It’s official. Girl Meets World has been cancelled and the series finale aired on Friday night (January 20th). The spinoff of the highly regarded 90s TGIF sitcom Boy Meets World followed Riley Matthews, the eponymous “Girl” and daughter of the original series’ protagonist Cory Matthews and wife Topanga. Like the original series, we see Riley learn lessons about the world and coming-of-age. The original series ran for 7 seasons from 1994-2001 and followed Cory from Junior High into College. The spinoff ran for 3 seasons and followed Riley from junior high into her freshman year of high school. So why didn’t the spinoff last longer? It’s one of the highest acclaimed shows currently on Disney Channel and there have been some stellar bits here and there. Here’s 3 main reasons why I think this spin-off didn’t quite work.

The show had a problem straddling the line between cultivating nostalgia and creating new storylines

The basic framework of the new series was entirely identical to the original series. The show loved to call attention to how all of the children had parallels with earlier characters. The parallels included:

• Riley is Cory (the naive protagonist here to meet the world)
• Maya is Shawn (the troubled best friend)
• Lucas is Topanga (the love interest)
• Farkle is Minkus (in this case, literally because he was Stuart Minkus’ son)
• Auggie is Morgan (the cute younger sibling)
• Cory is Mr. Feeny (the teacher)

GMW tried very hard to appeal to their original fanbase- the people who grew up in the mid to late 90s watching Boy Meets World and were now the parents of their own adolescents. Characters from the original series would make guest appearances in the spin-off, but most of the time they would be forced in for convenience to the children’s storylines.  Because it tried so hard to keep these parallels, a lot of character development that made the original series so successful was stumped and also prevented the show from growing in its own right.

A big example of this was the storyline of Shawn. In the original series, Shawn was seen as a troubled young man. He had many abandonment issues due to his rough upbringing and only seemed to make it through growing up because he had Cory on his side. In the spin-off, he emerges as a father figure to Maya since she also has abandonment issues since her father left as a child. Shawn ends up marrying Maya’s mother, Katy. However, we don’t see much to their actual relationship. In the span of a few episodes they go from first meeting to married. We see more of Maya’s relationship with Shawn than Katy’s. It’s a forced pairing for convenience to Maya’s storyline, but it completely retcons the original growth of Shawn’s character in the original series.

Cory is not Mr. Feeny

GMW tried a little too hard to make Cory into Mr. Feeny. But the problem with this is that the original character of Mr. Feeny in the show came from a place of wisdom. Cory, to put it bluntly, is not that wise.

Mr. George Feeny, originally performed by William Daniels, was Cory’s teacher from junior high into college. (Yes, we know in real life this is basically impossible. BMW had no trouble suspending this reality). He was an older gentleman (Daniels was 66 when Boy Meets World premiered) who lived next door to Cory, much to the young man’s dismay. When the show first started, Feeny was always seen as an authority figure. To a twelve year old underachieving boy like Cory was, Feeny was very much a villain. It wasn’t until later into high school and college that Cory accepted the life lessons Feeny taught him and the gang. Although Mr. Feeny taught valuable lessons, he never did so in an overt way. A lot of the time, he wasn’t necessarily involved in the inner workings of his students’ lives until they asked him. In fact, he was kind of old grump but with a heart of gold. His students came to love him anyways.

Fast forward to the spinoff. Cory is now Riley’s history teacher. However, his teaching method is making lesson plans that revolve around his daughter. He is called out on this multiple times by other students but he doesn’t care too much about anyone else other than Riley and her immediate circle of friends. Carrying on from his original character, Cory is highly neurotic and not that smart. (Topanga was always the brains of the couple). We can see that Riley and her friends’ relationship with Cory is much different than Cory and his friends’ relationship with Mr. Feeny. They may love him, but they don’t treat Cory like a true authority figure.

The actions of Riley and her friends are unrealistic

One of the reasons people loved Boy Meets World was that it was rooted in actual emotions. Yes, the character Eric became a little zany towards the later seasons. Despite Eric’s zaniness, it was always known that Eric’s heart was in the right place for his friends. My biggest qualm about Girl Meets World is that the actions of its characters didn’t make any sense.

Think back to when you were 13 years old. Say you had a crush on a boy. You tell your best friend about it. The boy and you like each other and everyone knows it. But then you find out your best friend also has feelings for him. But a few months of an odd love triangle later, your best friend tells you she never liked the boy in the first place. She just liked him because she thought she was protecting you.

WHAT? Huh? Who does that?

Yes, that’s what Girl Meets World thinks adolescent friendships are like. Riley, Maya, and Lucas end up in a love triangle for nearly a season because of this. Your best friend starts liking the boy you like to see if he’s worthy of you. I understand the sentiment behind Maya’s actions but that’s a highly unrealistic way to act for teenagers. After this love triangle is resolved, it is assumed that Riley and Lucas are in a relationship now. But then by the end of the series the whole love story is just dropped. RIley and Lucas don’t act like they are in a relationship at all. I know that the most important relationship in the show is between RIley and Maya, but you’d think that after spending so much time on this storyline they’d at least keep Riley and Lucas together as a couple in the background. As a fan of the show, the whole love triangle storyline felt like a waste of time.

So what should they do if they do get picked up by another network?

GMW fans have been vocal about getting the show picked up by another network. If somehow this happens, how can they improve the show? Here’s what I think...

1. Have these teenagers act like actual teenagers. Something about the way that these characters interact with each other is highly unrealistic. It might have to do with the fact that many things had to be sanitized because it was a Disney Channel show. But if they get picked up elsewhere, they should be able to realize that their audience is on the older side. The show doesn’t have to be as extreme as Degrassi, the highly acclaimed Canadian teenage drama series. But one of the reasons Degrassi has lasted so long (and got a Netflix pickup after it was cancelled from its original network) is because its teen characters go through real problems and deal with real consequences. GMW can take a lesson from Degrassi about this.
2. Pay attention to the continuity of the show. Granted, Boy Meets World was never a stickler for continuity (changing ages, changing actors for numerous characters, etc.) But honestly, it’s not hard. Storylines for seasons should be planned ahead of time and be respectful of past episodes and the growth that have come from them. The problem with it being on Disney Channel is that the network is notorious for showing episodes out of order. This kills any success for longer episode arcs. Also, since this takes place in the same world as BMW, it should respect everything that was laid in place in the original series. The way Angela, Shawn’s love interest from the original show, appeared on GMW completely shit on both Shawn and Angela’s character development.
3. Make cameo appearances more organic. Towards the end of the series every cameo appearance felt like a plea to get viewers as opposed to being necessary for character growth. Don’t be desperate guys.
4. Cory should be less on the nose with his lessons. In season 2, a teacher named Harper was introduced to be a parallel of Jonathan Turner, Cory and his gang’s English teacher in the original series. She was tragically underused. But what was great about her second appearance was that her lesson plan was not put together for Riley and her friends- it just happened to be related to what was going on in their personal lives like Mr. Feeny’s lessons had been before. Having Cory always commenting on the the lives of the children is a little bit of an overstep. In addition, RIley and the gang always end up falling back on his lessons and seem to never learn anything on their own. The show likes to say that it’s about growing up but I have yet to see them really learn any lessons independently.

Girl Meets World, it’s been fun. You’ve been plenty enjoyable over the past few seasons. If you do happen to get picked up by another network, I hope you’ve learned a bit from your mistakes and I wish you all the best.

All photos and video courtesy of Michael Jacobs Productions/Disney