Bizaardvark (seasons 1 & 2)

Bizaardvark (seasons 1 & 2)
You thought So Random! was Disney's worst show? Think again.
Genre: Comedy Running Time: 21–24 minutes Country: United States Release Date: June 24, 2016 – April 13, 2018 Network(s): Disney Channel Created by: Kyle Stegina Josh Lehrman Distributed by: Walt Disney Television Starring: Madison Hu Olivia Rodrigo Jake Paul (S1E1-S2E17) DeVore Ledridge Ethan Wacker Episodes: 42

Bizaardvark is an American comedy sitcom that ran for three seasons on Disney Channel from June 24, 2016 to April 13, 2019.

Plot

Best friends Paige and Frankie put their talents to use while making video blogs for their online comedy channel. Upon reaching 10,000 subscribers for their comedic music videos, the friends are invited to produce their videos at Vuuugle Studios, an influential entity in the industry. There, they continue their quest to reach the top of the blogosphere. Together, with longtime friend Bernie and fellow Vuuugle stars Dirk and Amelia, the girls embark on a series of comedic adventures in hopes of becoming even bigger online celebrities.

Why These Seasons are Bizarre

1. To get the elephant out of the room, it’s a blatant and shameless rip-off of iCarly as both shows are about two teenage girls who make web videos and get into crazy antics, but without any of the charm of the former. It was most likely made in an attempt for Disney Channel to cash in on Nickelodeon’s sitcoms (aka Nickcoms). Because of this, the plot feels rather unoriginal. While Coop and Cami Ask the World, another Disney Channel sitcom also has a similar plot to iCarly, it was executed much better, unlike this show.
   • Some of the characters are rips off of characters from iCarly.
     • Paige and Frankie are rip offs of Carly and Sam.
     • Dirk is seen as a rip-off of both Spencer and Gibby.
     • Grandma Schotz is a rip-off of Marissa Benson (Though she can be funny in Season 3).
     • Victor is a rip-off of Nevel Papperman.
       • And Victor is way more unlikable as he attends to ruin other comedy channels just so he can be the funniest channel on Vuuugle, which means he is jealous.
     • Belissa and Principal Karen are rip offs of both Mandy and Nora.
   • It also lazily rehashes episodes from iCarly.
     • "Superfan" is a rehash of both "iAm Your Biggest Fan" and "iPsycho".
     • "Bernie Moves Out" is a rehash of "iMove Out".
     • "The BFF (Before Frankie Friend)" feels too similar to "iReunite with Missy”.
     • "Spoiler Alert: Belissa Returns" and "Clash of the Superfans" feel too similar to "iStill Psycho" and even the Sam & Cat (iCarly and Victorious' not so good spin-off) episode "#SuperPsycho".
     • "Control + Alt + Escape!" also feels too similar to “iPsycho”.
2. The title of the show is stupid, which is also the name of Paige and Frankie's Vuuugle channel.
3. Graphically unfunny, nonsensical, cringeworthy and forced humor.
4. Laughably bad acting.
5. Vuuugle is a bad parody of YouTube. But unlike YouTube, instead of filming at home, Vuuuglers film at a studio. Also, it sounds too similar to Google, the company that owns YouTube.
6. Unlikable and poorly written characters.
   • Paige and Frankie are unique to one another but are seen as very annoying by a lot of viewers.
   • Bernie is a very creepy teenage boy who has a stalker-like crush on Amelia.
   • Amelia is a girly, spoiled bottle blonde countrygirl stereotype that teaches the show's target audience how to be materialistic. Also, unlike some of the other characters, she hasn’t received any character development or redemption.
   • Dirk is an annoying and unfunny comic relief.
   • Horse Face Guy is a ridiculous and pointless character who serves no purpose to the show other than being filler. He could be written out and nothing would change.
     • To make matters worse, there's an entire episode centered around him in Season 3 ("Who is Horse Face Guy?").
7. Like most modern sitcoms, the laugh track is extremely overused and plays after almost every line.
8. These seasons have episodes that are pretty mean-spirited, like “In Your Space” (though it's still considered a good episode) and "Puff and Frankie".
9. Unlike Carly and Sam's web videos in iCarly, the web videos and music videos that Paige and Frankie make are extremely unfunny, unoriginal and cringe-inducing and to add salt to the wound, the music videos have low quality special effects and green screen (even for Disney Channel standards).
10. Jake Paul, an infamous and controversial YouTube star, stars in the show. His character Dirk is no better. Thankfully, both him and Dirk got kicked off the show during the latter half of season 2 and haven't appeared since. Although Dirk's absence was briefly explained "House Band" from Season 3 (the reason given is that he simply left Vuuugle with no other explanation given as to what happened to him), he usually isn't mentioned by the other characters anymore, like he never even existed in the first place!
    • To make matters worse, Jake Paul's older brother, Logan Paul guest starred in "The First Law of Dirk" as Dirk's older brother Kirk, though Kirk never appeared again after that episode, especially after Jake and Dirk were removed from the show. Also, the episode was later pulled off of reruns on Disney Channel due to Logan Paul's suicide forest video controversy. It's not even available on Disney+ due to that reason, though the episode can still be watched on DisneyNOW.
11. Some episodes have concepts that sound interesting on paper but ended up getting poorly executed in the process.
