What Needs to Improve on GMW

[TMC]

Feel free to discuss, disagree or agree.

Dialog

The dialog needs to sound more natural and not as scripted as it did in S1. By this I mean, kids and adults need to sound like real kids and adults and not "trailer moments". There is an unnatural rhythm to the dialog and this stands out most of all. It's done on purpose, but this is why I think it needs to go and be replaced with more natural sounding dialog.

Here's a textbook example of bad dialogue in GMW the episode "Girl Meets Game Night":
JOSHUA: And as everyone is joined together, we see that in the long game, friends become family. It's not a game at all.

AUGGIE: What is it, mommy?

TOPANGA: It's life.

AUGGIE: Life is the long game?

CORY: Yeah, bubba. Life is the long game.

This part reeked of sentimentality and the show trying to eat its cake and have it too. You can literally look up the "life is the long game" quote and nothing you get will have anything to do with this episode.

Show, Not Tell

This has a lot to do with dialog, ironically. All sitcoms have 22 minutes (without commercials) to tell a story, so shorthand a.k.a. telling instead of showing is the most efficient way of doing this. However, the most effective way to convey a dramatic plot point is to show it and let the audience absorb it on their own. Then again, the writers tried to do this very recently in "Demolition" with the whole astronaut on a horse thing and failed.

Don't Talk Down to the Young Audience

This might seem like an oxymoron since the show is aimed at 8-11-year olds, but that is a fallacy that kids can't figure things out on their own. MJ, Disney and the writers need to have faith in the young audience that they CAN figure things out on their own... Especially if things are SHOWN and not just told as has been the case since the first episode. In other words, get the point across without stating the obvious point.

If GMW would have started out more subdued, realistic and less ham-fisted with regard to many the things we are listing here we feel need improvement, I believe (all) fans would have been a lot more forgiving if it looked like the show was improving as the season went on, or as we head into the second season.

Real Characters, Not Caricatures

This is the biggest problem GMW currently has... More so for the adults than kids, ironically. Cory needs to be written more like a father or two and a teacher. They need to work on making Cory a good teacher who doesn't devote his entire class to helping his daughter. They really shouldn't have made him a social studies teacher. Not the man-child he has been up to this point. Topanga needs more screen time. Period. Give Topanga a role other than Auggie's mom/Ava's rival. We need to see what kind of mother / businesswoman she is. Telling us she is a shark lawyer says nothing. Showing us what kind of person is like when she went after Aubrey is what we need to see more of to get a handle on her. This goes for every other adult character as well.

Camerawork

I know this might seem like a silly thing to add, but it really makes all the difference. The cameras that they use to film the show give it this weird look (in fairness, it's more or less, an HD look that sitcoms have nowadays) that contributes to making the show feel even more unrealistic than it already is (if that makes any sense at all?). IMHO, the crew needs to go back to using the same type of cameras they did on BMW (i.e. "darker") or some other type of cameras instead.

Lucas

Delving into his Texan backstory doesn't make him interesting! Sure, it tells us what he's been through, but it doesn't give him any PERSONALITY TRAITS. Is he funny? Is he laid-back? All we know is that he's a perfect Prince Charming. I don't think the writers realize this...

Don't Buy Into Your Own Hype

It breeds an attitude among network execs and the showrunners themselves that they can take the lazy route because they're guaranteed the audience numbers they're looking for no matter what. Or it makes the writers and producers less likely to go back and edit their drafts and ideas since, as they bought into their own hype, they're more likely to believe the first draft or impression is gold right off the mind's assembly line.

If you're still not clear about what I mean, you can listen to all 1 hour and 12 minutes of this Michael Jacobs interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biplemWf3dY

[king of comedy]

These should help. Keep it real and natural.

[mets82]

Make it more a show that EVERYBODY can watch. Dont write it just for the 8 to 11 year olds because some of the viewing audience for GMW watched BMW.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Compared to season 1 of BMW, it was a pretty good first season.

Now if they can improve like they did with BMW season 2, it should be quite good. From what we've seen so far, it sure looks better.

[Blackout]

yeah they need to make some more adult episodes

maybe Maya has a pregnancy scare or something jk

[Mr. Television]

Originally Posted by mets82

Make it more a show that EVERYBODY can watch. Dont write it just for the 8 to 11 year olds because some of the viewing audience for GMW watched BMW.

I agree. I could watch Good luck Charlie because it was written for adults as well as kids. I have a hard time with this show sometimes.

