We've got one hell of a crapstorm today my friends, and I'm not talking about the half inch of snow that fucked over my morning commute. No, this crapstorm is named Boy Meets World episode 13. I'm trying to think of how I can even approach this. There's maybe five sentences worth of content. Nothing is funny or interesting, the plot is pathetic, and I guess the life lesson is okay. It's especially perplexing since it was written by April Kelly, whom I've previously showered with accolades and praise. Honestly, this is probably the reason she never wrote another episode. If you have the overwhelming desire to be angry-bored for 20 minutes, go watch this episode of Boy Meets World.
Actual Review:
We start out in Feeny's classroom before class actually starts. This would normally take place in the cafeteria, but I suppose they wanted a seamless transition. Minkus hits on Topanga and she friendzones the shit out of him. This is crap, Topanga. Minkus is obviously superior to Cory. Mr. Feeny arrives and announces that they'll have a guest speaker to tell them about high school. The speaker turns out to be Eric and this happens:
There are two things to take away from that clip. First is what I consider to be the first incarnation of Eric's legendary Feeny Call. We can hear it in his tone, and we know that it's his destiny. Second is when Topanga makes googly eyes at Eric. Eric says some dumb shit about high school. Cory and Shawn are wearing clown costumes.
Somehow Topanga gets to the Matthews house. Everyone assumes she is in love with Cory, including Morgan who says something stupid. Gadzooks, how could this conundrum possibly be resolved? Cory shoves Topanga out the door instead of using his basic communication skills, where she goes all Sam Fisher for a chance to see Eric. Her dream comes true as Eric listens to Mr. Feeny explain why his presentation about high school was less than worthless.
"Shame on you Eric Matthews, you didn't tell Cory's class about drugs and alcohol and peer pressure, something that you're completely qualified to do!", says Mr. Feeny. I'm paraphrasing.
At lunch the next day, Topanga makes up a dumb ass excuse to come to Cory's house again and leaves her notebook behind. The boys peek at her notebook and learn that she actually likes Eric, not Cory. Zoinks! Maybe if we, the viewer, had been led, along with Cory and Shawn, to believe that she liked Cory then this might actually be a fun twist, but knowing the truth all along made it a complete waste of time. Topanga shows up at a different door than last time, which is mighty convenient. She and Eric have an awkward conversation.
This conversation goes on for a long time. Much longer than it needs to if they're simply trying to progress the story. And Eric is using his soothing PSA voice. So one of two things is going on. Either they're telling their 15 year old male viewers not to date 11 year olds, which I doubt, or they're telling young female viewers not to fall for teenage boys based solely on their good looks. Orrrrrrrr, mayyyyyyyybe it's more of a comment on the futility of trying to prevent young girls from doing that, since Topanga completely refuses to relent.
Then again, it might be a comment on the futility of trying to prevent EITHER gender from being superficial. April Kelly has earned the benefit of the doubt, so we'll go with that one. Even so, it's not presented well at all and no one except for me would ever even think of that. That was Topanga's sister who came to pick her up, by the way. Her name is Nebula and the rest of the series takes place in an alternate universe where she never existed.
In Feeny's class the next day, Eric shows up randomly and gives another, much more after-school-special speech to the students. I'll go ahead and post the whole thing here. I have a lot to say about it, so check it out for the full effect. It's not bad, I promise.
As we've seen before, April Kelly sort of baits us into thinking that we're going to get a trite platitude of a life lesson, and ultimately comes through with something meaningful, a next-level lesson, if you will. Anyone else would be expecting a "don't do drugs" sermon here, but we know better. Fool me once (twice), April Kelly... So what's today's next level lesson? The key is when Cory says "We're not into that stuff. What we like is baseball and comic books", and Eric's response, "Yeah that's what you like now." It's an interesting point, ya know, you'd be hard pressed to find an 11 year old who wants to get baked. But as Eric explains, there's no way to predict how you're going to feel in the future, especially during the mental clusterfuck that is adolescence. Better still is when Eric uses Minkus's crush on Topanga (lucky guess?) against him. That's a very real situation and it's fleshed out more thoroughly later on in the series.
A few shows have definitely had a better presentation of this next-level drug lesson, South Park in particular, but it's not fair to compare a basic cable sitcom from 1993 to South Park. Let's give Boy Meets World some credit: they didn't try to use scare tactics, Eric and Feeny don't talk down to the students or to the viewer, and there wasn't some scapegoat to point at and say "look how dangerous drugs are". That last one is particularly tough to avoid; even high quality shows like Fresh Prince of Bel Air have fallen into that. Sadly, Boy Meets World does try to pull that scapegoat shit in a later season, but for now, our girl April Kelly doesn't want anything to do with it.
In keeping with the theme of superficiality, we get to see the first time Shawn ditches Cory for a girl right before the credits. I guess that's pretty significant character development for Shawn.
For the record, the five sentences of content are: "Cory and Shawn think Topanga likes Cory. Topanga actually likes Eric. Shenanigans happen. Don't be superficial. Don't do drugs."
Escape clause: I'm not trying to take a stand one way or the other on smoking and drinking and stuff. Just tellin ya what the show says.
0 for plot, .25 for humor, 1 for character development because of Shawn's hormones, .5 for life lesson because they made me work for it.
1.75/4
That's a pituitary gland. See you Wednesday.
Clips and images used under Fair Use.
"Basic cable sitcom from 1993" - it was a network sitcom, silly. It was on ABC!
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