    • "Frankie Has a Hater" is about Paige and Frankie being confronted by criticism. It could have provided a good moral about how to handle criticism. But instead, the moral this episode provides is that "you should overact to criticism, going as far as stalking the person who criticized you".
    • "Chocolate Bananas" is about Paige and Frankie discovering graffiti on the school lockers and Amelia being accused of the crime. It could have been a good episode without the infamous "Chocolate Bananas" video, poor writing and the bad subplot about Bernie being upset that Dirk doesn't tell him he's his best friend.
    • "Softball: The Musical" is about the gang creating a musical to save face with Dirk. This sounds interesting at first, but ends up being a stupid episode, due to poor writing and unfunny humor.
    • "Don't Think, Just Dare" is about Paige wanting to end her relationship with her boyfriend. This could have been an interesting episode, if not for poor writing and the stupid subplot about Frankie, Amelia and Bernie falling asleep to their teacher's voice.
12. Most of the songs are painful to listen to, feature extreme amounts of auto-tune and occasionally rip-off other songs. Examples are "Blobfish", "So Dramatic", "Oops Wrong Emoji", "Sick Days Are Awesome", "If I Had A Dog", "Lemonade Stand", "The Greatest Rap Song of All Time" (even though it's technically not a song), "Flying Shoes", "Notes in Your Lunchbag", "Chocolate Bananas" and "The Comeback Song".
13. Tries way too hard to be hip and current as it heavily overuses internet and social media references and has pointless guest appearances from internet celebrities just to pander to kids and teens, like JoJo Siwa, Grumpy Cat, Logan Paul (as mentioned in Reason #10), Lilly Singh, Thomas Sanders, ect. iCarly made the occasional attempt to be hip and current, but not constantly (I.e. "iMeet Fred") and mainly focused on character interactions and development, rather than satirizing rabid fan bases and pop culture. Thankfully, this got toned down a little in Season 2.
14. The treatment of Paige and Frankie in their old school in Season 1 is unlikeable and stereotypical of private schools.
15. Extremely poor and nonsensical writing. For example, in "Frankie Has A Hater", when Frankie discovers that someone has posted a negative comment about Bizaardvark, instead of ignoring it or deleting it, she becomes so upset by it that she tracks down and confronts the person who wrote the comment. This shows that Frankie can't take criticism.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Bizaardvark's concept is overall pretty interesting as 2 best friends hitting 10,000 subscribers on their channel and getting invited to the Vuuugle (or any other video sharing service) studio to film their videos, but it was executed poorly. Could've been done better.
2. While stupid, the show title is at least creative.
3. It jump-started the careers of Olivia Rodrigo and Madison Hu.
4. There are some funny and even heartwarming moments here and there.
5. Most of the characters experience development as the series progresses.
   • For example; Frankie Wong went from a bland girl who doesn’t take criticism to a girl who has such a sassy attitude who can take criticism and is very self confident.
6. Season 2 is a slight improvement, as the attempts to be hip and current got toned down a little and Dirk got taken off the show in the second half of the season.
   • The final season is a big improvement over these seasons.
7. There are some good episodes, such as:
   • "Mom! Stop!"
   • "Paige's Birthday Is Gonna Be Great"
   • "In Your Space!" (despite the pointless guest appearance from Thomas Sanders, which ended Season 1 on a high note)
   • "First Day of School" (which started Season 2 on a high note)
   • "The Doctor Will See You Now"
   • "Friend Fight!"
   • "Paige Is Wrong"
   • "Her, Me, and Hermie" (which ended these seasons on a high note)
8. Bernie is a very original character and while he can be unlikable at times, he is often hilarious and his comedy makes the show a lot more fun.
9. Some good songs, such as "Love for the Haters", "Party Don't Stop", "Bad hair day ", " The Comeback Song " and "The Worst Lullaby Ever".
   • The theme song is passable, with the exception of the line "Let's go make some videos!" which is pretty annoying.

Episodes With Their Own Pages

• Bizaardvark Changes Lives (Season 3)

Reception

Seasons one and two of the show were met with mostly negative reviews from fans and critics alike, on IMDb the first season holds a 4.3/10, while the second season got a slightly more mixed reception receiving a 5.6/10.

Trivia

• Ironically, Jake Paul's older brother Logan Paul (who guess starred as Kirk in the episode "The First Law of Dirk") was fired from a YouTube series he starred in titled Foursome after its third season, following his suicide forest video controversy, six months after Jake Paul was fired from Bizaardvark and Disney Channel. Like Jake Paul's role as Dirk, Logan Paul's role as Alec Fixler from Foursome was completely written out without a replacement actor.
• Dirk, Jake Paul's character's final appearance was in the 17th episode of the second season "Bernie Moves Out" before Jake Paul was fired from Disney and his character was permanently removed from the show without a replacement actor.
• The show was originally going to be named “Paige & Frankie” but they changed it to “Bizaardvark” in the process.

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