‘Girl Meets World’ Review: “Pilot” (1×01)

Girl Meets World is hard to review. I don’t mean that it’s particularly complicated, because it isn’t. I don’t mean that anything is difficult to discuss, because it’s not. But every time I try to talk about what I like and don’t like, I end up just curling up in a little fanboy ball and being happy seeing Cory and Topanga back on screen. So, with that in mind, let’s get to it.

For those of you who need to be brought up to date, Girl Meets World is a new series airing on the Disney Channel, and is a direct sequel to the 90’s sitcom classic, Boy Meets World. If you haven’t watched Boy Meets World, go watch it. No, like right now. Yes, all seven seasons. The review will still be here when you get back.

…You all caught up? Good, because if you weren’t a fan of Boy Meets World, then there’s probably not a lot worth watching in this pilot. It’s really reminiscent of early BMW, very earnest and hopeful. The pilot episode finds main character Riley Matthews (played by an eerily appropriate-looking Rowan Blanchard) being passed the torch by her father, Cory Matthews (a returning Ben Savage), picking up right where we left off at the end of Boy Meets World, with Cory figuring out what the title meant. She and her best friend, Shawn Hunter sound-alike Maya Hart, played by a stellar Sabrina Carpenter, pull a scheme straight out of early Boy Meets World and stage a revolution in Cory’s classroom, fighting against the unfairness of homework. Everything plays out exactly how you’d expect: mistakes are made, lessons are learned, everyone ends up better people.

It’s a children’s show. It’s about what I expected the plotline to be, especially for a pilot episode. What makes this special is how much love the creators clearly have for the source material. Everything from the paper airplane in the opening credits to the closing riff is lifted from Boy Meets World and used in a new way. We even have a statue in John Quincy Adams middle school in the same place that it was in Boy Meets World’s John Adams. The family dynamic is still there, as is the classroom dynamic, complete with a stable of (mostly) interesting characters, like Farkle Minkus, who watchers of Boy Meets World will recognize as the son of Cory Matthews’ childhood foe, Minkus, who is supposedly going to be making a cameo in an upcoming episode. We even get someone that might fulfill the neighborly Feeny role in Jackée Harry’s Evelyn Rand, delivering wisdom unexpectedly on the subway.

This is not to say that the show doesn’t have its flaws. Lucas Friar, Riley’s “love interest”, is flat and almost completely without any characterization in this pilot episode. Likewise for Cory’s intervention in Riley’s romantic life. Part of the charm of Boy Meets World is that the adults were never directly interfering. They would offer advice, maybe a little bit of nudging, but they never got directly involved in their children’s lives like Cory did in this episode. Maybe it’s a direct factor of him taking on both the father and the mentor role, but I would really like a return to form, where Cory offers advice and guidance, but doesn’t pull his daughter’s new love interest physically away from her. We also see Topanga and Auggie, Riley’s brother, but only for maybe a line or two, and they were criminally underused.

Finally, we have to talk about the cameo of Mr. Feeny. It’s nice that they signify the real passing of the torch, from Boy to Girl, from mentor to mentor, but I’ve got a lot of questions. Is Mr. Feeny dead? Is he famous? How’d he get on all those posters in the subway? These are only half-joking, but if they’re going to be serious about carrying over all of the canon from Boy Meets World, they’re going to have to be meticulous with it. This show is going to pull in half its audience in adults who really want to be brought back to the years that they watched Boy Meets World, and if they start messing with the original show, they’re going to alienate all those people.

This show has a lot of promise, but it’s got the weight of one of the best sitcoms ever hanging over its head. I really want this show to succeed, and I’m going to keep tuning in to watch. If it lives up to its promise, I’m going to be so happy, but it’s got a lot of fighting to do before it comes into its own. Here’s hoping.