Episode 2x09 "Fear Strikes Out"

Cory and Shawn are going to be attending some party where they'll be playing 7 Minutes in Heaven. Ah, high school... Overt sexual expression weakly disguised as a game... I'm sure we all remember a few where we were thinking "this, this is just not even close to a game, at all." But that's for a very different sort of blog. Cory wants to really rock out at this party, so hopefully his practice pays off.

Concurrently Mr. Turner spies the new social studies teacher, Kat Tompkins. Feeny (lightheartedly) gives him a hard time about it, and it's hilarious. Their chemistry is ridiculously good. As good as Cory and Shawn. As good as Amy and Alan.

                                     

Cory sits with Eric to ask for some party advice, but it has the opposite effect. Eric describes all the things that can go wrong, and Cory loses his nerve. Dammit Eric, we spent a whole episode building that confidence. All Eric ever does is sabotage his little brother in the guise of experienced advice. I honestly can't tell if he's ever actually trying to help. That makes him interesting.

We're not wasting any time as we jump right to the makeout party. This is almost certainly the same set as that chin-girl's party. Cory's still very nervous, and Shawn is very not. We've seen a lot of episodes recently where Shawn has some quality Cory wants, or can thrive in some situation that Cory can't. This just occurred to me now, and it's kind of blowing my mind, but "the world" that Cory was "meeting" back in season one was Mr. Feeny, but now it's Shawn. Shawn shows us how Cory can grow during this season. Sometimes, at least. 

Either way, what Cory needs to worry about isn't his breath or where to put his hands. It's his god damn collar. 

Am I the only person in the universe who pays attention to the clothes on this show? There should be someone like me on every set whose job is to say "woah, what the fuck" when something like that happens. And then the director will yell "Cut! What the fuck, guys."

                                    

Cory's got mad performance anxiety in the closet. I guess this is that fear striking out from the title. Topanga's totally understanding. I wouldn't expect any less. Topanga is a paragon of rationality and age-appropriate maturity. Whoever made the call to leave her paranormal weirdness by the wayside deserves a medal. In principle, this is a totally legitimate situation to build an episode on. But in practice, it... doesn't make a lot of sense. Cory and Topanga have kissed plenty of times already. There's no reason in the world for him to be nervous about this. At the end of the day, Boy Meets World is notorious for forgetting and rewriting history (ironic, since Feeny teaches history), so we better get used to it. Anyway she manages to calm Cory down, and just as they're about to kiss, time's up! 

Cory was using that lacrosse stick to explain how men want to be tough, rather than "nice guys". You gotta wonder what everyone else is thinking when they see him with that.

It's certainly not obvious just from what they saw, but for the sake of the plot, the other kids glean that Cory and Topanga did not kiss. At school, the other guys taunt Cory by calling him "the amazing lip-less". 

...Really? Might as well be "Closet No Topanga Kiss Man". Same level of quality. 

And Topanga's not making his life any easier.

                                     

The writers remembered that they gave Mr. Turner a subplot earlier, so now we've got that female teacher, Miss Tompkins, asking Mr. Feeny for the insider scoop on our favorite English teacher.

Nice bolo tie, blonde-Alice-Cooper. Think I've seen it somewhere before.

I agree, Stan. 

We all agree.

We're at the Matthews house and Cory invents the word "agoobwah" to describe how awful the party was. Morgan has some lines and I'll let you take a little quiz here.

It was ________________

a) Richard Nixon

b) Buy More Ovaltine

c) A Jar of Almonds

d) so bad that it made ConfidenceKBM want to join a monastery

e) Both a and d

Amy and Alan pick up on the fact that this is all Eric's fault and dole out some punishment. He's not allowed to go on another date until Cory feels ready to go on a date again. This destroys the only thing Eric has to live for, so he gives his little brother a pep talk. Cory agrees to go on a double date with Eric, since Eric promises it will be totally unromantic and there won't be any pressure for Cory to kiss his date. The only girl in the school who will speak to Cory right now is Topanga, so there we go.

We jump ahead to the date, located at some coffee place with an open mic for poetry readings. The set is blatantly just Chubbie's with a bunch of drapes everywhere, but that's showbiz. This clip is delightfully reminiscent of the first time I had a date at a coffee shop.

