‘Girl Meets World’ episode 9 review: Was ‘Girl Meets 1961’ a worthy trip to the past?
One of the reasons that we’ve stuck with reviewing “Girl Meets World” episodes over the past several weeks is because we’ve wanted to see the show continue to display a certain level of nostalgia, and tribute what made the original “Boy Meets World” so successful. After all, this is why so many people out there probably started to watch with their kids.
What “Girl Meets 1961” did right was really go back in time to tribute a bygone era, and in the process of that had fun with many winks and nods to the original show. Just the format of this alone came from “Boy Meets World,” and original cast member Rider Strong was the director here. Seeing Riley as “Rosie” was a lot of fun, as was finding characters learn something about themselves from a past that really didn’t exist. We also appreciate the show trying to slow down at times the Riley / Lucas relationship. Making this so obvious turned out to be a bore, and also felt a little soon given the ages of the characters.
The downside of all this is that there was a good five or so minutes in what was already a very short show where it felt to a certain extent like “Girl Meets World” was just killing a whole lot of time. For example, we spent a while listening to beatnik poetry, and then Maya singing. Yes, we understand that Sabrina Carpenter in a few years will probably be trying to emulate many of the other Disney alum who go into pop stardom, but why can’t it wait until then? It really felt like there was not enough story for the show, and instead of just making this into a B-story, it was stretched out to be its own episode.
So if you didn’t mind the filler, maybe you enjoyed this one. It was a nice nod to a bygone era and had its moments, but is probably not going down as a classic anytime soon. Grade: B-.
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Photo: Disney Channel