“I continued it. I am a continuation. That’s what history’s about.”
Concept episodes have a rich history in Boy Meets World. Probably one of my defining memories of the series is season five’s “And Then There Was Shawn”, a horror movie send-up pitting the gang against knives, masked murderers, and blood-scrawled threats as they wander the halls of John Adams High. A quick Google search tells me I’m not alone, and I would strongly recommend it to those coming to Girl Meets World blind. It’s funny, it’s ludicrous, and it’s surprisingly tender by episode’s end, as Shawn learns a very important lesson about himself and the way he fits into his friends’ lives.
So know that I am delighted to see Girl Meets World continuing this legacy, even if I’m not sure this week’s “Girl Meets 1961” was a promising start. I did appreciate the show’s subversion of the repeating history trope, with the group’s great-grandparents somehow meeting once in the whirlwind that was 1960s New York, but pointedly not knowing each other for more than a few hours on a single night. It might still be an overly cute idea, but while there are many aimless lessons swirling around “Girl Meets 1961” (I feel like there’s a law written on a whiteboard somewhere that Maya MUST learn how skilled she is and how she needs to get out there with her talents every episode, no matter whether it fits or not) the quiet curiosity in wondering what could have been really helps to land the idea of history as education. For many different reasons, Rosie, Meg, and Merlin wander away from one another that night. For many different reasons, their lives don’t go quite as planned. There are better lessons than others there—friendship smiendship, what about the genuinely interesting and perhaps tongue in cheek, coming from a 10 year old spin off to a show that was never a ratings success, tidbit about how what may seem world-changing today may be just a blip in time tomorrow—but they are lessons all the same. Maya might snark that a class about the future would be more helpful, but that’s really what history is. The past is unchangeable—the future, however, is wide open, and with the context of the past, at least partially navigable.
Unfortunately, ideas don’t an episode make. There’s easily enough material in “Girl Meets 1961” for two episodes. Yet, not only is it crammed into 22 minutes, no one seemed to care which parts went where. We shift from class to a (at that point) inexplicable and slow flashback, with Rowan Blanchard adorably dolled up as Audrey Hepburn and poor Corey Fogelmanus stuck with a diseased cat’s hairball on his face. This might have been all well and good if we didn’t cut to credits and then … return? For another scene? And then, only then, finally discover just what was going on? It’s far more legwork than such a simple plot should need, and saps the energy from the room every time we flip back without any clear reason why.
Similarly mishandled is the tender reveal behind the meaning of Topanga’s name. Perhaps if it had been thrown in at the end over the credits, I could forgive it. However, while Fishel sells the moment of discovery with beautiful grace, it remains a puzzlingly jerky insertion into an episode where she is otherwise completely absent. It’s not surprising, really. GMW has had a lot of trouble balancing its parents and its children. It’s hard to know exactly what the issue is, but with “Girl Meets 1961” admitted into evidence, I’m inclined to think we simply don’t spend enough time at home. Sure, Cory’s in the classroom, but Classroom!Cory is a Feeny!Cory—not an Alan!Cory. Meanwhile Topanga’s usually in the air, plucked down either solely for the reminder she is actually a parent or the Topanga we knew, or forced into a completely different subplot entirely. It’s a simple fix really, and one I imagine the show will enact as it goes, but it would have been nice to get even one dinner table conversation about history and Rosie out of Topanga to help tie everything together.
Don’t get me wrong, there is a charm about “Girl Meets 1961”. When you see that photo of the real Rosie, Meg, and Merlin, it’s hard not to feel something. It’s hard not to nod at the power behind Riley’s realization, that we are all ourselves and so much more, the next step in a long series of steps before us. It just doesn’t work—but then maybe that’s the exciting part. “Girl Meets 1961” is just one step, and not even a fully terrible one.
We’ve got so much more climbing to go.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
- Rider Strong, you tease. YOU WERE RIGHT THERE, DIRECTING. SURELY YOU COULD HAVE APPEARED.
- At the risk of stating the obvious, Sabrina Carpenter is amazing. Rowan Blanchard was clearly genetically engineered to be Ben Savage’s slighter, girlier clone, and will always have that to save her, but this show would be in tatters were it not for Carpenter. Her switch between Maya and Meg was actually insane. If she breaks off the Disney train, she’s going to have quite a career.
- I remain not a shipper but on the Maya/Lucas train, so long as the dynamics seem safely preserved in Tupperware while the show sorts out what they’re doing. You know. Just in case we’re taking a survey. There's just so much more potential there.
Thoughts of your own? Let me know!