                                     

One unintentional thing to take away from this episode is that you should know enough about coffee to be able to go on a coffee date. "Let's get coffee" is the easiest date in the world. First coffee date I had, I got a bottle of fuckin Perrier. I didn't know what that was either, but I knew it was at least mostly water, and thus a safe choice. Except it was gross. The point is, learn your shit.

Cory leaves her to order her mocha frappa dappa wappa while he finds a place to sit. Now we get a fun look at one of the more intricate bromances in the series, but a bromance nonetheless.

                                    

One thing that Boy Meets World definitely did right with its bullies is that they're not just bullies. Normally shows will say "okay, these are the bad guys, hate them". But I don't hate Frankie and Joey. They're fun, they're interesting. Maybe not realistic, but realistic bullies are just depressing, so that's fine. 

You can see Cory standing around at the end of that clip, and then Topanga walks up and says "Cory, over here," motioning to the nearby couch. His ONE JOB was to find a place to sit. "I'll find us a place to sit." That's a direct quote. COME ON CORY. 

I know I'm goin crazy with the clips today, but a lot of this is just better for you to hear than to read. 

                                      

I wish every guy saw this when they were in middle/high school. It doesn't get any realer than that, folks. This show is awesome. 

Another poet takes the stage while the girl from The Fifth Element is hangin out nearby.

I haven't actually seen the movie, or I'd make a better joke. 

This guy does a slow, sensual poem, and all the couples start locking lips, including Corpanga. The audience goes wooOOOoooOOoo, making me roll my eyes. The laughter is justifiable. I get it. I do. I don't like it, but I get it. Fine. But the wooing? Why? Especially in this situation. They're kissing to sensual romantic poetry, not porn-jazz. Ugh.

At school the next day, Feeny is very interested in how Turner's date with Miss Tompkins unfolded, which is hilarious. Cory shares his new secret to kissing with all the other men on the show, and the episode ends with all of them on one big group date at another poetry reading. Including Feeny and Turner and Cory's parents. Because that makes sense.

...So.... wait...

Did we actually solve anything here? Cory is once again able to kiss Topanga, but that doesn't address the original problem. Maybe he can go forward with a new confidence in the knowledge that the girls are just as uncertain and nervous. And the "nice guy" problem didn't come up again after that clip in the hallway. I feel like that could be left to its own episode, it didn't serve any purpose being crammed in here.

Plot: 0.75 - It was fun, but largely unnecessary. Lots of convenience-for-plot-advancement, like Cory getting paired with Topanga in the first place. I think this episode would have functioned better if it wasn't Topanga, since her close friendship with Cory is what made this so easy to resolve. 

Character Development: 0.25 - I'll give a little for the growing friendship between Turner and Feeny, but Cory completely struck out here. I'm just not sold on it. If he went to another makeout party the next day, and got paired with someone other than Topanga, I'd wager he wouldn't fare any better than the first time.

Humor: 0.5 - It was funny, but also kinda not. Feeny and Turner did a lot of the work here again, and Eric got SHAFTED with his lines in this episode. He is absolutely not being used to his full potential yet.

Life Lesson: 1.0 - Refer back to the mind-being-blown gif.

2.5 out of 4. Remember the blonde girl with slicked back hair from 2x08? If you do watch this episode, count how many times she shows up in the background. Spoiler, it's a lot.

Thanks for reading, see you Wednesday!

Clips and images used under Fair Use.

Episode 2x08 "Band on the Run"

So here I was, just tip tappin along minding my own business, tryin to eat my Taco Bell, startin to watch today's episode and WHAT THE WHAT

Most of you probably know that Adam Scott plays Griffin Hawkins in season 3. And if you're anything like me, you're a total hipster about it. "Oh I knew as soon as I saw him on Boy Meets World that he was amazing. What's that? You didn't know he was on Boy Meets World? How embarrassing for you." HOW LITTLE I KNEW! He only has a couple lines here and doesn't even have a name, so I'll save the actual fanboy gushing for when he comes back as Griff later. This caught me completely off-guard, I had no idea he played a musician with bad hair in this episode. I always thought his hair only existed in a constant state of perfection. Now we all know the truth! The true origin! MAY THE TRUE HISTORY STAND FOR MILLENIA TO COME.

