucking hysterical. The Matthews brothers have the same reaction but for different reasons: Eric is impressed and maybe jealous, while Cory is just sort of awestruck. It's funny that they believe it, but it's funnier that we believe it. Then Shawn flips the table and says what really happened. It was a comedic bait and switch. A flawless comedic bait and switch. You can almost always see these things coming, but they got me this time because I was primed. Most of the time, this show uses punchline and commentary humor, as do most shows, but this joke was a work of art. Humor Badge.
At lunch, Shawn eats with the girl, who we now know is named Hillary. Cory is left feeling jealous and lonely, so he goes to Minkus for his Perky © inspired advice. Clearly Perky © is not related to Cosmopolitan since it's not completely fucking retarded. Minkus is perfect and the whole conversation is really funny. I would post it but you should watch this whole episode anyway, so I'll leave it at that. Cory goes on the hunt with his new tricks of the trade and walks past a bespectacled pirate to find Topanga.
Cory suggests they go to Bob Stoopcheck's Burger World. We learned about Bob Stoopcheck's Pizza World back in episode 16, so this guy is some sort of interplanetary fast food mogul, which is awesome. Topanga's a vegetarian though so they're going to International House of Sprouts instead. She says "It's a date", and Cory does the whole "who said anything about a date?!" thing. That's a depressingly predictable way to take things, but honestly they could cut to a Miley Cyrus album for the next 10 minutes and I'd still recommend the episode.
Back at home, Alan and Amy banter and it's perfect like always. Cory comes home and talks to his parents about everything. In doing so, his mother points out that he's only doing this to "keep up with Shawn". Wee woo, wee woo, red fucking alert. That's a central theme for the first few seasons, and adds to the already strong dynamic between Shawn and Cory. Character Development Badge. You know what would be interesting is if the title is actually referring to Shawn, rather than Cory.
I had to use Chrome's incognito mode to search for that Kardashians picture. You know. Just in case.
Cory chickens out and tells Topanga he has the flu, but she shows up with some smelly remedy for him to drink. He tells her the truth and then teaches her to play color-commentary-sock-laundry-basket basketball. It's actually pretty adorable.
They hi-five and Cory gets the giggles. After some cute banter, she leans back on his hand he gets the giggles again. If you recall, Shawn got the giggles by touching Hillary's hand. COINCIDENCE??? I guess we're supposed to forget that Cory and Topanga already kissed in episode 4.
Later Eric and Shawn find Cory on the porch. Shawn had a second date and he blew it.
Don't feel bad Shawn. You were doomed the moment you decided to wear those crimes against humanity on your body. I'm pretty sure one of the Geneva Conventions outlawed that shit.
I just love it. Boy Meets World deals with dating brilliantly (well, until Cory and Topanga get serious). Try to tell me that's not part of why you love this show. It's messy and confusing and challenging, sometimes it's shallow, sometimes it's heartbreaking, and we'll be seeing all of that as we go.
This is a great episode. The story is enough fun for a Plot Badge and it already got those other two. There wasn't much of a life lesson though, except maybe "don't fall for a classmate named Hillary", which I can verify from personal experience. The outro bit does some pretty spot on foreshadowing.
And the future looks bright. I really wish this had been the season finale. That clip just leaves you with a smile and a good feeling.
3/4 with three Badges.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jun 23, 2015 12:49:30 GMT
Episode 1x22 "I Dream of Feeny"
You guys aren't going to believe this. Listen listen listen, check this out. Cory and Shawn are making something with a blender.
AND THEN THEY MAKE A MESS! AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
This kinda shit makes me so sad, especially since the audience fuckin loves it. I'm ready to quit, but let's try to keep going. Through the window Cory sees his mother about to open the door from outside. Cory says "back me up, I wanted to use the lid, I was Lid Boy."
That's actually been going on all season, where Cory uses the context to make that pose and say "I am/was _____ Boy!", like they wanted to make it his catch phrase. I never mentioned it because I kept hoping it would just go away and I could pretend it never happened. Every time I thought "this has to be the last one, there's no way they'll do it again." But here we are.
Cory calls out to his mother that he's going to clean up the mess, but he and Shawn immediately abandon the mess and sit at the kitchen table to study for Mr. Feeny's geography test the next day. Cory says "I don't understand why we have to learn anything about geography." Really, Cory? That's how you wanna do this? In Mr. Feeny's social studies class this year, you've done math problems, discussed literature, put on a play, made up a future career, signed up for clubs... everything EXCEPT social studies. And now, now that you finally have to learn some easy ass geography to satisfy the syllabus, WOAAAAAAAAAAAAAH NOOOOO. Cory don't do dat, nuh uh. That's just asking too much. These punk kids, man... At least their jackets have sleeves today.
Anyway Cory wishes for Feeny to get sick so they don't have to take the test. Golly gee whiz, Mr. Feeny's out sick the next day. The substitute is going to have them read Beowulf and they act like that's a terrible way to spend a class.
Seriously, do they just freak out in every class? What do they expect? Blowjobs? Christ.
The boys are talking about how Cory wished for Feeny to get sick, and Cory does the pose thing again. He's "Sick Boy", this time, with the power to make people sick. Shawn responds with "Yeah, it's working on me right now." So I guess we have to look to Shawn Hunter to find a functioning brain in this episode. Terrifying.
We learn from Minkus that Mr. Feeny is in the hospital and Cory's sad because he legitimately thinks he might be responsible or something. They actually managed to get a good joke in, so for sanity's sake here it is.
A brief respite, but now it's back to the trenches.
Dream sequence. A four and a half minute dream sequence where the ghost of a recently expired Feeny haunts Cory to make him feel guilty. It's a tremendous waste of time, and if I don't talk about it then maybe it didn't happen.
What the fuck is the point of the dream? Feeny's not dead! It's not Cory's fault! He literally did nothing wrong here, for like the first time in the series Cory did absolutely nothing wrong, but NOW he feels bad. It doesn't make any sense at all.