[TMC]

In other words, Girl Meets World and Michael Jacobs seemingly tries to blatantly teach lessons to kids (via literally, a father-slash-teacher figure in Cory) versus having kids (via the characters) make mistakes and then learn on their own from those mistakes? They're trying too hard to make people appreciate lessons, whereas before they were just making them happen at more of a casual pace, without as much awareness of fan support to motivate them.

The bottom-line is that the writers have overcompensated by pushing a very simple lesson up your rear end to make sure you get it, even though a lot of people are cognizant enough to get it without anything having to be directly told to us. What's worse is that seemingly every single lesson at school that Cory teaches somehow correlates perfectly with a life situation that Riley is currently going through. That's not even remotely realistic, and it's kind of corny.

Girl Meets World does an episode on particular theme, they know the basic foundation, but here is where they mess up is they never present a counter-argument against the theme via characters, situations, etc. A perfect example of this is the "Girl Meets Demolition" episode with its "stealing is wrong" message. Girl Meets World simply takes these situations and plays them completely straight. No subversion, no counterargument, no analysis, it's just "this is the lesson" and that's it. If Girl Meets World was simply not using the Boy Meets World formula (Riley=Cory, Maya=Shawn, Cory=Mr. Feeny/Alan, Topanga=Amy, Auggie=Morgan, Farkle=his dad Minkus, etc.) that well, then this would be more forgivable. But the writers are operating under the mentality that they are doing something bigger than them and they need to be the guiding light for America's youth.

I'm guessing that most people were expecting Girl Meets World to be just as good as Boy Meets World, including the cast. As a result, you can really see them cramming in as much of their past success on the new show as possible. The problem with want to recreate the magic that happened so many years ago is that people and times change. They should be concentrating on just making a fun and entertaining show first and foremost. Stop trying so hard to impress people and getting them to over-analyze your episodes (e.g. the astronaut/horse thing).

Girl Meets World seems to be focused on too many audiences. With Riley and Maya, the focus is the girls, and tweens; with Auggie, arguably the focus is little kids; and then with Cory and Topanga, they are trying to entertain the adults (or more specifically, people who grew up watching Boy Meets World when it aired on ABC's TGIF back in the '90s) watching with their families.

Everyone or everything on Girl Meets World has to be a reminder of Boy Meets World, whether they're bonding, learning lessons, or literally born from their origin. No one has been adjusting to their own world (if that makes sense) and ignoring their own society altogether. Cory at least valued his childhood at the start of Boy Meets World. Instead, we've mostly gotten a repetitive formula involving forced lessons, unoriginal relationships, an unstable classroom. Girl Meets World has been ignoring current topics for teens, in favor of incorporating almost everything else known for being successful on Boy Meets World.

The crew from the old show never had to worry about what this person would or would not learn. Boy Meets World really was not about teaching viewers a moral or lesson every week. It was just an everyday, "slice of life", sitcom about the misadventures of a kid going through life experiences. It also was not a multi-layered, educational drama/borderline PBS Kids sitcom, where you have to learn something every week and see Girl Meets World tackle hard issues like it's predecessor did. And when it came time to learn something, it worked better because writing trusted its audience and treated them maturely. More than anything, there are things called subtlety, pacing, smoothness in the writing and situations. The original show knew what these things meant most of the time, even before it peaked.

[JO Sweet Heart]

To me what needs to improve is the show's schedule. I missed yesterday's new episode and the new one from the day before. Why can't the show just be shown like any other normal 30 minute sitcom.

God bless you always!!!

Holly

P.S. I hope that those two episodes will be shown again soon, so that I can see what I missed.

[Blackout]

Originally Posted by JO Sweet Heart

To me what needs to improve is the show's schedule. I missed yesterday's new episode and the new one from the day before. Why can't the show just be shown like any other normal 30 minute sitcom.

God bless you always!!!

Holly

P.S. I hope that those two episodes will be shown again soon, so that I can see what I missed.

if you have time warner you can use the "look back" feature

[TMC]

Originally Posted by JO Sweet Heart

To me what needs to improve is the show's schedule. I missed yesterday's new episode and the new one from the day before. Why can't the show just be shown like any other normal 30 minute sitcom.

God bless you always!!!

Holly

P.S. I hope that those two episodes will be shown again soon, so that I can see what I missed.

I think that Disney is only doing this (airing the first five episodes of Season 2 five days in a row) for just this week.