So yeah, Cory and Shawn are at Chubbie's, the local hangout/burger place, and Cory's getting turned down by every girl in the universe for the school dance. Adam Scott and some other guy show up and ask the boys to watch their guitars because your first instinct walking into a place called Chubbie's is "hey, I can trust these people." The shallow girls all see Cory with the guitars and suddenly want his rebellious musician D. There's a joke here about how D stands for dick and is also a musical note... maybe something something D-flat something... I don't know. Post a comment if you can put it together.

Hey, cool, we've got a premise. Shawn and Cory are pretending to be musicians. Golly... A dance coming up, where music will be played, and the boys are pretending to be musicians... Could it be...? 

This should be fun! Or at least refreshing. Usually sitcoms have their characters magically become good at instruments, and they're in a legitimate band somehow, and then plot happens. 

I tried watching Suite Life on Deck once. Lasted about five minutes.

We couldn't break the mold completely though, as we learn that Alan used to play guitar in a band called The Tongues. This primarily serves to give Cory access to a guitar, or at least, a guitar case. Hard to say where Shawn's came from, but knowing him he probably got it from some uncle. 

Topanga shows up and talks to Cory about the upcoming dance. Some dude named Jeremy asked Topanga to the dance, but she put him on hold in case Cory wanted to ask her. What a considerate sweetheart. Cory says she can go with Jeremy though, since he wants to go with the groupies. That's some BS. I am officially rooting for Topanga x Jeremy. Keep an eye out for my upcoming Girl Meets World fan-fiction, where Topanga has an affair with Jeremy.

After school, Cory and Shawn hold auditions to fill out the rest of their fake band. It's a hilarious scene, here's the last part.

At school the next day, the groupies do the verb form of "groupie" with Cory. Mr. Turner comes along and banters with Cory, and it's kinda funny but the real show is going on in the background.

Those two have the exact same hair style. Maybe that's what they like about each other.

That girl looks like Larxene from Kingdom Hearts.

After Turner talks to Cory, the camera cuts to the side where Mr. Feeny is announcing that the dance's band has bailed on the gig, and are being replaced by a live recording of "the cool, mellow, Caribbean sounds of Jojo Man and Brother B."  Inexplicably, the students are not satisfied with this. One of the groupies does that thing TV shows do where one person manages to speak for an entire crowd and suggests Cory and Shawn's band play for the dance. She says it with the most obnoxious face too, the kind that just NEEDS to be hit with that mallet from Kirby.

Where did all those kids come from? There were like two people in the hallway a second ago. You can see the other groupie with the pink cap by the trash can here. Is her shirt not THE most 90s thing you've ever seen? It's like a fucking crayon commercial.

Cory has no choice but to accept and makes up the name "The Exits" for his band when he sees an Exit sign, a la Keyser Soze. When he tells the rest of The Exits about their gig, Thor and the one with the 18th century military blazer quit the band. 

Back at the Matthews house, Alan has invited his old bandmates over, who are played by Mickey Dolenz of The Monkees (who are apparently still successfully touring, which blows my mind), Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick (who are also still touring, but are about a decade younger than The Monkees), and Billy Vera who hasn't done anything that I recognize. Pretty awesome. And the audience impresses me by not losing their shit as soon as the scene starts.

Alan is blatantly just trying to reclaim his youth, but the other three are all very comfortable with getting old. Despite not being actors, they all do really well with their lines, and they're funny! These scenes where Alan struggles with his age are always great.

We're at the dance now, and the boys' scheme is to have real musicians play backstage while they just fake it for the audience. This episode MUST be a satire of those standard band episodes I was talking about before. The musicians show up, but Cory and Shawn don't have the money to pay them, so they're out of 

luck.

What was that half-giggle from the audience? That's one of the funniest things I've ever heard on this show. Step it up, audience.

Cory and Shawn go out on stage and stall by exploiting the fact that the crowd at a concert will cheer at literally any question asked by the band.

I don't think the girl on the far right is having a very good time. Also, this is some shoddy camera work. If you're trying to use angles to make us think there are a lot of people, then we shouldn't be able to see where the crowd ends. We can see perfectly well that the crowd doesn't go back very far. Honestly, I don't know if I've ever seen a school dance accurately portrayed on television.

Actually, no, there was one time.

That's right mother bitches, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide. That show was awesome.