Alan tries to give his dejected son a pep talk. He provides an anecdote to explain that Cory may one day need this school stuff that seems useless now, like geography. The problem is that Alan's story is an example of how math can be useful in the real world. Having a degree in math, I can verify that math and geography are slightly different subjects. I think that was supposed to be the life lesson too, I'm just falling apart here guys this is so bad.
Cory goes to visit his teacher in the hospital.
♫ THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MIIIIIIIIIIINE ♫
♫ I'M GONNA LET IT SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE ♫
Thank goodness. That is a fantastically meaningful exchange. But perhaps it's only meaningful in hindsight, having seen the rest of the series. If I had only seen the first season before this, I would think that Cory is speaking from the perspective of his father, that these geography tests might be useful in his life somehow. And that's kinda dumb. Did Michael Jacobs already know that Mr. Feeny would be imparting wisdom for years to come? Who knows, but I certainly hope so. Imagine, though, if instead of lying to his son about geography's usefulness, the conversation went like this:
Alan: "Cory, there's so much more to learn from teachers than the silly things they test you on."
Cory: "No way, dad. Name one important thing Mr. Feeny can teach me about."
Alan: "Life, Cory. But it's up to you to listen." *clarinet music as Alan walks off-camera*
Something like that, right, so when Cory says that Feeny can still teach him stuff, we would be like "damn." That was an amazing opportunity. It's still a good scene, but it could have been profound.
It's the same kinda thing here. If Alan's conversation with Cory had been written like I wrote it, these last two clips would blow my fuckin mind.
So that's that. Everything up to the last six minutes was a train wreck. Cory was constantly flipping between feeling guilty and knowing it wasn't his fault, I'm not even sure where he ended up. The ending was good, worthy of being the season finale, but damn if they didn't make us work for it.
0 for plot, obviously. I want to give 0.5 for humor, but "lid boy" and "sick boy" are cutting it down to 0.25. I would give 1 for character development if Cory actually realized that the plant and the "proper gardener" were a metaphor for himself and Feeny, but he seemed pretty oblivious to that whole message so 0.5 for that. Now, life lesson, life lesson... I dunno, it was close, but the "learning important stuff from teachers" idea really isn't fleshed out very well. It would have been difficult to see that theme if I hadn't been looking for it so hard. Maybe it's not even there, maybe this episode was just a piece of shit. 0.5.
1.25/4 and no badges.
SoooOOoOOOoOoooOooo that's the end of season 1. *confetti* No more reviews this week. I'll start season two next Monday or the following Monday.
Thanks so much for reading and saying the nice things you say.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jun 23, 2015 12:50:49 GMT
Episode 2x01 "Back 2 School" That title is making me uncomfortable. Were they trying to be hip? Or is it because it's the 2nd season? Either way... This episode functions as a prologue for the season, and perhaps for the rest of the series. Most of its duration is spent introducing new characters, updating the ones we've already met, and creating the foundations for their future interactions. So let's dive in. Right away we get to see the new intro. It's only a few seconds long, which was a smart decision. The first season's opening was two minutes long, but the total length of the episodes has not changed. So we've gained a solid two minutes of content here. Hey I've got an idea.............. Made myself a fuckin logo. I'm glad I don't remember what time I started working on it. There are no fonts that look like the ones the show uses there, so I just picked some that are kinda close. It's good enough. Shoutout to Macromedia because this blog would suck ass without Flash. Back to the show. The first scene is set in the kitchen of the Matthews house. It's actually a very well crafted opening. Everyone's lines are written specifically to remind us who they are. Morgan fails at being snarky, Alan and Amy banter and give advice, Eric is the cool older brother, Cory and Shawn have come up with a dopey plan for their first day of high school, and Mr. Feeny is tired of putting up with these people and their shit. That's all in the first three minutes. The show's been off the air for three months and immediately they transport us right back to that state of mind we had at the end of the first season. Nice work. In the process of all this, Eric gives Cory a contract to sign, stipulating that Cory only refer to Eric as "Oh Great One" among other stay-out-of-my-way-at-school stuff. Oh Great One steals his father's breakfast. Quote me on this, if I ever have a son and he steals my breakfast, I'm gonna make Abraham from the Bible look like Will Smith. Now we're at school and our heroes meet Frankie the Enforcer and Joey the Rat, played by Ethan Suplee and Blake Sennett, respectively. Fortunately John Adams High School shops at Dave's Conveniently Large Locker Emporium. I love Frankie and Joey. The exaggerated high school bully is an extremely tired concept, but these two actors rock the shit out of it. "There are no small parts, only small actors." These guys were given some bull shit standard characters and made them unforgettable. Blake Sennett helped to form the band Rilo Kiley in 2003. They were really awesome, but broke up in 2011. Here's some good stuff. www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXZR0rwhXvs Ethan Suplee has had a lot of acting gigs since Boy Meets World and lost about 200 pounds! So yeah. Frankie and Joey rule and I love when they show up. Next up to bat is Topanga Lawrence. OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Holy fucking shit. That was a testament to this show's lack of realism. Shawn and Cory should be fucking dead right now, like the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark kind of annihilated. Damn. All right. Anyway. The bell rings and it's time for class. Mr. Turner's class, to be precise. It's tempting to dismiss Mr. Turner as a transparent attempt at the "cool and hip teacher" stereotype, but I would argue against that. For the time being, he serves as the antithesis to Mr. Feeny. He has a polar opposite teaching philosophy, yet remains an effective educator. This gives the viewers two separate frames of reference for internalizing the show's themes regarding education. We see this right away when he assigns the students to compare the elements of heroism in The Odyssey to those in X-Men. That's a perfectly legitimate assignment and it comes up in a believable, realistic way. Another solid addition to the cast. Mr. Turner is played by Anthony Tyler Quinn. Quinn's had small appearances on a lot of different shows throughout the years. I checked his IMDB just now and he's listed as playing