[Blackout]

i wish they had enough episodes to show GMW daily lol

[JO Sweet Heart]

Originally Posted by Blackout

if you have time warner you can use the "look back" feature

I don't even know what Time Warner is. My cable and internet provider is named Charter if that matters.

God bless you always!!!

Holly

[Blackout]

Originally Posted by JO Sweet Heart

I don't even know what Time Warner is. My cable and internet provider is named Charter if that matters.

God bless you always!!!

Holly

lucky.

time warner is an evil entity on the east coast

[mets82]

Originally Posted by TMC

In other words, Girl Meets World and Michael Jacobs seemingly tries to blatantly teach lessons to kids (via literally, a father-slash-teacher figure in Cory) versus having kids (via the characters) make mistakes and then learn on their own from those mistakes? They're trying too hard to make people appreciate lessons, whereas before they were just making them happen at more of a casual pace, without as much awareness of fan support to motivate them.

The bottom-line is that the writers have overcompensated by pushing a very simple lesson up your rear end to make sure you get it, even though a lot of people are cognizant enough to get it without anything having to be directly told to us. What's worse is that seemingly every single lesson at school that Cory teaches somehow correlates perfectly with a life situation that Riley is currently going through. That's not even remotely realistic, and it's kind of corny.

Girl Meets World does an episode on particular theme, they know the basic foundation, but here is where they mess up is they never present a counter-argument against the theme via characters, situations, etc. A perfect example of this is the "Girl Meets Demolition" episode with its "stealing is wrong" message. Girl Meets World simply takes these situations and plays them completely straight. No subversion, no counterargument, no analysis, it's just "this is the lesson" and that's it. If Girl Meets World was simply not using the Boy Meets World formula (Riley=Cory, Maya=Shawn, Cory=Mr. Feeny/Alan, Topanga=Amy, Auggie=Morgan, Farkle=his dad Minkus, etc.) that well, then this would be more forgivable. But the writers are operating under the mentality that they are doing something bigger than them and they need to be the guiding light for America's youth.

I'm guessing that most people were expecting Girl Meets World to be just as good as Boy Meets World, including the cast. As a result, you can really see them cramming in as much of their past success on the new show as possible. The problem with want to recreate the magic that happened so many years ago is that people and times change. They should be concentrating on just making a fun and entertaining show first and foremost. Stop trying so hard to impress people and getting them to over-analyze your episodes (e.g. the astronaut/horse thing).

Girl Meets World seems to be focused on too many audiences. With Riley and Maya, the focus is the girls, and tweens; with Auggie, arguably the focus is little kids; and then with Cory and Topanga, they are trying to entertain the adults (or more specifically, people who grew up watching Boy Meets World when it aired on ABC's TGIF back in the '90s) watching with their families.

Everyone or everything on Girl Meets World has to be a reminder of Boy Meets World, whether they're bonding, learning lessons, or literally born from their origin. No one has been adjusting to their own world (if that makes sense) and ignoring their own society altogether. Cory at least valued his childhood at the start of Boy Meets World. Instead, we've mostly gotten a repetitive formula involving forced lessons, unoriginal relationships, an unstable classroom. Girl Meets World has been ignoring current topics for teens, in favor of incorporating almost everything else known for being successful on Boy Meets World.

The crew from the old show never had to worry about what this person would or would not learn. Boy Meets World really was not about teaching viewers a moral or lesson every week. It was just an everyday, "slice of life", sitcom about the misadventures of a kid going through life experiences. It also was not a multi-layered, educational drama/borderline PBS Kids sitcom, where you have to learn something every week and see Girl Meets World tackle hard issues like it's predecessor did. And when it came time to learn something, it worked better because writing trusted its audience and treated them maturely. More than anything, there are things called subtlety, pacing, smoothness in the writing and situations. The original show knew what these things meant most of the time, even before it peaked.

TMC, I respectfully disagree. I think your trying to say that GMW is too preachy with there lessons. I firmly believe that the writing holds them back. I mean the dialogue is geared to Disney's audience. I don't think kids talk like that anymore. Face it, even if the show was PG then that would be ok because it would feel more real and so would the dialogue. I also think the scheduling has been atrocious. I mean when is the show on??

[Mace Dolex]

I just chuckle at reading these posts of you guys expecting waaaaaaay too much from a silly kiddie show, this show is just to entertain kids dont expect Emmy type of writing from it. The show is plain dumb, the characters are typical cliches.