At the Matthews house, The Tongues play Good Lovin by The Young Rascals, which is pretty cool, and we see that Alan is having trouble maintaining the same energy as everyone else. After Alan's buddies leave, he confides all his insecurities in his wife. She explains that, despite what he may think, she didn't fall for him because of his music, but becase she liked the "whole package".

Back at the dance, Cory and Shawn are getting booed off stage when Cory attempts to perform The Name Game using his groupie's name.

It's hilarious. The students all leave the dance. Well great, Cory and Shawn have single handedly ruined an entire dance. It's probably Mr. Feeny's fault though, he should have known better. Or maybe he did, and just wanted to see them embarrass themselves.

Topanga comes back into the dance instead of going to The Oyster House with Jeremy. DAMN IT. She gives Cory the same "whole package" speech that Amy gave Alan. It's sweet.

During the credits, someone known only as Rembrandt is credited as playing "Scream". Alrighty.

Plot: 1.0 - Thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish. Every show from the 90s did a band episode, but this one was unique.

Character Development: 0.5 - More good stuff from Alan about getting older.

Humor: 1.0 - Feeny laughing at Cory and Shawn would get this point by itself, but the whole thing was funny.

Life Lesson: 0 - This was more of a "let's just have fun" episode. Nothing wrong with that though.

2.5 out of 4, definitely worth watching. There were a ton of good jokes that I didn't include here.

Thanks for reading, see you Monday! Hopefully Blogspot will let me upload videos again by then.

Clips and images used under Fair Use.

Episode 2x07 "Wake Up, Little Cory"

After fiddling with Google Analytics and stuff for a few days, you can FINALLY find this blog by Googling "boy meets world reviewed blogspot". Somehow Google still thinks this

http://boymeetsworldmeetsweed.wordpress.com/

is a better match for that query, and anything less specific doesn't really work. But hey, give it some time.

That poor guy quit after only 3 episodes. Maybe he got busted for possession. Good for him for trying though.

This episode jumps straight into the meat and potatoes. Mr. Turner is explaining to the class why Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing is an amazing play, and doing so quite passionately. The students have a slightly different opinion.

The students raise the very valid point that "love, sex and slander" just aren't as shocking now as they were back in Shakespeare's days, what with tabloids and reality tv. Holy god damn dammit this show is so good. How fuckin real is that? Not two minutes into the episode and we're faced with this powerful social commentary. It's... it's an explosion. Of commentary.

In response, the curly mullet English teacher assigns them to use the school's video equipment to interview their families and friends about love and sex, and then they can all see if people today really are more mature than the folks in Much Ado. If the video equipment is anything like their classroom's computer rig, I don't see what could possibly go wrong.

"Quick! Google how to put out a fire!" 

Except in '94 they used like, Infoseek, or Altavista. I doubt those ever became verbs.

This scene is fantastic. And really funny. This is the essence of why I love Mr. Turner. Instead of giving all the students detention, *cough*, he actually engages them and listens to what they have to say. The kids are genuinely excited about this assignment because it was tailored to fit their educational needs. It's wonderful. Dollars to donuts, Mr. Feeny will have a word or two to say about all this.

Called it.

                                     

Remember what I was saying back in 2x01 about opposing reference frames for education themes? THERE YOU GO. THERE IT IS. That's one of the best exchanges so far in the series. Do you see how meta this is? Turner represents Boy Meets World in Feeny-Hollywood. He's trying to be progressive and treat young adults like young adults, the same way the show wants to respect the maturity of its audience. I'm willing to bet that a very similar conversation went down between Michael Jacobs and whoever was in charge of ABC. It's genius. It's unheard of. This might be THE episode where everyone thought "shit, this show is FOR REAL." 

I need to calm down. I seriously love this show, you guys. 

Cory and Topanga are working on their project (they're partners). From the POV of Cory's camera we get to see various opinions on sex and love, including a romantic Topanga, Shawn the Lothario, and a caught-in-hypocrisy Mr. Turner. Cory's been using the word "sex" up to this point, but I guess it would have been weird for him to say it to his teacher.

                                   

It just doesn't get better than this, folks. Cory also interviews Joey the Rat, Harley Keiner, Eric, and his parents, and they're all hilarious. No mention of abstinence, no STD fear-mongering, just realistic characters sharing their legitimate, believable opinions. 

