Le Monde de Riley

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

Don't get me wrong... Boy Meets World was good, but this spin off is not done well. The lead, Rowan Blanchard, is visibly very nervous, and tries to hard to make her character different from Ben Savages' character, Cory. Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel are back and still the same, but with a hint of absolute CHEESINESS!! The show is very cheesy and seems like it only will MAYBE entertain an 8 year old. The show does not target the Disney pre-teen, teen audience, even though the characters are supposed to be around that age. The only standout of this show is Sabrina Carpenter, who overshadows Blanchard by basically saying everything for her like a ventriloquist. Carpenter delivers a very real, and raw performance as her troubled character Maya. The only thing Boy Meets World fans will be happy about is the endless cameos and appearances of the original cast. This show needs a better script, and a better storyline for 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 fun in small doses, having watched it after being a huge Boy Meets World fan it is hard to live up to those expectations. The first 2 seasons show the kids in middle school and are a bit easier to understand the state of the show, however once they reach midway through season 2 it goes downhill rather fast.

The first seasons are a kid's/family show that show two girls and their friends going through middle school. These are enjoyable until the show kind of tries to hard basically. At the halfway point of season 2, the show tries to replicate BMW, but without any sense of realism. Playing up love triangles as a common and/or ok thing, while trying to portray the characters as growing and helping develop them. The show simply struggles to evolve with the obvious physical growth of the characters.. This boring, borderline innapropriate/unneccesary story arch continues into season 3, which sees them go to high school...

Immediately you can tell this is going to be the worst season yet.. The kids seem like middle schoolers in high school. They try to up the drama, and it honestly is basically the same thing as season 1, the only true character evolution is Farkle, and that is mainly superficial and on the surface and maybe a bit less ADHD. Lucas is boring as ever and simply doesn't have much acting range at all... Maya is trying WAY too hard to be Shawn without any of the appeal the original character had.. Zay and Smackle are just kind of there.. While Riley is still the same uber-optimistic girl she always has been, but without maturing despite being portrayed in stories that clearly want to be portrayed as such..

The show simply never matured.. The stories were super light, and almost nothing strikes home as the original show did. They force relationships without any semblance of chemistry or reasoning. This show is enjoyable as long as you don't expect anything beyond a typical disney kids show from this era, it just really falls flat in terms of life lessons and doesn't seem the slightest bit realistic and is constantly over or underacted..

The positives however are there, which makes it somewhat watchable.. Though the stories are cringey, Riley is very lovable and is a good leader with her constant and almost exhausting optimism. her relationship with Maya may dwindle as the seasons go on and they almost become the same kind of person, but it is still similar to the Shawn/Cory relationship. The cameos are good, but sadly not great and never take any emphasis over anything. Unlike the original show it is ALWAYS about Riley or Maya, without much flowing plot or subplots.

The original characters Topanga and Cory are okay, but pretty unbelievable as parents. Cory is probably the best written character and has basically become a mixture of Mr Turner and Mr Feeny, but sometimes comes of very corny.. Topanga is just too inconsistent and sometimes is stern and other times goofy. She is referred to as smart, but never shows it as in the original show. Shawn is just barely there, which is a shame as when he shows up the episodes are better, same with Eric.

I know this dragged a bit, but I really wanted to enjoy this show fully, and though it is OKAY, it is not even what i would call good or great, especially if you are expecting something like the original show, it simply is too vanilla and lacks the hard hitting stories and characters that made the original a show you could connect with.

Show it to your kids, at least the first few seasons, and talk with them about the lessons within, but don't expect too much family enjoyment, as it simply isn't a well rounded show with stuff for everyone, it is sadly more limited.

As a BMW fan I'd give it a 2/10 As a non-BMW fan knowing nothing of it, i'd give it a 6/10 compared to other Disney shows these days.

Worth a watch, give it a try

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!!!