It seems like with everything Dan Schneider has produced, semi-spin-offs are inevitable. It certainly would seem that way with every kids' show he has produced. Amanda Bynes became such a force on "All That," she got her own variety show, which she was much better than. Former All That & Amanda Show cast-members Drake Bell & Josh Peck got a show of their own, and now Miranda Cosgrove, who played Drake's little sister on that one gets her own show here.
Cosgrove plays as Carly Shay, a teenage girl from Seattle who's the host of her own internet site and show. Her co-host and best friend is Samantha Puckett, a girl played by Jennette McCurdy, and my memories of Miss McCurdy are from an exceptionally heart-breaking episode of "Law & Order; Special Victims Unit." Fortunatley, she gets to co-star in something much less heavy-handed. Not to say that the character she plays on this series is anything like that one guest appearance. She's an allegedly tomboy-ish, obnoxious girl who's hostile to a fault, always gets in trouble at school, and apparently has a drunken, mentally-ill mother who we see as often as Dr. Niles Crane's wife in "Fraiser."
The only boy on her show is their technical producer and cameraman Freddie Benson(Nathan Kress), a boy in Carly's class who lives in an apartment across the hall from her and has an unshakable crush on her. Carly has made it clear that she doesn't feel the same way, something he's painfully aware of. Sam thinks even less of him, since he's a frequent target of her insults. Carly gets to do what she does, because she lives with her brother Spencer, a 20-something avant-garde artist played by Jerry Trainor. Trainor is another veteran of "Schneider's Bakery," being known for his role as Crazy Steve in "Drake & Josh." It helps to try to think of him as a rational version of Kramer from "Seinfeld."
You wouldn't think that a TV show about a webcast would be interesting, but it is. If I tried to make a webshow, it would either bore the crap out of you, or annoy you to no end. In all honesty I'm as bad of a public speaker as President Bush. In any case, this show revolves around the lives of Carly & Sam and how they integrate it with the webshow, and how real life sometimes gets in the way and vice-versa. Speaking of real-life, it actually has real-live kids making their own webcasts for the show, although I'm convinced a lot of the kids are obscure kid actors. Good or bad, these videos tend to end up on the show, as well as Nickeodeon's website. And yes, you have some that are amusing and some that are annoying(your tastes may vary). These completely mental misadventures of Carly, Sam, and Freddie are hardly groundbreaking, but enjoyable nevertheless. If you don't have an aversion to kids' sitcoms, perhaps you should give it a try.