I.

Love.

This.

Show.

School's over, but Cory and Topanga have stuck around to finish working on their project. Look at this behemoth editing hardware.

It gets late so they use that extremely convenient phone on the table there to tell their respective parents that they're eating dinner at the other's house. Pretty sneaky sis. Remember that pay phone out in the hallway? Why bother when there's a free phone in the video editing closet? Anyway, it gets really late and they accidentally fall asleep on the floor when "I'm just gonna rest for 10 minutes" goes awry. We've all been there. I'm there on a daily basis. "Just ONE more snooze. Just one more. That's it." 

... 

"Actually, okay, I can do another, I just won't brush my teeth." 

... 

"I'm really not even hungry, I can do a few more instead of breakfast."

What a scandal! The rest of the school finds out, so I guess that bitchass janitor spilled the beans. Which is weird because janitors are supposed to clean up spilled beans. 

I'm allowed one bad joke per review okay? This is hard work.

Anyway, all the guys in school are like "wooo statutory rape, Cory's the man", even Harley Keiner and some guy in the back ground who looks like he's 30 have a new respect for the little Matthews boy.

It's high school, so Cory lies, sullying Topanga's reputation. It's not quite the same as Much Ado About Nothing, which looks more at infidelity than the general promiscuity being examined here, but it still ties back to the earlier discussion in Turner's class about how rumors can warp our perception of women and the effects of those perceptions on those women. Awesome. Turner and Feeny are privy to these events, resulting in another fantastic dialogue between the two teachers.

                                      

Excellent writing once again. Not much more to say than what I've already covered. I really hate to throw a wrench in this amazing episode, but the board says "projects due tomorrow", so there was no reason why Cory and Topanga had to stay late the night before to finish. Minor detail, who cares.

Later, Topanga comes over to the Matthews house to have a little chat with the newly crowned Vagina Master of John Adams High. I've gotta say, I really like how Topanga handles this situation. She's not crying or breaking down, she's just pissed. It's not "wahhh you ruined everything, how could you wahh", but rather "you are literal human filth, go to hell", you know what I mean? Anger is a much stronger emotion than sadness. Anger gives you motivation and energy and drive, while sadness just drains you. So yeah, I think it's the mark of a strong character to be angry instead of upset and I'm really glad they made that decision.

She leaves Cory speechless and the scene fades into Mr. Turner's class the next day. It's time to watch the finished projects. Cory edited a pretty grand apology and clarification of events into the end of their video. That smooths things over between him and Topanga, and chalks one up for Mr. Turner on the Turner-Feeny War Scwarbward. ...War Scwarboard? Sc.. Scw.. Score... Whatever. Counting the battle over Grapes of Wrath as a point for Feeny, we're currently tied.

I'll definitely keep updating this.

So that's the end, and it's a good ending except that I would have liked to see more people call out Cory for being a dick.

Plot: 1.0 - The entire review is the explanation for this. I loved every minute of this episode.

Character Development: 1.0 - 0.9 of this is due to Topanga showing us what she's made of. (Nails, if that wasn't clear.) The other 0.1 is due to the Turner-Feeny War, in particular when Feeny says "Well, perhaps this project is going to serve some purpose after all." The man does not often admit he is wrong, so Turner definitely deserves a victory lap for this one.

Humor: 1.0 - I'm starting to realize that this category is hard to explain. There was just a lot of that clever, classic Boy Meets World humor all throughout this one. What's better is that it came from pretty much every character, including Joey, Harley, and the Matthews parents. Morgan was absent from this episode, and that's always conducive to a good humor score.

Life Lesson: 1.0 - Let's go ahead and count the progressive elements as life lessons. Everything Turner says in his arguments with Feeny about open dialogue and trust is spot on. 

4.0 out of 4.0 with all four Badges. I absolutely love how I feel after reviewing a great episode. I love this show, and I love talking about it. Love everywhere, it's goddamn Woodstock in my bedroom right now.

Thanks for reading, see you Friday!

Clips and images used under Fair Use.

Episode 2x06 "Who's Afraid of Cory Wolf?"

*Edit* Because I'm an idiot, the blog was set to restrict comments to people with accounts. That has now been changed. Anyone can comment now :)

Is the big bad wolf from Little Red Riding Hood or The Three Little Pigs? Or is that the same wolf? How has that never occurred to me before... Why's it always gotta be a wolf?