Mr. Turner in Girl Meets World, which is the best fucking thing I've ever read. Holy shit that's exciting. After Turner's class Cory finally meets Harley Keiner, leader of the thugs at John Adams High. Cory's plan is to befriend this fellow and live peacefully under his protection. Harley is an interesting beast and I've never been quite sure how I feel about him. He tries to sound sophisticated and that confuses me. Is his character supposed to be a well-spoken businessman-thug a la Al Capone, or a caricature of one? The audience doesn't laugh every time he says something so I'm leaning toward the former, but there's just something about the way his lines are delivered that prevents me from taking him seriously. He's played by Danny McNulty who hasn't had any roles since this one. Harley trolls Cory a little bit and gives him the nickname "Johnny Baboon", and so refers to Cory as "Baboon" for the rest of the series. Baboon and Harley get caught dicking around in the hallway by a pedophile disguised as a teacher who dabs his pen on his tongue and then clicks it out, which just doesn't make any sense. The pedophile takes Baboon and Harley to the principal, who is none other than George "Tired of Your Shit" Feeny. Baboon gets a warning while Harley gets detention, so Harley lets the young boy in the Lakers colors know that he is going to "kill him" at 3 o'clock. At lunch, Shawn convinces Cory to seek advice on the "getting killed" problem from Oh Great One, Pussy Czar of Gaia. Oh Great One's suggestion is to hide in the nurse's office. Cory does in fact seek refuge there, but he's not the only one. Ultimately Cory doesn't want to be a "coward" like the other guys in the nurse's office and decides to go face Harley. Standing up to bullies is generally good advice, but not wanting to get your ass brutalized isn't exactly "cowardly" in my book. Baboon confronts Harley and Oh Great One shows up to help his brother. They start to tussle and Mr. Turner swoops in to save the day. Pretty funny stuff. As always, I love when they reference their literature assignments in the story. We haven't seen much of Shawn this episode, but he does manage to squeeze in a teaser for his character arc at the end here. And that's the show. There's a little outro bit, but it's dumb so who cares. Minkus is gone. Goodnight, sweet prince. Plot: 0.5 - There wasn't much of a story but that's perfectly fine. They weren't trying to give us a real narrative here, and there was still a ton of content. Character Development: 1.0 - I covered this extensively throughout the review, pretty obvious Badge. Humor: 0.5 - Funny enough to stay entertaining, but again it was more about the characters. Life Lesson: 1.0 - Standing up to bullies is important! 3 out of 4. A truly masterful season-opener. We have a solid idea of everyone's character for this season and we're left feeling super amped for the next episode. I'm so glad season one is over.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jun 23, 2015 12:51:05 GMT
Episode 2x02 "Pairing Off"
Looks like Disney and ABC decided to bring down the hammer on Youtube. Pretty much every episode of BMW is gone from there. (I'm watching the DVDs but still.)
This episode kicks off with two 90s looking teens making out in the hallway. They are easily identifiable as such because the guy has a necklace and a giant sweater, the girl's blouse is made out of denim, and their mouths are smushing together. It lasts forever and Cory and Shawn voyeur the fuck out of it while some girl in the background is havin a grand ol' time talkin to absolutely nobody.
Our heroes see another couple tongue-dancing, inspiring Cory to find a partner for himself. Shawn is pretty neutral about it, which is intriguingly uncharacteristic. Topanga comes along and Cory turns on his 12 year old swagger. She plays the "let's not ruin our friendship" card, but she explains it in a not-bullshit way that actually made it feel refreshingly genuine.
I just noticed that this season breaks to and returns from commercials with electric guitar riffs instead of the flute and trumpet from last season. Edgy.
Cory and Shawn are in "health" class, which is something new and exciting, but we'll never see it again. They've got a substitute teacher who is 90s-good-looking, I guess, so Shawn reverts back to the pussy hound we know and love. He's got real game for a 12 year old. The class begins a discussion about reproduction and Cory gives a wonderfully succinct overview of the process.
That's actually the second time he's said "sperm" in this scene and neither was met with cheap laughs or immaturity. This is a massive change of pace from the first season when they used fart noises as punchlines, and I think we're all pretty happy about that. At the end of the scene, Cory asks the substitute how to get a girl to say hi and she just kind of chuckles and dismisses it.
Cory still doesn't understand how to attract women, so now he asks Shawn how to get a girl to say hi. Shawn's technique is to run his hands through his hair, and the girls come running. Topanga does something similar, causing a sasquatch with a mullet to come up and escort her back to his farm or bayou or whatever. I bet he plays bass or some shit.
At the Matthews house Morgan delivers her lines so badly that it must be intentional. Mrs. Matthews takes Morgan to soccer and Eric takes his new girlfriend upstairs. The audience makes it very clear how they feel about that. Shawn and Cory show up, Shawn ditches Cory to go meet girls, and Cory walks in on Eric making his way to second base with his girlfriend. This is taking place in their parents' room for plot reasons. Eric's got some absolutely ridiculous music playing, it's like what the Home Shopping Network plays when they're showing you all the display cases. Maybe things were harder back in '94. Nowadays you just throw on some Owl City or The Postal Service and it's a god damn guarantee.
We're about halfway and it's worth mentioning that this episode's got a Humor Badge for sure. Really clever and smart jokes the whole way through. Too many to post, but you should check out the full episode anyway.
Now Cory asks his brother the question of the day, how to get a girl to say hi. Recall that Eric was being a dick for most of episode one, so this is his first "funny" scene of the season and he does not disappoint. Will Friedle is spot on as usual, and he's actually not wearing any denim on his chest for once. It's a funny, well written scene that lets us peer into some of the fresh dynamics of this brotherhood.
Eric's main point of advice was to make eye contact with a random girl, so Cory stares at this girl in class long enough for her to ask him what the fuck he's doing. Cory fumbles his way into asking her out and she says yes even though she's married.
Or maybe it's one of those promise rings. Either way, tough break. Cory never addressed her by name here, so I'm going to assume he doesn't know what it is. Also, am I insane or does EVERY teenage female in EVERY tv show carry her binders like that? Is it for posture? I dunno.
