If Boy Meets World Was a Netflix Series
If Boy Meets World was a Netflix series, they wouldn't be allowed to have 20-plus episodes to tell their story every season. So, I have reorganized season 1 to be told in only 12 episodes. Like the post if you think I'm spot on or comment and tell me which episodes I shouldn't have left out.
1. On the Fence
I'm changing the pilot episode to On the Fence. Season one has three main themes that need to be explored: love/dating, family/home life, and school/friendships, instead of leading with love like the original pilot episode. The show should lead with home. Everyone's world starts at home before we go out into the world and form an identity. I want the show to start similarly, focusing on Cory's home life and dynamics.
On the Fence is about Cory wanting a water gun for a water war with his friends, but he ends up having to earn money himself, and along the way, he learns to appreciate the value of hard work, childhood, and how hard his father works for the family. The problem comes up at school but is resolved with his family. Plus, just like the pilot, the episode still introduces important characters like Morgan, Alan, Amy, Eric, and Feeny, who still get to establish a rapport with Cory in episode one.
2. Model Family
Model Family is the second episode because it builds on the previous episode, keeps continuity, and continues informing the audience about Cory and his family. In this episode, Cory is literally studying his family for a school project and learning how his family solves conflict so that his group can solve a problem as a family for class. In the last episode, we learn that Cory's big brother works at the grocery store with their dad. This episode centers on Eric quitting his job at the grocery store even though his parents warn him not to.
Eric's new job as a model predictably fails, and Amy and Alan have to decide how to handle the fallout as Cory and his friends observe, and Eric begs his dad for a do-over. This episode also introduces Topanga earlier in the season than the original and plants seeds for Cory and Topanga as they are assigned to be the mom and dad of the group. Feeny Shawn and Minkus will still be featured, just as they were in the first episode.
3. Father Knows Less
In episode three, we start taking the family dynamics and pushing them outward to the world. We met the family and got a deep look at Alan in episode 1 and a deeper dive into Eric in episode two. Now Alan will clash with Feeny, representing a home-school life collision. Alan keeps Cory up late, which causes him to fall asleep in school and fail a test. Alan thinks Cory deserves a retest, just like Eric wanted a do-over over the last episode, and Feeny thinks Cory deserves to fail. When Feeny and Alan clash, Amy helps Cory grapple with two central authorities in his life who are not on the same page and what that means about subjectivity and grey areas of the world.
This thought-provoking episode challenges Cory's dad's and Mr. Feeny's authority and expands Cory's world.
4. Once In Love With Amy
This Home World arc finale is an episode centered more on Amy. In Once in Love with Amy, Cory, Shawn, and Minkus search for the answer to a question Topanga mysteriously solved in class by talking to dead spirits. However, this leads Cory, Shawn, and Eric to discover that Amy lied about going bowling and is secretly seeing another man. They try to break it to their dad, but the other man is their father.
This episode is more adventurous as Cory, Shawn, and Eric leave the house and take a bus late at night to stalk their parents. It has a strong home message where Cory learns his parents told them a lie, but it was okay because they were trying to stay hot for each other, and everything isn't for their kids to know. Just like in the last episode, Cory is once again expanding his horizons and learning the world isn't black and white, and he also learns more about his mother, having a heart-to-heart with her and seeing her as more than just a mom but also as a woman with a romantic life. Also, Cory's world is becoming more of the school world in this episode as he relates these home dynamics to his classmates and the problems at school.
5. Risky Business
This episode is the first of the school arc of the season. In this episode, Cory and Shawn dive right in when they start illegally gambling to win money and a bet with Minkus and Topanga over a school project about which pretend companies can make the most profit. This episode is a fun adventure that shows what Cory and Shawn can learn when they are away from parental supervision and how school life affects home life instead of the other way around. Also, this is the biggest Morgan-based episode in the series, so it helps us get to know another member of the Mathews family. Cory earns a lot of money illegally betting on horses and decides he likes risk until he risks leaving his sister at home and believes her to be kidnapped. In this episode, we see Shawn and Cory as a dynamic duo, as well as Cory and Morgan and Feeny as the primary guide for the lesson instead of Amy or Alan, who are unaware of Cory's journey for the first time in the season. Also, Alan and Amy work through a conflict about Amy being proposed, which helps plant seeds of relationship themes in the future of the season as well as helping us get to know Amy and Alan as a couple.
6. Teachers Bet
Keeping with the betting theme, Cory enters a bet with Mr. Feeny that he can teach the class better than him, and if Feeny Wins, he gets Cory's bike, and if Cory wins, he receives a portion of Feeny's check. This is one of the greatest of the infamous Feeny Lessons in the series, and what starts as a bet becomes a genuine lesson about racism and bigotry after Eric's girlfriend experiences racist hate at the mall while Cory is preparing to teach the Diary of Anne Frank.
