A Closer Look: Why Girl Meets World Failed

[TMC]

If you want to get to the heart of the matter, fast forward to the 6:28 mark:

[JO Sweet Heart]

I wonder if the show will ever be released on DVD.

God bless you always!!!

Holly

[TMC]

Hearing about the proposed Lizzie McGuire revival not moving forward makes me wonder who in the end, was Girl Meets World meant to be for? The show was built to not only appeal to adults who watched Boy Meets World when they were teens/kids but on the same token, be appropriate for that same demographic today (or back in 2014).

So you had a show that was pretty going to be difficult to market right from the start. On one end, there's likely going to be people who when seeing a sequel to Boy Meets World want it to be more mature and follow the old characters' new adult problems. In effect, one has to wonder if any child watching it is going to care that it's a sequel to a show that ended over a decade ago. Not only that, but it's kind of doubtful that a 10 year old watching Disney Channel in 2015 has actually seen Boy Meets World.

Supposedly, Cory and Topanga were originally going to have an older son named Elliot that would be in high school and later college. This would in theory, allow them to have some of those same more “mature” storylines that people liked from the original, but Disney had them scrap the character.

[TV Guy]

This is the inherent problem with these sequel series. They try to satisfy both new, younger viewers with new characters and fans of the original. That is a very, very difficult balance. I’m not sure if I can think of an example where it worked.

ABC announced that an “All My Children” sequel series entitled “Pine Valley” is in development. It’s going to face the same problem. The die-hands are getting all excited about a revival. In reality, they’re almost sure to be disappointed, because the announcements talk about mostly new characters with a “sprinkling” of appearances by some original cast members.

[PracTz]

IMO, the vlogger somewhat overpraised GMW's production. I'm not sure that it ever 'was the best show on Disney' (since I haven't seen that channel in ages) but that's somewhat like saying that since Velveeta is better than government cheese that that distinction alone makes it a good variety of cheese. Being 'the best of the bad' or 'not as bad' is never the same as actually being good!

Oh, and I had some different interpretations of some of the clips. For instance the one in which Riley was supposed to be such a great friend to Maya by declaring 'Maya will always gets us into trouble and *I* will always get us out of it' somewhat rubbed me the wrong way. IMO, had Riley truly had Maya's interests and wanting the best for her, she'd have said something closer to 'I know Maya got us into trouble this time and I got us out of it but I have confidence that Maya is capable of avoiding trouble and will encourage her to do so and, perhaps one day, she'll get ME out of trouble!' Instead, Riley appeared to (once again) stoke her own ego by putting down Maya (and doing her best to guilt her) via that declaration. Alas neither Cory, Topanga or Maya called her out on this 'tude or much of anything else she pulled but just heaped more undeserved praise upon her.

[TMC]

Why Andi Mack works, and Girl Meets World doesn't.



Begins at about the 5:16 mark.

[Virtual]

I always got the impression that they tried way too hard to combine old BMW aspects with the new GMW "innovated" ways of thinking, and unfortunately it made many of the "lessons" they tried to push make very little sense.

[PracTz]

Originally Posted by Virtual

I always got the impression that they tried way too hard to combine old BMW aspects with the new GMW "innovated" ways of thinking, and unfortunately it made many of the "lessons" they tried to push make very little sense.

Of course, it didn't help that GMW's 'innovated' ways of thinking seemed to primarily try to compel the audience to adore and identify with Riley as well to consider Riley to be wonderful, brilliant and flawless who had no need to change for the better or grow as a person with all her peers content to worship and hover around her instead of any of the above considering even the vaguest autonomy. The show literally ended with her and Maya declaring their friendship forever (for the zillionth time) and with neither of them evidently believing that they needed to strive for anything beyond Riley being the Queen Bee of The Bay Window.