Amy and Alan are having another one of their perfect scenes when Amy finds a cheap earring in their bed, left there during Eric's tête-à-tête. I went back to check, and indeed the girl was missing an earring after that scene. Regardless, this doesn't make sense. More than 24 hours have passed since that makeout session, so somehow Amy and Alan didn't notice the earring the night before, and the girl neglected to mention to Eric that she lost it. But whatever.
Anyway, here's the ending to that scene. It's beautiful, unlike Amy's pajamas.
So now the Matthews parents confront Eric. Cory joins the scene and tells his parents about getting a date. His mother asks what this girl's name is and Cory admits he has yet to find out. DO I KNOW THIS SHOW OR WHAT!
Now the super parents explain to their sons that Eric's method of asking random girls out is dumb and that Cory should get to know this girl before jumping the gun. At school the next day, Cory and that girl mutually agree that a date would be weird since they don't know each other, and agree to just have a chat.
THERE YOU FUCKIN GO MOTHERFUCKERS. YOU WANNA KNOW HOW TO GET A GIRL TO SAY HI?
YOU SAY. FUCKING. "HI." THAT'S IT. THAT'S THE SECRET. LIFE LESSON BADGE.
Seriously, I wish I learned that shit when I was 12.
Plot: 1.0 - I enjoyed this story. We were shown a lot of examples of Cory falling behind everyone else at school. He had a clearly defined goal and the episode was spent trying to reach that goal. Everyone (except Morgan) was directly related to Cory's pursuit of getting a girl to say hi. That's good story telling.
Character Development: 1.0 - This was a brilliant move by the writers. We've extinguished Cory's awkwardness and uncertainty in a single effective story. Now that Cory can talk to girls, we can focus on real interactions instead of spending an eternity watching him try to build up the courage to talk to that one special girl. Sooooo many shows do that shit and we're just completely avoiding it here.
Humor: 1.0 - Just another reason you should watch this episode. Good laughs for the entire duration. Not much more to say.
Life Lesson: 1.0 - Initiating conversation with someone you want to talk to seems pretty simple when you phrase it that way, but it's something that A LOT of people struggle with. But Boy Meets World seriously got it right here. Just go say hi.
4 points out of 4. This episode was written by Jeff Menell and Glen Merzer, so we'll have to keep an eye out for them.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jun 23, 2015 12:51:32 GMT
Episode 2x03 "Notorious"
The Notorious B.I.G. based his name on this episode's name. Prove me wrong.
Eric's giving a neck massage to some girl who writes the school newspaper. Why? Because he's helping her write her article on Mr. Feeny, who as you'll recall is the school's new principal. This is one of those girls who acts with her eyelids. You know what I'm talking about.
Hate that shit.
Cory and Shawn show up with some rats for a school project on natural selection. The rats scare Eyelids away and Eric chases after her. Our heroes decide to mess with the newspaper by changing "Feeny" to "Weeny" in the article's title.
The janitor came in to collect some trash while this happened. That's important later. So what's the point? Well, apparently Shawn thinks this is a way to make a name for themselves, to be something much greater than they are. So the papers get printed like that and distributed throughout the school. Aren't there like a thousand checkpoints in the publishing process to prevent this from happening? Couldn't they have not distributed the papers once they were printed with a big typo? Remember that bull shit tabloid from a Pup Named Scooby Doo? The National Exaggerator? That shit had a higher production value than this school's newspaper.
The worst part is that people actually think this is a big deal. All the girls are getting hot and bothered over the mysterious, rebellious, daredevil risk-machine who changed one letter in the newspaper. Even Harley Keiner has taken notice.
Okay let's take a step back. This story is nonsense. 0 points for plot. I'm not going to talk about that anymore. Let's move on.
Eric shows a copy of the newspaper to his parents, and for some reason Morgan is in the room. This is the single worst Morgan scene to date. It honestly makes me want to delete every post on this blog and smash my head with a hammer until I forget everything about Boy Meets World. It's my journalistic duty to share it with you, but I urge caution.
There's really only one person in the universe who can salvage this shipwreck of an episode, and by gum here he is in the very next scene with his million dollar grin.
The scenes with these two actors are consistently fantastic. The dialogue here wouldn't even be funny if they were any other actors. Thank you for making me smile today, Jason Marsden+Will Friedle. So anyway Eric bumps into some girl with giant hair and a heavy southern drawl who decided not to wear a bra today. Go ahead. You can look. Nothing to be ashamed of.
Here's a clip because fuck it, it's funny, and I am all about small victories right now. For context, in the wake of that newspaper girl dumping him, Eric has commissioned Jason to prevent him from falling in love with any more "bags of misery".
The janitor from before IDs Cory as one of the two people he saw at the newspaper computer. Cory pleads innocent and Mr. Feeny gives him an ultimatum: give up the person responsible or be suspended, and he has 24 hours to decide. Frankie and Joey make their own edit to the newspaper to impress their leader, Harley Keiner.
Eric and Jason have a spat over how pussy whipped Eric has become.
Let's talk about Desiree. Her voice is jarring and despicable and she's turned Eric into her lapdog, doing serious harm to his friendship with Jason. Tell me you don't hate her. But that's awesome! She has done a thoroughly supreme job of making me want to strangle her, like Joffrey on Game of Thrones. Watch her delivery in that clip, and then scroll up and compare it to the gif of that newspaper girl. One is good acting, and one is not. As far as high school villains go, Desiree is pretty spot on. She's played by Sydney Bennett, who has had small roles in TV pretty consistently since 1994, and even a few bigger roles in B movies. Also she's ridiculously good looking these days.
We don't see any more of the Desiree story in this episode. What a cliffhanger! I'm not sure if it's the next episode, but this situation does come up again, which means we're guaranteed to see Jason Marsden at least once more. And that's worth living for, god dammit.
I've been staring at that picture for like five minutes. Anyway, Cory is having his meeting with Mr. Feeny to either rat out Shawn or be suspended... Just... just watch it...
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!??!!
What the fuck am I supposed to take away from this! Fucking nepotism?! "Grow up next door to your high school principal and you won't have to rat out your best friend." Congratulations.
