Le Monde de Riley

Where to begin? There seems to be an unwritten rule that Disney Channel sitcoms must be mindless and badly-written. Yes, I know they are not intended for adults, but children are actually intelligent beings. As a kid I loved Wonder Years, which was an excellent show, very well-written. I also liked Boy Meets World, although even back then I could see that it was clearly worse than Wonder Years. Still, it was meant to be sillier and it had enough heart and integrity to make you care about the characters and be willing to accompany them as they grew up and learned life's lessons.

Now there comes this spin-off and I tried watching for nostalgia's sake, but I had to give up after forcing myself to watch a few chapters. Girl Meets World is bad even when compared to other Disney shows. It just has no redeeming features. Sure, it's nice to see Cory and Topanga again, but I still spent the time cringing instead of remembering fondly. They decided to make a spin-off of a beloved old show, and they took the trouble to hire the original actors... couldn't they have taken the trouble to hire decent writers too?

The writing is bad, and I would feel sorry for the actors for getting so little to work with if they did not do a bad job too, either overacting or being expressionless. Cory's classes are a mess, Farkle is a creep with no nuances, Lucas is inexpressive and vacant, Riley is all about making overacted faces, with no personality...

If you are interested in this because of Boy Meets World, sure, give it a try and form your own opinion, but be warned that you'll probably decide this is a painful waste of time.

THIS SHOW IS THE REASON WHY DISNEY CHANNEL IS NOT AS GOOD AS IT USED TO BE.

This spin-off is seriously overrated! It's TERRIBLE! I knew this show would suck the moment they said it was gonna be on Disney Channel. I can't believe the same people who wrote and created Boy Meets World are doing this show. The writing is awful and can't stand on it's own. You could make a video of the side by side rehashes of dialogue and scenes from the original show. Give the show it's own identity creators.

Riley is very obnoxious and annoying. Very unlikable and has no distinct personality. Her character is inconsistent. One minute she's a smart straight A student, then others shes a complete idiot. She's weird too. Gives herself awards in the school hallway?? WTF??? Rowan Blanchard is a horrible actress with her cartoon facial expressions, nasally voice, and tending to smile during her serious moments of dialogue. She's also a princess Mary Sue who never gets in trouble, always gets her way, has 3 guys fawning over, everyone loves her, straight A student, nice house, loving family. Little miss perfect! She has no hobbies or interest except obsessing over a boy who has no personality.

Maya is the breakout star and the only good actor on this show. You know something's wrong with the show when the best friend is overshadowing the main character in acting, personality, and likability. She can be annoying at times though. I wished they stopped this poor Maya, woe is me shtick, it's getting old since she's got a great life. Maya also being the new Shawn is laughable. Maya is supposedly poor with her designer clothes/shoes, nice mother, cool bedroom, perfect hair. Give me a break..... Her and Riley's relationship is unhealthy and cloying. They might as well be conjoined twins at birth always together by the hip.

Farkle went from an creepy Urkel ripoff who stalks the girls to a normal boring guy who stopped being funny with zero personality. Corey Fogelmanis is a terrible actor who has gotten worse since he changed his look. All his line readings are monotone with no inflection. Is is happy, sad, or angry. I can't tell because his acting is so emotionless. Girlfriend Smackle is lame and her name is stupid.

Lucas is the boring love interest with no personality. He's also a Gary Stu who all the girls love and tell him how handsome he is. This guy has zero flaws and doesn't act like a real junior high school boy. Way too mature and wordily for his age. Going into Season 3 and he has zero character development. Peyton Meyer has no acting talent whatsoever. He's emotionless, wooden, and very stiff. His career will be over when the show ends. Riley and Lucas have zero chemistry and feel forced.

Cory being a teacher was a terrible idea and feels forced. Has no backbone and lets his class walk all over him. He's no Feeny and he's following his students to High School. Wow...how original.

Topanga is useless and might as well not be here. She's just the generic bland nice mom. Fishel must be doing this for a paycheck because her acting is terrible.

Auggie sucks! The kid is a terrible actor and adds nothing to the show. Morgan was funnier and better. Judy Winslow his character please! Should have never scrapped the older brother big mistake. His girlfriend friend Ava is annoying too. Their scenes/plots are a waste of time.

Zay was thrown in Season 2 as the token black. His character is is the only one in the group that's act like a real kid/teenager.

This show is not realistic or relate-able at all. The girls dress like fashion runway models with their high heels and hair salon perfect curled hair. Kids walking out of class, kids ruling the school, talking in class whenever the feel like. Unrealistic dialogue (why do these kids talk like they're 30 years old)Stupid love triangle?? These kids are 12 years old!!! Give me a break! They live in New York City and no Blacks or Hispanics. Friends 2.0

And is this a sitcom or a drama? Always preaching and beating the audience over the head with their morals and life lessons. Way too melodramatic. Where's the funny comedy? All these miserable kids do is sit around and mope about dumb stuff. Do these kids ever have fun? Go to the movies, shop at the mall, go to parties. Come on, act like real teenagers.

Sabrina Carpenter deserves better! I can't wait until she gets off this piece of trash excuse of a show that does not deserved that 7.1 rating.

