Girl Meets World
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Girl Meets World is an American teen sitcom created by Michael Jacobs and April Kelly that aired on Disney Channel from June 27, 2014 to January 20, 2017. The series is a spinoff of Boy Meets World and stars Rowan Blanchard, Ben Savage, Sabrina Carpenter, Peyton Meyer, August Maturo, Danielle Fishel, and Corey Fogelmanis.
Plot
It has been several years since Cory and Topanga Matthews moved to New York City. The series follows their daughter, Riley Matthews, and her best friend, Maya Hart, as they navigate the challenges of life and school. Following along with them are their classmates, Lucas Friar and Farkle Minkus, and Riley's younger brother, Auggie.
Why It Takes On The World!
- The theme song, "Take On the World" by Sabrina Carpenter, is very catchy.
- Good set designs.
- Extremely faithful to the original show, Boy Meets World.
- Good acting, mainly from Rowan Blanchard, Sabrina Carpenter, and other cast members.
- Likable characters, including the good-girl Riley, the bad-girl Maya, Riley's little brother Auggie, Farkle, Lucas, Zay, Smackle. Even Cory and Topanga are still likable in this show.
- Several Boy Meets World cast members reprise their roles in the series, including Mr. Feeny, Eric Matthews, and Shawn Hunter.
- Austin & Ally do a cameo appearance in the episode "Girl Meets World of Terror 2".
- Riley and Maya's friendship is very heartwarming. As a matter of fact, the friendship amongst Riley, Maya, Farkle, Lucas, Smackle, and Zay is very heartwarming and they have great chemistry with each other.
- Farkle and Smackle's relationship is the only tolerable ship on the show and they don't have that much drama.
- Tackles mature topics, like if God is real or not, and bullying.
- Plenty of good morals and heartwarming scenes.
- Riley's little brother Auggie is so cute.
- While the outfit choices were pretty good, Maya's outfits in Season 3 inspires the '70s with a modern twist.
- The series finale "Girl Meets Goodbye" ended it on a high note.
Bad Qualities
- The love triangle amongst Riley, Maya, and Lucas is very tiresome..
- It can be too cheesy/preachy at times.
- Riley can be a little brat at times
- The laugh track plays nonstop.
- It received controversy for a hamfisted anti-communist episode and an episode where the characters react negatively to Farkle possibly having Asperger's (he doesn't, as it turns out).
- It's not quite as good as Boy Meets World.
- It never got a fourth season which is pretty disappointing unlike it's original show which got 7 seasons (It shows how hard for Disney channel sitcoms to get renewed for a 4th season).
Reception
Girl Meets World received a mixed reception, with many fans feeling it failed to capture the spirit of its predecessor, Boy Meets World. While there was initial excitement about seeing beloved characters like Cory and Topanga return, the show often delivered overly simplified life lessons that felt forced and cringy. This lack of genuine character development left viewers feeling that the characters weren't truly learning or growing. As the series progressed, older fansâwho had tuned in out of nostalgiaâbegan to lose interest, seeing it more as just another Disney Channel sitcom rather than a meaningful continuation of the original story. This decline in audience engagement was reflected in falling ratings and scheduling slips, ultimately causing Girl Meets World to fade from the network's radar and fail to achieve the cultural impact or success of Boy Meets World.
Girl Meets World scored a 7.1/10 rating on IMDb.
Trivia
- The show was supposed to get a fourth season before Disney unexpectedly cancelled it after its third, with creator Michael Jacobs even attempting to get streaming services like Netflix to renew the series.
- The series significantly fell off the network radar and saw schedule slips over the course of its run from a combination of ratings starting to decline and older audience starting to slowly abandon the show; many of them even saw it as less a proper sequel oand just another Disney Channel kidcom with Boy Meets World characters in it. Disney Channel decided to spread out the episodes with long breaks in between and group episodes (sometimes randomly) together to spill across non-prime nights (e.g. an entire week), which may have contributed significantly to the audience drop-off.
- To further build on this, the show was doing solid ratings of around 2.20 million viewers, but fell dramatically to the 1.6/1.7 range after the holiday hiatus in season 2, finally returning in January with episodes that were noticeably aired out of order (including "Girl Meets STEM", the 19th produced in that season's production order but the 26th in airing order, and "Girl Meets Communism", the 6th in that season's production order but the 28th in airing order) due to differing hair styles, characterizations and relationship moments. The final season was hampered by multiple week-long hiatuses in October, November and December, making it hard as a viewer to know when episodes were even airing. By the time the series' cancellation was announced in 2016, Disney Channel changed the show's schedule to air the final episodes at 6:30 PM as opposed to 8:30 PM.