Ultimately Cory gets a week of detention instead of suspension. Okay so I was right, nepotism is the life lesson. Good. That's good. Okay.
Frankie and Joey face no consequences for a much more significant edit to the newspaper, so that's fine, and the rats from the beginning of the episode must have starved to death in Cory's bedroom or something because they were never mentioned again.
Plot: 0 - DID I FUCKING STUTTER?
Character Development: 0.5 - Because Desiree, I guess.
Humor: 0.5 - "You're welcome." - Eric and Jason.
Life Lesson: 0 - Eat a dick.
1 out of 4.
You're killing me, Boy Meets World. You're supposed to be better than this.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jun 23, 2015 12:51:58 GMT
Episode 2x04 "Me and Mr. Joad" This episode was penned by Jeff Menell, one of the two responsible for episode 2x02, which was fucking awesome. So we're in for a good time here today. Right away we jump back into the best Eric-story of the series so far, the Desiree Captivity (original name, do not steal). She's given Eric a new pink pager to alert him of her needs. He receives a page and his wonderful mother tries to keep him away from the succubus, but our boy is just too quick. The students are reading The Grapes of Wrath for Mr. Turner's class. Whenever Turner assigns them a book, you can bet it'll come up in that episode's story. I love this. It's progressive, relevant, and timeless. Good humor and strong commentary on the American school system. Throw in some guns and drugs and we might as well be watchin season four of The Wire. So Turner makes a deal with the class that he won't give them a test if they actually read the book and participate in class. Mr. Feeny the traditionalist catches wind of Turner's quid pro quo and the two debate the merits of this plan. Ultimately Turner agrees to give them a test on the grounds that if the the students do well, that is, if they actually did the work without threat of a test, then Feeny won't meddle again. If you think that picture is funny then we could probably be friends. Back at home, Jason and Mrs. Matthews are busting Eric's balls about being completely whipped and it's pretty funny. Amy sprays Eric's pants with water in an attempt to make him stop acting ridiculous, and then Desiree shows up. (Eric is wearing a towel in his pants to hide the water.) I think the "North against South, rematch" from Jason there is a Civil War joke since they live in Pennsylvania, which is hilarious. Can we replace Morgan with Desiree somehow? She's awesome, and actually provides interesting content to the show. Fuckin troll ass Desiree. It's a shame Sydney Bennett doesn't have twitter, I want to profess my love. Next day we're in Turner's class. Turner tries to give the test to the students, but they refuse and, inspired by The Grapes of Wrath, march out of the class room singing Look for the Union Label, which is a seriously dated joke referencing this old commercial youtu.be/QO7VUklDlQw?t=23s . They all left their stuff in the classroom though. I don't know when they plan on going back for it. The racially diverse students have apparently marched to the cafeteria and, high on their imagined power, make outlandish demands about changes to the lunch food. Some ethnic girl's LSD kicks in during this take. The two teachers arrive and Feeny shows everyone that HE has all the power when he threatens to take away their school dance and football season and stuff. The students cave except for Cory and (reluctantly) Shawn. Eric decides he's finally had enough of Desiree's succubusiness (HAH! just made that up) and breaks things off. My heart has been torn asunder. It's Minkus all over again. Mr. Turner shows up at the Matthews house to deal with Shawn and Cory. He explains that they've misinterpreted the themes of Grapes of Wrath since they don't actually have jobs and they can't actually go on strike. The boys then share their new understanding with Feeny. I don't like Rider Strong's humble submissive voice there. It just doesn't work. Ben Savage has a good "I learned my lesson" voice though. It sounds like the writers thought they were being clear here, but I'm not sure what they want us to take away from this. Was this aimed at high school students, telling them that they can't just do whatever they want? That's not really worthwhile. I don't think any class of students has ever tried to go on strike before. So the message can't possibly be "you can't go on strike", but then what is it? Cory just said explicitly that his situation is unrelated to the one in Grapes of Wrath, so why did we do this? During the credits two guys are leaning on a trash can as though it weren't a giant container filled with garbage. That's gross, guys. And it's absolutely bewildering to me that they have that pay phone in the hallway. When I started high school everybody had cell phones (Razr was pretty hot at the time, if I remember correctly), so I genuinely don't know if that was a real thing schools did or not. During the credits we get one last tantalizing look at our beloved Streetcar Named Desiree. Those. Boots. This scene mirrors one from the last episode with the "say yes, puddin" thing, so that's pretty funny. Plot: 1 - Regardless of whether or not the life lesson came through, it was still a fun story. We got to see the teaching philosophies of Turner and Feeny clash, which is always good, Cory and Shawn were inspired by literature, and Eric and Jason concluded the Desiree Captivity arc, which I loved. Character Development: 1 - Turner and Feeny both learned a little more about teaching, Eric broke the spell of a succubus, and Cory and Shawn know not to go on strike again. Humor: 1 - Consistently funny throughout. It was interesting, Cory and Shawn took on more serious roles in this episode and most of the humor came from other people. It worked out well. Life Lesson: 0.25 - I covered this in detail, I'm giving some points because there's probably something there that I'm missing. 3.25 out of 4.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jun 23, 2015 12:52:18 GMT