While Boy Meets World targeted pre-teens to adults, Girl Meets World is strictly for the pre-teens to teen age bracket. With silly story lines, Girl Meets World is much more like a Hannah Montana, ICarly, or Wizards of Waverly, than it is to the original Boy Meets World. While the format of learning a life lesson is still there, it is found in a much sillier way.

One thing that I really don't like, is that Cory and Topanga don't act like parents. For example, in the episode that Riley wanted to go to a dance instead of going to Cony Island to ride the Cyclone with her father. Cory pouts to Topanga, tries to guilt Riley into going, and is just over dramatic. There was a similar episode on Boy Meets World, where Eric and Cory don't want to play in the father-son softball game. There is no silly drama, in fact they don't even know that they hurt there father's feelings until after the game is over and he went by himself. In the original Boy Meets World, Amy and Allan came off as believable parents. Corey and Topanga come off as being silly and over dramatic.

FYI like Morgan in the early seasons, the little brother Auggie, is awesome!!!

What happens when Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel get it on? According to Michael Jacobs and April Kelly, you get Rowan Blanchard and August Maturo. While many have incorrectly labeled "Boy Meets World" as a Disney Channel series, simply because it was shown in reruns on DC late at night years ago, the production actually pre-dates Disney's acquisition of ABC and its former parent company Capital Cities Communications Industries. And though I was well past the age of the main character and his supporting cast when that series aired, it was impossible to ignore all the kids who either grew up in the 1990's and saw this, or just saw the reruns who have been clamoring for something reminiscent of that series. Obviously, it came in the form of "Girl Meets World."

As mentioned in the first paragraph Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel reprise their roles as Cory Matthews and the former Topanga Lawrence. Cory is a teacher at John Quincy Adams Middle School, and Topanga, who has been married to Cory since the waning years of Boy Meets World is a corporate lawyer with two kids, Riley and Auggie Matthews played by the previously mentioned Rowan Blanchard and August Maturo. Sabrina Carpenter plays Riley's sidekick Maya Hart. I still remember her from her breakout guest appearance on the Austin & Ally episode "Moon Week & Mentors," but she's nothing like the nervous geeky Lucy Gluckman here. She's artistic, level-headed and cynical, and we find out part of the reason why she's the latter later in the season. The show focuses primarily on Riley and Maya, the former of which has a crush on Lucas Friar (Peyton Meyer), the show's heartthrob who's a Texas transplant and also a military brat, and seems a little too good-natured for the streets and schools of the Five Boroughs. Watching Maya make fun of him for being a "cowboy," and hearing him blow it off is hilarious.

Corey Foglemanis plays "Farkle," who is a next-generation carbon copy of Stuart Minkus from the original series. Thankfully, there's a genuine reason for that -- he's the son of Stuart Minkus, and not just a cheap attempt to recreate the previous supporting character. From his brief appearance in the pilot episode, I've been a little worried that William Daniels was going to wind up like Alec Guiness in the Star Wars sequels. This is a man who's acting career pre-dates the Golden Age of Television. Since it has been confirmed he's supposed to appear during Season 2, we can only hope at this point that George Feeny will still be among the land of the living.

The series started to pick up a little roughly in mid-season, with episodes like "Girl Meets Maya's Mother," "Girl Meets Smackle," and "Girl Meets 1961." In "Girl Meets Maya's Mother," we find out Maya's single mother is a waitress and struggling actress. Jessie Prescott has better luck with her acting career. Ann Marie had better luck in 1965, and she had it better than both fictional characters. In "Girl Meets Smackle," we're reunited with the academic rival and pre-teen lust-filled admirer of Farkle. Isadora Smackle (Cecelia Balagot), who originally was seen in "Girl Meets Popular," is as capable at smacking him down in the debate competitions as she is damn near ready to jump his bones. She requests a makeover from the two girls, and though baffled over the nature of beauty as well as herself around boys, she still goes through another debate unscathed. I have to admit the last line from that episode is quite heartwarming, if a bit dishonest. In "Girl Meets 1961," we find that the kids had ancestors who hung out at a local beatnik café modeled after Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village, and almost changed the world... the key word in that sentence being "almost."

Besides the heartwarming moments and "important lessons" the show tries to foist upon the audience, usually in bumpers near the epilogues where the two girls throw paper airplanes in front of some fake CGI backdrop of New York City, the show relies heavily on it's connections to the characters of the original series. The most blatant example of this being in the episode "Girl Meets Home for the Holidays," where Cory's parents and Sean come to visit. Other BMW-connected episodes include "Girl Meets the Forgotten," and "Girl Meets Flaws," where we find the bully who used to attack Cory when he was in school is now a janitor, and in the case of the latter episode helps to defend Farkle from a bully. As comforting as it is to think that all the bullies we knew when we were in school grew up to be total losers in real life, that's not always the case. Nevertheless, the show also distinguishes itself from more far-fetched shows on Disney Channel such as "Wizards of Waverly Place," "That's So Raven," and to a lesser extent "Hannah Montana." After all, before there even was a Disney Channel in the first place, Walt himself use to pride himself on using magic to impress his young fans. In this case, the magic is in the heart. Let's hope the next two, three, or even four seasons prove to be worthwhile.