This is a Halloween episode. It's storming and Cory's writing in some sort of journal. He's using a large feather quill to write, which I guess is supposed to be funny otherwise they wouldn't have done it.

"Hey ConfidenceKBM, what's Cory writing about?"

Nah, don't worry about it.





I said don't worry about it. It's not a big deal, just skip this one. You should move on w-

YOU SHOULD MOVE ON WITH YOUR LIFE.

He's writing about how he's going to turn into a werewolf. A show lauded for its realism is doing a werewolf episode. Happy? Whenever this episode worms its way out of my repressed memories, I remember this one snippet in particular and try to convince myself that I'm remembering wrong.

Nope, it really is that bad. Ugh.... I don't wanna do this...

Shawn shows up to ride with Cory to some Halloween Party. He's wearing a Cory costume, which is funny enough to resuscitate my interest.

The second cool thing about this picture is that it shows us who is responsible for writing this monstrosity. ...Because Cory's turning into a monster... Please laugh ;__;

Not only is this plot ruining my day, it's ruining Cory's as well, since as we all know you shouldn't go to a party if you're turning into a feral predator of man. There's always that one guy at a party tryin to savagely maul the other guests, and it's just, it's, nobody has a good time.

Cory explains his situation to Shawn and the audience via flashback: Feeny informs Cory that a wolf has escaped from the zoo. Cory hears some rustling in a potted plant or a bush or some shit and we see this while some eerie music plays.

"Relax, ConfidenceKBM, it's camp, it's parody, it's deliberately terrible." 

When in doubt, follow the audience. This is a rare instance when the audience/laugh track is actually useful. There is no laughter at that part. Therefore, it is not intended to be funny. 

Don't you have to be bitten by a werewolf to become one, and not just a regular zoo wolf? Either way, Cory's sold on the idea but Shawn's not buying it. Maybe another flashback will convince him. This flashback is some point after Cory gets attacked or whatever: An alarmed Cory shows his newly discovered chest and facial hair to his older brother. Eric is like "grats on puberty bro" and I'm like "what is this the werewolf version of Spiderman?" After giving it some more thought, Eric feeds the werewolf story to Cory. It's honestly not clear whether Eric believes it or not, but I'm going to say he doesn't because I can't keep going otherwise.

Cory tries to further convince Shawn with another flashback story, this time at a Frozen Yogurt place for whatever the hell reason. It's the same set as the car towing place from last season, just at a different angle. It's mocked up pretty well though. Try doing an intentionally bad Dracula impression. That's how the store owner talks. 

Look at those prices though. I want cheesecake for a buck forty, shit.

A convenient announcement on the radio about the escaped wolf gets Cory talking about his lycanthropy, and the store owner decides to take him to the back of the store and scam him out of his money. I don't know why. Cory was about to use the money to pay for his ice cream. The store is not making a profit here. Anyway the back room looks like this:

WooOOOOooOOoooo spoookyyyyyyy. Have any of you ever been to a psychic? Do they all use the same red and brown color scheme? Remember this one from Fresh Prince? 

What am I saying, of course you remember, because that's completely normal. Honestly, I lived on Nick at Night for all of middle school. An hour of Full House and an hour of Fresh Prince every weeknight while I did my math homework or whatever. And look, here I am, using that knowledge for good.

(R.I.P James Avery)

The completely legitimate psychic is played by Phyllis Diller, who's done a whoooooole lot of stuff over the years. Check out her IMDB, you'll almost certainly recognize a few things. This completely legitimate psychic tells Cory what to expect during his transformation.

                                      

Are we still doing the puberty metaphor? Cuz that.... that'd be a little pg-13, know what I'm sayin... She also tells him that he'll have a pentagram on his palm and that he'll kill a girl who cares about him.

 The completely legitimate psychic reminds Cory that he's late for English class, so apparently he went for frozen yogurt during school somehow. Were they even trying with this? So now Cory's in class, but so is Shawn... even though this flashback is Cory explaining the story to Shawn, so... it's weird. Nothing interesting happens in class, they try to make some jokes, but they miss. Look at Shawn though! That hair! Ahhhhhhh it's glorious. Ahhhhhhh you just wanna feel it.

