Victorious
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Victorious is an American comedy television series created by Dan Schneider for Nickelodeon. The series focuses on teenager Tori Vega (Victoria Justice) in her adventures throughout the fictitious performing arts school of Hollywood Arts. Joining the series cast is Leon Thomas III, Matt Bennett, Elizabeth Gillies, Ariana Grande, Avan Jogia, and Daniella Monet.
The series was first released on March 27, 2010 after the Kids Choice Awards ceremony of the year, with holding four Emmy nominees. After the greenlight of Sam & Cat, Victoria Justice took to Twitter feed expressing its cancellation. Because of this, the series was not renewed for a fourth season and was split of the third season. The final episode “Victori-Yes” premiered on February 2, 2013
Plot
The series follows Tori Vega, a teenage girl who is accepted into Hollywood Arts, a fictional elite performing arts high school for talented teens. Other students at Hollywood Arts (and the students who later make up Tori's group of friends) include the musical prodigy Andre Harris, the socially awkward Robbie Shapiro and his ventriloquist dummy Rex, the sweet but dim-witted red-head Cat Valentine, the sarcastic and mean Jade West (who serves as Tori's frenemy), Jade's handsome down-to-earth, actor boyfriend Beck Oliver, and Tori's very untalented and self-absorbed older sister Trina. Other characters include Erwin Sikowitz, the performing-arts teacher for Hollywood Arts; Lane Alexander, the school's guidance counselor; and Sinjin Van Cleef, an odd and often unsettling classmate that handles audiovisual.
Why It Shines
- A chock full of likable characters, including Tori, Beck, Andre, Robbie, Cat, Jade, Rex, Trina, and Sikowitz.
- The website the characters use, "The Slap" (a parody of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube) is really cool, and It avoids product placements.
- Plenty of funny and hilarious moments.
- Creative storylines.
- The acting is pretty good, most notably from Elizabeth Gillies, Daniella Monet, Ariana Grande (seasons 1 & 2), and Eric Lange.
- It had a crossover with iCarly in 2011, titled "iParty with Victorious". Not only that, but some of iCarly's cast members, specifically Jerry Trainor and Nathan Kress, make brief cameos as audience members.
- Even after the crossover, there was still room for references to iCarly to be made, such as having the logo pop up in certain places and even a cameo from Gibby in "Tori Goes Platinum". They even made a spin-off where Sam and Cat become friends. Although it wasn't very good, it was nice to see the characters return.
- The color scheme is decent.
- Awesomes transition scenes.
- It shows kids what it's like to go to a performing arts school.
- Rex is a hilarious comic relief character with his snarky comments. Jake Farrow did an outstanding job playing him.
- Cat Valentine is a super-adorable character, who is a air-headed, but soft-hearted girl and you can count on her to make you smile. She was a fan-favorite and got a co-lead in Sam & Cat.
- Andre Harris and Beck Oliver are both great straight men to their friends' antics.
- The relationship between Tori and Trina is good, with Tori's more sensible and down to earth personality playing off of Trina's narcissistic, rude, and desperate for fame attitude.
- The show had one episode as a parody of The Breakfast Club, which is not only funny but also a nice tribute to the movie.
- Robbie sings the Drake & Josh theme song on the end credits of the episode "Jade Gets Crushed".
- It was super popular when it came out and considered one of the best nickelodeon shows during the early 2010's.
Bad Qualities
- As the series went on, Cat was flanderized into an annoying and whiny idiot, that the majority of the fans of the show began to heavily dislike or even hate her, she will only get worse in Sam & Cat.
- Some other characters are also unlikable, like Jade West (seasons 2-4), Tori Vega, Trina Vega, and their parents, David and Holly Vega.
- There are plenty episodes that aren't good at all, such as the pilot episode (which wasn't a good start to the series), The Bird Scene, The Great Ping Pong Scam, Tori Gets Stuck, Brain Squeezers.
- The next show, Sam & Cat wasn't well-received, and got cancelled after one season.
- It also marked the downfall of nickelodeon.
- While Tori Vega is a good protagonist, compared to other characters in the show, she can often come off as the least interesting, or in some occasions, the least likable.
- Due to the fact that it was meant to be a kid's show, the humor can be very random and stupid at times.
- The show can have some very inappropriate jokes, such as Sikowitz saying "Andre, nobody wants to see big nudes" and Cat's "Jade can't fit her boobs in the hamburger".
- Sikowitz is also a very questionable teacher and some of his actions may come off as inappropriate.
- When his students ask for help with homework, he refuses to help them but it comes off in a way where he expects the student to figure out the assignment for themselves. While it's good to encourage independent thinking, what if the student does the homework wrong because they misunderstood the instructions? Sikowitz is at fault for that.
- It's indicated a few times that he's a drug addict.
- Inviting his students over to his house for a sleepover as their characters in the episode aptly titled, Sleepover at Sikowitz's is not only inappropriate, but it also illegal for students to get involved in noninstructional activities with students (like, contacting them on social media). To make matters worse, he didn’t tell his students’ guardians where they’re going, which is also bad, especially since it scared Andre’s grandmother. That was very irresponsible on his part.
- Going along with the Pingpong scam in The Great Ping Pong Scam. He should know better to discourage illegal activity.
- Making "bets" he expects his students to follow outside of school hours, such as no modern technology for a week (Cell Block) and saying "yes" to everything (Victori-Yes). He should’ve only expected his students to do the bets while in his class, not outside of school as it results in a disastrous consequences. Like, what if his students ran into an emergency in Cell Block? They should be able to dial 911. Or what if parents get worried because their child isn’t responding to their cellphones? Sikowitz is just putting his students in danger. Same to can go for saying “yes” to everything, especially since it caused Cat and Robbie to get robbed by criminals.
- The whole "fake date" assignment with Jade and Tori.
- Skipping over Robbie when he reached his hand in the play box.
- As the show went on, it seemed like they ran out of ideas.
- Little to no character development despite having four seasons.
- When Jade West mimics Tori's voice in some southern country accent, it gets really annoying and unfunny.
- The final episode, "Victori-Yes" (it was the last in airing order, but "The Slap Fight" was the last one in production order), was a horrible way to end the show, as it unexpectedly got cancelled and this episode was not originally how they planned to end the show.
- Unlike ICarly, which got a revival in 2021, there are currently no plans to revive the Victorious franchise, no matter how much the fans want it to happen.
Reception
Like iCarly, Victorious received generally mixed-positive reviews, it received 7/10 on IMDB.