This is one of the series' best episodes in general and the first time this season that Cory and Feeny take center stage together. This episode also foreshadows Cory becoming a teacher as an adult. Also, Cory's most significant impact is on his friend Shawn, who he singles out as an Italian slur to make a point about racism. Shawn also shows his edge when he threatens to beat Cory up in front of the whole class. This small moment tells us a lot about Shawn's character and how he may be different from other students.
7. The Fugitive
This leads us to The Fugitive, one of the top ten best episodes of the series. We touched on Shawn's edge, Cory and Feeny's relationship, and Cory and Shawn as adventurous troublemakers in the first episode of this arc. All that comes to a head when Shawn blows up a federal mailbox with a cherry bomb, and Cory hides him at his house but has trouble convincing Shawn to face the music.
This adventure is so consequential that it goes beyond their world and gets back to Cory's parents and even Feeny. Shawn cements himself as the edgy troublemaker of the two, and Feeny has a heart-to-heart with Shawn, establishing a deep bond with Shawn as well as Cory. This episode is also a defining moment in Cory and Shawn's epic friendship.
8. Santa's Little Helper
In the school world arc finale, Shawn's family goes through financial troubles, and Cory discovers it when he can't help pay for the class Christmas gift to Feeny. We have seen that Shawn has a rougher edge to him when he tries to fight Cory, blows up a mailbox, tries to run away, or knows a guy who could help them illegally gamble. Here, we finally establish that Shawn's family is from the wrong side of the tracks and is not doing as well as Cory's family. This episode is once again crucial to the development of Cory and Shawn's friendship and Shawn as a character.
Also, once again, this mostly happens away from the eyes of Cory's parents, and Feeny is actually the one to guide Cory and Shawn when they fight over whether or not Cory is pitying Shawn or genuinely trying to help him when he decides to suddenly give Shawn one of his gifts for Christmas.
9. Pilot
Finally, we come to the original first episode of the series, but this time, it will be late in the series as the first episode of the love arc. I chose to put romantic relationships as the last arc of the season because it is part of maturing, which is perfect for an end-of-season arc on a show about growing up. In this episode, Cory gets his first taste of the love bug when his brother blows him off for the first time ever to take a girl to the Philadelphia Philly game instead of Cory like Eric always has before. Unlike the original first episode of the season, this is not the first time Cory has seen Eric dating someone, but this is the first time it has affected Cory's life.
In addition to Eric, Cory is also learning about love in Romeo and Juliet at school. Cory goes on a journey to learn why love and relationships are important, which is part of his maturation, and sets the table for the rest of the arc.
10. She Loves Me She Loves Me Not
In this episode, we build off the idea that romantic relationships are now invading Cory's school life and affecting him. Still using Eric, only this time, Topanga has a crush on Eric. This is another Eric episode, but it is also the first Topanga-centric episode. Even Eric must mature, and Feeny challenges Eric to understand his influence on Cory's class. When he accidentally breaks Topanga's heart, the lesson Feeny was trying to impress on him hits home. Eric gives a speech about the coming changes in season two when they leave Feeny's class and start experiencing other kids from different backgrounds and more mature conflicts in their lives, and he points out that Topanga has already started maturing or what the series would later call getting her telegram.
11. Cory's Alternative Friends
Building on the idea of maturing through romantic relationships and Topanga being ahead of the curb, we arrive at one of the iconic episodes of the whole series when Cory and Topanga have their first kiss. Cory starts hanging with the nerds after he makes himself into one by trying to change his hair. Topanga is one of those weird kids, and Cory gets to know her more when they are paired on a school project together. After Cory learns he shouldn't be so afraid to be different, Topanga gives him his first kiss after they protest the librarian's potential firing together.
This episode can be considered the ground zero of Cory and Topanga's relationship, and going in this escalating order of events and having Topanga present for most of this season, unlike the original more random sequence, makes sense.
12. Boy Meets Girl
Then, the season finale and the finale of the romantic world arc is Boy Meets Girl, when Shawn and Cory go on their first dates. The kids in Cory's class all watch the video about the birds and bees and their changing bodies, and the love and relationships element of the school is completely out of the bag. Shawn seems to get the maturity telegram first, asking a girl on a date before Cory even feels the desire to. However, when Cory tries to get back at Shawn by going on a date, he accidentally finds his future wife.
This episode of Cory and Topanga's first date is the episode that would cement a relationship that would be a focal point of the rest of the series and the spinoff. Plus, it's better than the original finale of the show I Dream of Feeny because it's less random and follows a progression of maturing established through the show. The date happens at home, and Cory gets feedback from his family and friends leading up to it and after it. Plus, the conflict starts in the school world and ends in Cory and Topanga's relationship, which incorporates every theme of the season. It sets up the hormones that are about to start running wild when they move on from 6th to 7th grade in season two, as well as Cory and Topanga's relationship.