Written by Jenn Bay, Media Editor-News

The Season

This particular season of Boy Meets World, the gang’s senior year in high school, deals with more real life issues than any previous season.  First loves, drinking, cheating, breakups, sex, pregnancies, choosing a college, saying goodbye.  Of course, it also contains one of my very favorite episodes, “And Then There Was Shawn” or, as I call it, “The Creepy Detention Episode”.   This season also features the introduction of Angela (Trina McGee – The Hughleys) and Jack (Matthew Lawrence – Brotherly Love), two people integral to the rest of the series, as Shawn’s girlfriend and long lost half brother, respectively. 

I think I would choose this one as my favorite season of them all.  I think the humor is just right and the writers just did such a fantastic job of dealing with the aforementioned “real life” issues in the way that I believe most of us dealt with them.  I related to this series so well while it was running, and looking back on the episodes, I can still easily conjure a realistic nostalgia, almost as though I was part of the group.

“I Love You, Donna Karan (Part One)”: We learn at the beginning of this episode that Shawn Hunter has a two-week dating rule.  It is in this episode that we’re really introduced to Angela Moore.  Angela is bright, spunky and seemingly all right with the aforementioned rule.  She doesn’t seem to have a need for commitment, either.  Cory, the resident 70-year-old in a 17-year-old’s body, finds this situation deplorable, and only wants Shawn to have what he and Topanga have, an everlasting love that is clearly super easy to come by.  For those of you not enamored with this series like I am, Angela becomes a permanent fixture throughout the series, which is why I feel this episode worth mentioning.

“Last Tango in Philly” – Topanga and Angela have jobs as waitresses in a Mexican restaurant – which looks suspiciously like the gang’s normal watering hole, Chubby’s – and the boys have to work out both their desire to be prideful men and their desire to keep their girlfriends happy (and keep them in general).  This episode holds the impromptu dance from the main men in the show – Cory, Shawn, Eric, Jack, Mr. Matthews and *GASP* Feeny.  A pelvic thrusting George Feeny make this one of my favorite moments of the season:

“Heartbreak Cory” – Cory’s clumsiness lands him a sprained ankle on what is supposed to be a very romantic ski trip for the class.  This is the episode that breaks the hearts of girls everywhere, when good boy Cory finds himself lying to Topanga to spend time with Lauren, the cute girl working at the lodge.

“And Then There Was Shawn” – “Here’s a knife/here’s a gun/there’ll be fun for everyone! Death is on the menu toniiiight…”  In a safe-for-kids parody of movies like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, the gang finds themselves locked in the school with a violent killer.  So who will emerge as survivors?

“Graduation” – Ah, the day has finally arrived!  One of my favorite episodes, mostly because it signals the return of Minkus  (Lee Norris – One Tree Hill), the gang’s know-it-all dorky classmate, who was missing from the show for FOUR YEARS. Boy Meets World, in typical self-deprecating style, makes a joke of it.  There’s even a mention of the much missed Mr. Turner.  Of all the silliness of BMW, their ability to poke fun at their own inconsistencies remains a favorite.

Special Features

As with the previous seasons, there is not a lick of Special Features.

Audio/Video

Again, as with Season 4, this is pretty standard stuff.  The video is in full frame and audio is in English 2.0 Dolby Digital with closed captioning.  There are no action movie effects to rattle your walls with awesome, and that’s okay.

Overall

Boy Meets World: The Complete Fifth Season (along with all the other seasons) is another example of something that I’ll own and hope my kids watch someday.  It is full of genuine life lessons and smart humor, written to appeal to and draw in the very kids who were watching them as they aired.  Granted, I don’t watch Disney/ABC teen sitcoms anymore, but I’m pretty sure they don’t make ‘em like this.  I’m totally going to be one of those “Back in my day…” old people, and I don’t care.  They simply don’t make them this way anymore.

ComicsOnline gives Boy Meets World: The Complete Fifth Season 4 out of 5 nostalgic childhoods.

Pick up your copy at Amazon today!

Keep coming back to ComicsOnline for more TV on DVD reviews and everything geek pop culture!