Girl Meets World: A Retrospective
Ah, Girl Meets World. It’s known as a sequel series to Boy Meets World. It was a show from Disney Channel that aired from 2014 to 2017, over the course of three seasons. It follows the adventures of Riley Matthews, a 13-year-old girl who so happens to be the daughter of Cory Matthews and Topanga Lawrence-Matthews, as she grows up and learns the world around her. Among the cast includes, Maya, her best friend, Farkle, her weird classmate who is also a friend of hers, Lucas, a guy from Texas and a love interest to Riley, and her brother Auggie.
The show was meant to be a continuation to the original Boy Meets World, which was a sitcom that ran from 1993 to 2000 on ABC. The show featured many of the same characters and actors from the original show, such as Cory, Topanga, Shawn, Eric, Mr. Feeny, and others. The show also tried to tackle some of the same themes and issues that the original show did, such as friendship, family, love, identity, and morality. Some of them were pretty good, while others not so much. However, there were some times that I felt the show fell flat on its face. I felt the show was too inconsistent and unrealistic in its tone and plot, though I will say they do handle a few topics quite well, with Riley trying to deal with having a bully. I’ll also give them credit for just leaving who the bully is up to the audience (though they do give out that the bully was a girl). The show often switched between being a comedy and being dramatic, without finding a balance or a transition.
I watched it with my cousin when I was watching over her when she was well, 10 years old. I just couldn’t really follow the plot of some of the episodes, and there was one character I just really couldn’t stand, and that was Lucas Friar. I’m sorry, but I just don’t see the hype around him. I just felt like the writers had to slap a different personality on Lucas every episode as they had no idea what to do with him. They probably should have had a set personality for him, like maybe in a couple of season 2 episodes, like you know, have him be a sweet guy with a dark side (like as Farkle said, that side is Texas Lucas and it shows up when you make him mad) that shows up in more than two or three episodes. And the show often wastes its potential. You mean to tell me we could have had Farkle be diagnosed with autism and learn to live with it, appealing to an autistic audience and have a character they could relate to, only for them to just say, “Nope. Farkle’s just weird and that’s that.”
These are some of the reasons why Girl Meets World was not as successful or popular as Boy Meets World, and why it was cancelled after only three seasons. The show had some potential and some good moments, but it also had some flaws and some bad moments. The show would have worked better if it had the same tone as the original series Boy Meets World. Not completely like the show, but have some elements of the show be incorporated into the new show. It could have had been put on ABC or something, but that didn’t happen. I heard that someone who worked on the show said the same thing. The show may have been a mixed bag, but it did have a part of the Disney Channel legacy.