It would have been more watchable if, instead of avoiding the room elephants of Riley being a controlling, nosy, deliberately annoying,rude, disrespectful and toxic acquaintance AND the Cory&Topanga's union had become sad and dysfunctional, that these characters' glaring shadowsides had gotten CALLED OUT by other regulars. Alas, the show seemed to try to ram down the audience's collective throats the narrative that Riley was so wonderful, perfect, adorable, brilliant and the best friend anyone could ever have AND that her parents marriage embodied the perfect union- despite PLENTY of examples the scripts had written out that the three of them said and did to blatantly disprove these assertions.

Oh, and many if not most of the 'lessons' were rather counterproductive for both the characters and the intended minor audience members.

[Virtual]

Riley was getting close to the age where Cory and Shawn in BMW first got jobs. She never had to worry about that though, as her parents never pushed her to be something more.

And Riley definitely drove me up a wall when she wouldn't stop pestering Lucas over finding out about his past in Texas. Lucas should have been able to share that when HE wanted to without hearing that he wasn't a true friend for not telling

[JO Sweet Heart]

^^^ I second that. All that you can do is let the other person know that you are there for them if they ever need anyone to confide in.

God bless you always!!!

Holly

[PracTz]

Yeah, Riley ranting on Lucas for not pouring his guts out to her ASAP about his past instead of respecting his boundaries and letting him know she'd be there to listen when he was ready to share was bad enough but what made it worse was that she threw a huge tantrum to CORY( that literally put her kid brother to shame) for not disclosing Lucas's confidential records to HER- and neither Lucas nor Cory called her on her 'tude (Cory should have spelled out to Riley that, as a teacher, he was legallyrequired to keep all his students' records confidential- even from her). Alas, they each apologized and caved in!

Not the only time Riley got too entitled to others' biz. After Cory and Lucas suggested (and only suggested) to Maya to forgive her own father for the Class Forgiveness Project and Maya expressly told Riley to 'butt out' after she chimed in her vote for Maya to do so, Riley evidently nagged and pestered Maya to reach out to her deadbeat dad and confront him- against Maya's own better judgement. Even so, after confronting him, Maya still felt tons of guilt because she was NOT ready to forgive him for what he'd put her and her mother through! Truly, Riley should have respected Maya's call on this even if she disagreed or didn't understand it because it was MAYA's father, and Maya's family NOT Riley's.

Of course, what made the above (and so many other) examples all the more frustrating was that NO ONE called Riley out on totally flouting others' boundaries or disrespecting others' calls on when to share their pasts and/or live their lives(and these were folks she kept loudly claiming to love and care about) but they kept telling her she was so wonderful and perfect! All of which contributed to the show being nowhere as entertaining or successful as BMW.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by PracTz

Yeah, Riley ranting on Lucas for not pouring his guts out to her ASAP about his past instead of respecting his boundaries and letting him know she'd be there to listen when he was ready to share was bad enough but what made it worse was that she threw a huge tantrum to CORY( that literally put her kid brother to shame) for not disclosing Lucas's confidential records to HER- and neither Lucas nor Cory called her on her 'tude (Cory should have spelled out to Riley that, as a teacher, he was legallyrequired to keep all his students' records confidential- even from her). Alas, they each apologized and caved in!

Not the only time Riley got too entitled to others' biz. After Cory and Lucas suggested (and only suggested) to Maya to forgive her own father for the Class Forgiveness Project and Maya expressly told Riley to 'butt out' after she chimed in her vote for Maya to do so, Riley evidently nagged and pestered Maya to reach out to her deadbeat dad and confront him- against Maya's own better judgement. Even so, after confronting him, Maya still felt tons of guilt because she was NOT ready to forgive him for what he'd put her and her mother through! Truly, Riley should have respected Maya's call on this even if she disagreed or didn't understand it because it was MAYA's father, and Maya's family NOT Riley's.

Of course, what made the above (and so many other) examples all the more frustrating was that NO ONE called Riley out on totally flouting others' boundaries or disrespecting others' calls on when to share their pasts and/or live their lives(and these were folks she kept loudly claiming to love and care about) but they kept telling her she was so wonderful and perfect! All of which contributed to the show being nowhere as entertaining or successful as BMW.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by TMC

Why Andi Mack works, and Girl Meets World doesn't.



Begins at about the 5:16 mark.