The star in that picture is white because White Dwarf stars are really hot. That joke may be slightly too complicated. Cory is eating a piece of paper here to hide its werewolf-related contents from Mr. Turner, like when Mac ate those contracts on It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. That was hilarious. Eating this paper serves to fulfill the "acquire a taste for new things" part of the completely legitimate psychic's prophecy. After class, Cory incidentally holds Mr. Turner's set of keys, which has a Pentagon keychain from when Turner allegedly visited the Pentagon. This fulfills the pentagram-in-the-palm part of the prophecy, even though pentagrams and pentagons are fundamentally different. Pentagrams are concave, while pentagons are convex. Where are the other math majors? Hi-five?

                                     

Startin to sound like Spiderman again. Topanga's pants are so high. Did the pants-making-people make the length from the top to the crotch longer in the 90s to accommodate pulling them up that high? There's no way you could do that with the pants girls wear today. Those don't even have functioning pockets.

Cory goes back to the completely legitimate psychic to find a way to not kill Topanga. She tells him he won't kill Topanga until the next full moon, which, WUH OH, is tonight. 

NOW LET'S JUST, LET'S, FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT HERE, LET'S THINK ABOUT THIS FOR A SEC. It's the day of a Halloween party, so it must be within a week of Halloween, which is the 31st of October, which was a Monday in 1994. 

http://www.dayoftheweek.org/?m=October&d=31&y=1994&go=Go 

It's also a school day, so this party must be happening on the 24th-29th or the 31st.  Probably the 29th, but either way the only full moon in October of 1994 was on the 19th. 

http://wise-obs.tau.ac.il/~eran/Sky/MoonPhase.html

I am doing so much more work than anyone who made this episode. At home, Alan tries to convince his son that it's just puberty and not magic, but Cory's too far gone. Topanga shows up to go to the party with the two boys and blah blah blah.

                                     

You can feel however you want about that, but I'm too cynical right now to enjoy it. During the credits, Cory is out on his porch and he learns from Mr. Feeny that the wolf turned out to be in the zoo after all. The bush near Cory rustles again, but it's just a bunny. That's right guys, I don't know if you can handle this fuckin 180 degree plot turn here, but Cory wasn't actually bitten by a wolf. 

Congratulations to David Tennant on his second appearance in my blog.

Plot: 0 - Zero like a Cheerio, all da bitches know, on da mic I got flowwwww, yo.

Character Development: 0.5 - Puberty is a big deal, but it seems a little out of place. Cory definitely already likes girls, and we had that story about hormones back in episode 1x20, and that was fantastic, one of the best of the season. I don't know why they felt they had to do it again, especially with this terrible delivery. 

Humor: 0.5 - Meh.

Life Lesson: 0 - Nonexistant.

1 out of 4. It was the good kind of bad though, the kind that I can enjoy making fun of. This review actually turned out really well. Thanks for reading!

See you Wednesday.

Clips and images used under Fair Use. 

Episode 2x05 "The Uninvited"

This episode was written by Susan Estelle Jensen, who, in season one, gave us two abortions and one ehhhh-that-wasn't-so-bad.

The first minute of this episode is entirely Amy and Alan Matthews talking about Alan's dick. I wouldn't even call it subtle. It's funny though. They're always funny. Alan explains that he takes Vitamin E supplements to be more "durable". Indeed, Viagra wasn't approved by the FDA until 1998. I wonder how they would write this kind of joke today. Anyway Alan wants to go play basketball with Cory and Shawn but his back gives out because he's old.

Mr. Feeny is teaching the class about the transcontinental railroad, but it must be that Renaissance transcontinental railroad because he has a map of Europe pulled down over the blackboard. Da Vinci's idea, if I remember correctly. Our favorite teacher snatches up some notes being passed around class and reads them out loud. I hate when teachers do that. 

See? Europe. Maybe Feeny is teaching some sort of propaganda history, where he attributes all of America's accomplishments to England. We learn from the confiscated notes that this bitch in a denim shirt named Melissa is throwing a party.

                                      

AND NOW YOU CAN WATCH IT ANY TIME!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyaaz0iA-rM

Melissa users her chin to deliver her lines.

After class, Cory expresses his anxiety over whether or not Melissa The Chin will invite him to her party. In his eyes, anyone who doesn't get invited is a geek. Shawn apparently took his Xanax this morning because he's apathetic toward the whole thing and tries to convince Cory to relax. 