Episode 2x05 "The Uninvited" This episode was written by Susan Estelle Jensen, who, in season one, gave us two abortions and one ehhhh-that-wasn't-so-bad. The first minute of this episode is entirely Amy and Alan Matthews talking about Alan's dick. I wouldn't even call it subtle. It's funny though. They're always funny. Alan explains that he takes Vitamin E supplements to be more "durable". Indeed, Viagra wasn't approved by the FDA until 1998. I wonder how they would write this kind of joke today. Anyway Alan wants to go play basketball with Cory and Shawn but his back gives out because he's old. Mr. Feeny is teaching the class about the transcontinental railroad, but it must be that Renaissance transcontinental railroad because he has a map of Europe pulled down over the blackboard. Da Vinci's idea, if I remember correctly. Our favorite teacher snatches up some notes being passed around class and reads them out loud. I hate when teachers do that. See? Europe. Maybe Feeny is teaching some sort of propaganda history, where he attributes all of America's accomplishments to England. We learn from the confiscated notes that this bitch in a denim shirt named Melissa is throwing a party. AND NOW YOU CAN WATCH IT ANY TIME! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyaaz0iA-rMMelissa users her chin to deliver her lines. After class, Cory expresses his anxiety over whether or not Melissa The Chin will invite him to her party. In his eyes, anyone who doesn't get invited is a geek. Shawn apparently took his Xanax this morning because he's apathetic toward the whole thing and tries to convince Cory to relax. Judgment Day arrives as Melissa hands out the invitations in envelopes because this is the Dark Ages before Facebook. Might as well send out carrier pigeons or have a crier ride into the halls on a mule and sound his horn before reading the names from a fucking scroll. This clip looks like something I would make, but it's actually how it is in the show. This is funny for a handful of reasons. First is at the beginning there when there are two girls on screen at the same time wearing denim vest jacket whatevers. Not exactly "ha ha" funny, more like "what the fuck were the 90s" funny. Besides that, the other extras have great reactions, and Cory's is absolutely priceless. I don't know how Ben Savage kept a straight face draped over the lockers like that. But Shawn didn't get an invitation! The world's gone all wibbly wobbly topsy turvy! How is Boy supposed to meet World like this! MORE LIKE BOY MEETS BIZARRO WORLD AM I RIGHT? WOOOOO HOOO HOOOOOOOO Later, in the cafeteria, the soda machine eats Cory's money. A conveniently placed Mr. Turner channels his inner Saturday Night Fever to kick the can loose. The audience applauds that shit. They clap and they cheer. WHYYYYY??!! Your cheering is not going to convince me that that was real! Why do sitcoms DO this?! Ughhhhhhhhh... Anyway Cory's feeling bad about Shawn not being invited to The Crimson Chin's party and Turner tries to give him some advice. The most helpful thing he says is to make sure not to get caught up in what other people think. This is a unique spin on that lesson. Usually the main character is dealing with insults or bullying, and the voice of wisdom says "don't listen to them, you're fine just the way you are." And that would be boring. Instead, people are starting to say that Cory's pretty cool since he got invited to this party, so he has to try to stay detached from the positive things people are saying about him to keep from inflating his ego. Good stuff. At home, Alan's back still hurts and he can't move and stuff and he feels old. Cory is slightly over preparing for this party. BUT WAIT! Cory gets to the party and only sees geeky guys there. He learns from Chinlissa that her parents forbade her from inviting any cool/dangerous guys (like Shawn) to the party, and without the cool guys none of the girls she invited wanted to come either. HEY MELISSA. MILLION DOLLAR IDEA HERE. MILLION DOLLARS, BABY. MAYBE TWO MILLION. One of Melissa's female friends shows up and tells her about a cool party happening somewhere else, so the two bail on the geek party to go to the cool one. Cory is left feeling like a real shitface, so he goes to find Shawn. Cory arrives at the local burger joint "Chubbie's", expecting Shawn to be there. This is the first time we see Chubbie's, but it's the go-to hangout place all the way through season 5. Shawn is here, but so are a ton of other students. We spy Melissa and her friend, so this Shawn-centered gathering is in fact the "cool party". Our heroes have a little heart to heart. Beautiful. I don't think Shawn's given us the life lesson before, but it definitely works here. Shawn adamantly denies being "cool" and tries to make Cory forget about that kind of shit so they can just be best friends like they always have. Way to go Shawn. During the credits, Alan is persuaded to finally get up off the couch by his wife, clad in her new lingerie. He's hobbling after her up the stairs, but not without his Vitamin E. Because he's old. Plot: 1.0 - Like I said, it's a refreshing take on the cool vs uncool story. This episode was genuinely enjoyable to watch and, as far as sitcom plots go, it was pretty unpredictable. Character Development: 1.0 - It's like episode 2x02, they've quickly gotten rid of a characteristic that would only hinder the show's progression in the future. In 2x02 it was fear of talking to women, this time it was worrying about being cool. If I remember correctly, Cory is very comfortable with his not-so-cool-ness from here on out. That saves us from a lot of stupid stories. Humor: 1.0 - Hilarious. There's a lot more than what I posted in the clips. Life Lesson: 0.5 - The idea is there, but the episode wraps up in a weird way, so it's hard to know exactly what they wanted to tell us. 3.5 out of 4.0 Good work, Susan Estelle Jensen. You broke even.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jun 23, 2015 12:53:23 GMT
Episode 2x06 "Who's Afraid of Cory Wolf?" Is the big bad wolf from Little Red Riding Hood or The Three Little Pigs? Or is that the same wolf? How has that never occurred to me before... Why's it always gotta be a wolf? This is a Halloween episode. It's storming and Cory's writing in some sort of journal. He's using a large feather quill to write, which I guess is supposed to be funny otherwise they wouldn't have done it. "Hey ConfidenceKBM, what's Cory writing about?" Nah, don't worry about it. I said don't worry about it. It's not a big deal, just skip this one. You should move on w- YOU SHOULD MOVE ON WITH YOUR LIFE. He's writing about how he's going to turn into a werewolf. A show lauded for its realism is doing a werewolf episode. Happy? Whenever this episode worms its way out of my repressed memories, I remember this one snippet in particular and try to convince myself that I'm remembering wrong. Nope, it really is that bad. Ugh.... I don't wanna do this... Shawn shows up to ride with Cory to some Halloween Party. He's wearing a Cory costume, which is funny enough to resuscitate my interest. The second cool thing about this picture is that it shows us who is responsible for writing this monstrosity. ...Because Cory's turning into a monster... Please laugh ;__; Not only is this plot ruining my day, it's ruining