I had watched the original Boy Meets World from the first time Topanga (Danielle Fishel) drew on her face to when the new Matthews clan was winging their way to New York with a new baby. So, when I heard they were producing a sequel series following said baby, I knew I had to check it out.
With the first season now over, I feel able to comment on it fully. This show, created by the same people behind BMW (Michael Jacbos and April Kelly), does have some of the earmarks that made BMW the endearing show it was, while at the same time suffering from the homogenized sameness all Disney Channel productions face: over-exaggerated characters engaging in mind-numbing adventures that are obviously designed to talk down to their audience, rather than to. That's something GMW is guilty of that BMW somehow avoided.
First, let's talk about the kids. The kids are woefully underdeveloped. Riley (Rowan Blanchard) and Maya (Sabrina Carpenter), the two leads, are carbon copies of Cory (Ben Savage) and Shawn (Rider Strong) from BMW. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as both girls manage to embrace the character traits that made the originals memorable. But, Riley tends to overact a bit, taking any realism out of a given situation. Farkle (Corey Fogelmanis) is less developed than the girls, but moreso than the rest of the supporting child cast. He only plays to two gag types: being the brainy kid and being obsessed with the girls, like a poor man's version of Steve Urkel. Lucas (Peyton Meyer) has zero personality or chemistry with his supposed love-interest, Riley. Riley's brother Augie (August Maturo), while having the least screen time of the kids, is probably the most interesting with his obvious genius-level intellect and maturity hidden behind the actions of an 8-year-old boy.
As I mentioned before, Riley's actions take away from the realism of situations. However, the way the whole school is set up is unrealistic and presents the target audience with a bad representation of how to behave in school. On GMW, the kids constantly act up in class, walk out, and generally disrespect their teacher (who happens to be Cory), and receive no such punishments for their actions. Not a detention, not a reprimand. Just an "Oh, you!" and everything is fine, whereas on BMW appropriate punishments would be meted out for such behavior.
The plots involving the kids are also a bit...incomplete. They start off fine, but the resolutions are rushed and end up making little to no sense. There's no logic behind the story progression for the kids, or a clear methodology behind how they solve their respective problems, even for television. You can see the idea is there, but the execution is lacking.
But, when the adults come into play, it's a completely different kind of show. Cory steals every scene he's in. Thankfully, he's rendered more intelligent than he ended up becoming towards the end of BMW's run (something which seemed to plague the Matthews boys as evident by the de-evolution of his older brother Eric). The production clearly enjoys returning to their old friend, giving him the best actions and lines in any given episode. While he doesn't entirely save the plots from mediocrity, he makes the show far more tolerable.
Sadly, the same can't be said for wife Topanga. Despite being a career woman, she's often relegated to the background of an episode, seemingly being a doting homemaker with very few lines. In fact, only one episode this season gave her any real presence on the show. Despite how dense the cast was in the early years, Cory's parents Alan (William Russ) and Amy (Betsy Randle) both got their share of screen time, as well as their own subplots during an episode. In fact, BMW managed to put a nice balance on the kids and the adults until greater focus was eventually placed on the kids away from home.
Along with references to the earlier show, some characters have made guest appearances. Unfortunately, not all were well done. One that stands out was in the very first episode, where Cory sees a vision of Mr. Feeney praising the lesson he taught Riley and Maya (the lesson itself, however, making no sense). It was a thrilling couple of seconds, and an appropriate way to kick off the series. Stuart Minkus (Lee Norris), the Farkle of BMW's first season (and incidentally his father), made a cameo to visit his son in school. Unfortunately, his much-touted appearance was basically a waste as he made no contribution to the story or had any real meaningful interaction with his former co-stars other than to make them jealous of his wealthy lifestyle.
Next was Harley Keiner (Danny McNulty), Cory's personal bully in the early seasons of BMW, as the school's janitor. If not for the name, leather gloves, or his calling Cory "Baboon" one time in the episode, you would never know who he was supposed to be. His presence as a janitor in an NYC school was never explained, and he didn't exhibit any of his character's traits. All he was there for was a fun little plot device for the overall story, and a way to work in the cameo.
Cory's parents made an appearance in the season finale, along with now-grown youngest son Josh (Uriah Shelton). Unfortunately, they were drastically overshadowed by Shawn's appearance and the tension with Maya. Shawn had the most prominent and meaningful BMW appearance on the show. Although, once again the plot made little sense in its execution, his presence didn't feel like much of a waste.
Hopefully, the second season will allow the show to find its legs and escape from the Disney Channel stigma that weighs it down and keeps it from being as good a show as BMW was. It shows a lot of promise, but it needs some work to get it right.