                                       

Judgment Day arrives as Melissa hands out the invitations in envelopes because this is the Dark Ages before Facebook. Might as well send out carrier pigeons or have a crier ride into the halls on a mule and sound his horn before reading the names from a fucking scroll. This clip looks like something I would make, but it's actually how it is in the show.

                                      

This is funny for a handful of reasons. First is at the beginning there when there are two girls on screen at the same time wearing denim vest jacket whatevers. Not exactly "ha ha" funny, more like "what the fuck were the 90s" funny. Besides that, the other extras have great reactions, and Cory's is absolutely priceless. I don't know how Ben Savage kept a straight face draped over the lockers like that. 

But Shawn didn't get an invitation! The world's gone all wibbly wobbly topsy turvy! How is Boy supposed to meet World like this! MORE LIKE BOY MEETS BIZARRO WORLD AM I RIGHT? WOOOOO HOOO HOOOOOOOO

Later, in the cafeteria, the soda machine eats Cory's money. A conveniently placed Mr. Turner channels his inner Saturday Night Fever to kick the can loose.

The audience applauds that shit. They clap and they cheer. 

WHYYYYY??!! Your cheering is not going to convince me that that was real! Why do sitcoms DO this?! Ughhhhhhhhh...

Anyway Cory's feeling bad about Shawn not being invited to The Crimson Chin's party and Turner tries to give him some advice. The most helpful thing he says is to make sure not to get caught up in what other people think. This is a unique spin on that lesson. Usually the main character is dealing with insults or bullying, and the voice of wisdom says "don't listen to them, you're fine just the way you are." And that would be boring. Instead, people are starting to say that Cory's pretty cool since he got invited to this party, so he has to try to stay detached from the positive things people are saying about him to keep from inflating his ego. Good stuff.

At home, Alan's back still hurts and he can't move and stuff and he feels old.

Cory is slightly over preparing for this party.

                                      

BUT WAIT! Cory gets to the party and only sees geeky guys there. He learns from Chinlissa that her parents forbade her from inviting any cool/dangerous guys (like Shawn) to the party, and without the cool guys none of the girls she invited wanted to come either. 

HEY MELISSA.

MILLION DOLLAR IDEA HERE.

MILLION DOLLARS, BABY. MAYBE TWO MILLION.

One of Melissa's female friends shows up and tells her about a cool party happening somewhere else, so the two bail on the geek party to go  to the cool one. Cory is left feeling like a real shitface, so he goes to find Shawn. 

Cory arrives at the local burger joint "Chubbie's", expecting Shawn to be there. This is the first time we see Chubbie's, but it's the go-to hangout place all the way through season 5. Shawn is here, but so are a ton of other students. We spy Melissa and her friend, so this Shawn-centered gathering is in fact the "cool party". 

Our heroes have a little heart to heart.

                                     

Beautiful. I don't think Shawn's given us the life lesson before, but it definitely works here. Shawn adamantly denies being "cool" and tries to make Cory forget about that kind of shit so they can just be best friends like they always have. Way to go Shawn.

During the credits, Alan is persuaded to finally get up off the couch by his wife, clad in her new lingerie. He's hobbling after her up the stairs, but not without his Vitamin E. Because he's old.

Plot: 1.0 - Like I said, it's a refreshing take on the cool vs uncool story. This episode was genuinely enjoyable to watch and, as far as sitcom plots go, it was pretty unpredictable. 

Character Development: 1.0 - It's like episode 2x02, they've quickly gotten rid of a characteristic that would only hinder the show's progression in the future. In 2x02 it was fear of talking to women, this time it was worrying about being cool. If I remember correctly, Cory is very comfortable with his not-so-cool-ness from here on out. That saves us from a lot of stupid stories.

Humor: 1.0 - Hilarious. There's a lot more than what I posted in the clips. 

Life Lesson: 0.5 - The idea is there, but the episode wraps up in a weird way, so it's hard to know exactly what they wanted to tell us.

3.5 out of 4.0 

Good work, Susan Estelle Jensen. You broke even.

Thanks for reading, see you Monday! 

Clips and images used under Fair Use.

And let's be honest, that new episode of Sherlock sucked.