Cory's as well, since as we all know you shouldn't go to a party if you're turning into a feral predator of man. There's always that one guy at a party tryin to savagely maul the other guests, and it's just, it's, nobody has a good time. Cory explains his situation to Shawn and the audience via flashback: Feeny informs Cory that a wolf has escaped from the zoo. Cory hears some rustling in a potted plant or a bush or some shit and we see this while some eerie music plays. "Relax, ConfidenceKBM, it's camp, it's parody, it's deliberately terrible." When in doubt, follow the audience. This is a rare instance when the audience/laugh track is actually useful. There is no laughter at that part. Therefore, it is not intended to be funny. Don't you have to be bitten by a werewolf to become one, and not just a regular zoo wolf? Either way, Cory's sold on the idea but Shawn's not buying it. Maybe another flashback will convince him. This flashback is some point after Cory gets attacked or whatever: An alarmed Cory shows his newly discovered chest and facial hair to his older brother. Eric is like "grats on puberty bro" and I'm like "what is this the werewolf version of Spiderman?" After giving it some more thought, Eric feeds the werewolf story to Cory. It's honestly not clear whether Eric believes it or not, but I'm going to say he doesn't because I can't keep going otherwise. Cory tries to further convince Shawn with another flashback story, this time at a Frozen Yogurt place for whatever the hell reason. It's the same set as the car towing place from last season, just at a different angle. It's mocked up pretty well though. Try doing an intentionally bad Dracula impression. That's how the store owner talks. Look at those prices though. I want cheesecake for a buck forty, shit. A convenient announcement on the radio about the escaped wolf gets Cory talking about his lycanthropy, and the store owner decides to take him to the back of the store and scam him out of his money. I don't know why. Cory was about to use the money to pay for his ice cream. The store is not making a profit here. Anyway the back room looks like this: WooOOOOooOOoooo spoookyyyyyyy. Have any of you ever been to a psychic? Do they all use the same red and brown color scheme? Remember this one from Fresh Prince? What am I saying, of course you remember, because that's completely normal. Honestly, I lived on Nick at Night for all of middle school. An hour of Full House and an hour of Fresh Prince every weeknight while I did my math homework or whatever. And look, here I am, using that knowledge for good. (R.I.P James Avery) The completely legitimate psychic is played by Phyllis Diller, who's done a whoooooole lot of stuff over the years. Check out her IMDB, you'll almost certainly recognize a few things. This completely legitimate psychic tells Cory what to expect during his transformation. Are we still doing the puberty metaphor? Cuz that.... that'd be a little pg-13, know what I'm sayin... She also tells him that he'll have a pentagram on his palm and that he'll kill a girl who cares about him. The completely legitimate psychic reminds Cory that he's late for English class, so apparently he went for frozen yogurt during school somehow. Were they even trying with this? So now Cory's in class, but so is Shawn... even though this flashback is Cory explaining the story to Shawn, so... it's weird. Nothing interesting happens in class, they try to make some jokes, but they miss. Look at Shawn though! That hair! Ahhhhhhh it's glorious. Ahhhhhhh you just wanna feel it. The star in that picture is white because White Dwarf stars are really hot. That joke may be slightly too complicated. Cory is eating a piece of paper here to hide its werewolf-related contents from Mr. Turner, like when Mac ate those contracts on It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. That was hilarious. Eating this paper serves to fulfill the "acquire a taste for new things" part of the completely legitimate psychic's prophecy. After class, Cory incidentally holds Mr. Turner's set of keys, which has a Pentagon keychain from when Turner allegedly visited the Pentagon. This fulfills the pentagram-in-the-palm part of the prophecy, even though pentagrams and pentagons are fundamentally different. Pentagrams are concave, while pentagons are convex. Where are the other math majors? Hi-five? Startin to sound like Spiderman again. Topanga's pants are so high. Did the pants-making-people make the length from the top to the crotch longer in the 90s to accommodate pulling them up that high? There's no way you could do that with the pants girls wear today. Those don't even have functioning pockets. Cory goes back to the completely legitimate psychic to find a way to not kill Topanga. She tells him he won't kill Topanga until the next full moon, which, WUH OH, is tonight. NOW LET'S JUST, LET'S, FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT HERE, LET'S THINK ABOUT THIS FOR A SEC. It's the day of a Halloween party, so it must be within a week of Halloween, which is the 31st of October, which was a Monday in 1994. www.dayoftheweek.org/?m=October&d=31&y=1994&go=Go It's also a school day, so this party must be happening on the 24th-29th or the 31st. Probably the 29th, but either way the only full moon in October of 1994 was on the 19th. wise-obs.tau.ac.il/~eran/Sky/MoonPhase.htmlI am doing so much more work than anyone who made this episode. At home, Alan tries to convince his son that it's just puberty and not magic, but Cory's too far gone. Topanga shows up to go to the party with the two boys and blah blah blah. You can feel however you want about that, but I'm too cynical right now to enjoy it. During the credits, Cory is out on his porch and he learns from Mr. Feeny that the wolf turned out to be in the zoo after all. The bush near Cory rustles again, but it's just a bunny. That's right guys, I don't know if you can handle this fuckin 180 degree plot turn here, but Cory wasn't actually bitten by a wolf. Congratulations to David Tennant on his second appearance in my blog. Plot: 0 - Zero like a Cheerio, all da bitches know, on da mic I got flowwwww, yo. Character Development: 0.5 - Puberty is a big deal, but it seems a little out of place. Cory definitely already likes girls, and we had that story about hormones back in episode 1x20, and that was fantastic, one of the best of the season. I don't know why they felt they had to do it again, especially with this terrible delivery. Humor: 0.5 - Meh. Life Lesson: 0 - Nonexistant. 1 out of 4. It was the good kind of bad though, the kind that I can enjoy making fun of. This review actually turned out really well. Thanks for reading!
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jun 23, 2015 12:55:17 GMT
Episode 2x07 "Wake Up, Little Cory" After fiddling with Google Analytics and stuff for a few days, you can FINALLY find this blog by Googling "boy meets world reviewed blogspot". Somehow Google still thinks this boymeetsworldmeetsweed.wordpress.com/is a better match for that query, and anything less specific doesn't really work. But hey, give it some time. That poor guy quit after only 3 episodes. Maybe he got busted for possession. Good for him for trying though. This episode jumps straight into the meat and potatoes. Mr. Turner is explaining to the class why Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing is an amazing play, and doing so quite passionately. The students have a slightly different opinion. The students raise the very valid point that "love, sex and slander" just aren't as shocking now as they were back in Shakespeare's days, what with tabloids and reality tv. Holy god damn dammit this show is so good. How fuckin real is that? Not two minutes into the episode and we're faced with this powerful social commentary. It's... it's an explosion. Of commentary. In response, the curly mullet English teacher assigns them to use the school's video equipment to interview their families and friends about love and sex, and then they can all see if people today really are more mature than the folks in Much Ado. If the video equipment is anything like their classroom's computer rig, I don't see what could possibly go wrong. "Quick! Google how to put out a fire!" Except in '94 they used like, Infoseek, or Altavista. I doubt those ever became verbs. This scene is fantastic. And really funny. This is the essence of why I love Mr. Turner. Instead of giving all the students detention, *cough*, he actually engages them and listens to what they have to say. The kids are genuinely excited about this assignment because it was tailored to fit their educational needs. It's wonderful. Dollars to donuts, Mr. Feeny will have a word or two to say about all this. Called it. Remember what I was saying back in 2x01 about opposing reference frames for education themes? THERE YOU GO. THERE IT IS. That's one of the best exchanges so far in the series. Do you see how meta this is? Turner represents Boy Meets World in Feeny-Hollywood. He's trying to be progressive and treat young adults like young adults, the same way the show wants to respect the maturity of its audience. I'm willing to bet that a very similar conversation went down between Michael Jacobs and whoever was in charge of ABC. It's genius. It's unheard of. This might be THE episode where everyone thought "shit, this show is FOR REAL." I need to calm down. I seriously love this show, you guys. Cory and Topanga are working on their project (they're partners). From the POV of Cory's camera we get to see various opinions on sex and love, including a romantic Topanga, Shawn the Lothario, and a caught-in-hypocrisy Mr. Turner. Cory's been using the word "sex" up to this point, but I guess it would have been weird for him to say it to his teacher. It just doesn't get better than this, folks. Cory also interviews Joey the Rat, Harley Keiner, Eric, and his parents, and they're all hilarious. No mention of abstinence, no STD fear-mongering, just realistic characters sharing their legitimate, believable opinions. I. Love. This. Show. School's over, but Cory and Topanga have stuck around to finish working on their project. Look at this behemoth editing hardware. It gets late so they use that extremely convenient phone on the table there to tell their respective parents that they're eating dinner at the other's house. Pretty sneaky sis. Remember that pay phone out in the hallway? Why bother when there's a free phone in the video editing closet? Anyway, it gets really late and they accidentally fall asleep on the floor when "I'm just gonna rest for 10 minutes" goes awry. We've all been there. I'm there on a daily basis. "Just ONE more snooze. Just one more. That's it." ... "Actually, okay, I can do another, I just won't brush my teeth." ... "I'm really not even hungry, I can do a few more instead of breakfast." What a scandal! The rest of the school finds out, so I guess that bitchass janitor spilled the beans. Which is weird because janitors are supposed to clean up messes. I'm allowed one bad joke per review okay? This is hard work. Anyway, all the guys in school are like "wooo statutory rape, Cory's the man", even Harley Keiner and some guy in the back ground who looks like he's 30 have a new respect for the little Matthews boy. It's high school, so Cory lies, sullying Topanga's reputation. It's not quite the same as Much Ado About Nothing, which looks more at infidelity than the general promiscuity being examined here, but it still ties back to the earlier discussion in Turner's class about how rumors can warp our perception of women and the effects of those perceptions on those women. Awesome. Turner and Feeny are privy to these events, resulting in another fantastic dialogue between the two teachers. Excellent writing once again. Not much more to say than what I've already covered. I really hate to throw a wrench in this amazing episode, but the board says "projects due tomorrow", so there was no reason why Cory and Topanga had to stay late the night before to finish. Minor detail, who cares. Later, Topanga comes over to the Matthews house to have a little chat with the newly crowned Vagina Master of John Adams High. I've gotta say, I really like how Topanga handles this situation. She's not crying or breaking down, she's just pissed. It's not "wahhh you ruined everything, how could you wahh", but rather "you are literal human filth, go to hell", you know what I mean? Anger is a much stronger emotion than depression. Anger gives you motivation and energy and drive, while depression just drains you. So yeah, I think it's the mark of a strong character to be angry instead of upset and I'm really glad they made that decision. She leaves Cory speechless and the scene fades into Mr. Turner's class the next day. It's time to watch the finished projects. Cory edited a pretty grand apology and clarification of events into the end of their video. That smooths things over between him and Topanga, and chalks one up for Mr. Turner on the Turner-Feeny War Scwarbward. ...War Scwarboard? Sc.. Scw.. Score... Whatever. Counting the battle over Grapes of Wrath as a point for Feeny, we're currently tied. I'll definitely keep updating this. So that's the end, and it's a good ending except that I would have liked to see more people call out Cory for being a dick. Plot: 1.0 - The entire review is the explanation for this. I loved every minute of this episode. Character Development: 1.0 - 0.9 of this is due to Topanga showing us what she's made of. (Nails, if that wasn't clear.) The other 0.1 is due to the Turner-Feeny War, in particular when Feeny says "Well, perhaps this project is going to serve some purpose after all." The man does not often admit he is wrong, so Turner definitely deserves a victory lap for this one. Humor: 1.0 - I'm starting to realize that this category is hard to explain. There was just a lot of that clever, classic Boy Meets World humor all throughout this one. What's better is that it came from pretty much every character, including Joey, Harley, and the Matthews parents. Morgan was absent from this episode, and that's always conducive to a good humor score. Life Lesson: 1.0 - Let's go ahead and count the progressive elements as life lessons. Everything Turner says in his arguments with Feeny about open dialogue and trust is spot on. 4.0 out of 4.0 with all four Badges. I absolutely love how I feel after reviewing a great episode. I love this show, and I love talking about it. Love everywhere, it's goddamn Woodstock in my bedroom right now.
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