The 7 Best And 7 Worst Episodes Of Girl Meets World

Debuting in 2014, nearly 14 years after its predecessor ended, "Girl Meets World" is a spinoff and continuation of the popular '90s sitcom "Boy Meets World." While the show never quite reached the level of success achieved by "Boy Meets World," it nevertheless won over fans thanks to its refreshing humor and nuanced storylines, in addition to a stellar cast that included Ben Savage reprising his role as Cory Matthews and Rowan Blanchard as Cory's daughter Riley.

Much like the best and worst episodes of "Boy Meets World," the quality of "Girl Meets World" episodes can vary pretty dramatically. Looking at the IMDb ratings of "Girl Meets World's" individual episodes, scores can be anywhere from an impressive 9.3/10 to a lackluster 6.1/10. Several factors affect how well the episodes are received by viewers, such as whether or not they feature cameos by cast members from the original series. If you've been wondering which episodes of the show are a must-watch and which episodes to skip, look no further. Here are the best and worst episodes of "Girl Meets World."

It may seem a bit surprising to see the show's pilot episode listed as one of its worst. After all, most shows are either greenlit or scrapped based on the strength of the pilot, so it would stand to reason that showrunners would want to make a great first impression. Sadly, that's not the case for "Girl Meets World," and the episode sharing the show's title ends up being barely watchable.

The biggest problem with the episode is how much it revolves around a meta joke where Riley asks Cory how long she has to live in "his world," to which he replies, "until you make it yours." The joke is a clear reference to the show's title; it indicates that the show wants Riley's journey to be her own, and not just a rehashed version of Cory's, but everything else in the episode suggests otherwise. It does little to establish Riley's relationships with her friends or classmates, and the main plot, which involves Riley starting a revolution in class against her dad (who is also her teacher) is too tied to what came before.

"Girl Meets Hollyworld" starts with Maya making some jokes about kidnapping before revealing to Riley that she's kidnapped a famous French actor named Anastasia Boulangerie and cuffed her to the radiator in Riley's room. While this felony starts the episode out on a strange and barely believable note, the episode only gets more absurd from there. Maya tells Riley that she has to keep her locked up long enough for her mom, who is a struggling actor, to land a part that both women are auditioning for.

However, it turns out that Anastasia Boulangerie is actually an American named Bobbie Jo Thibodeaux and is a childhood friend of Maya's mom, Katy. The two are able to rekindle their childhood friendship, and in the end, she lets Katy have the part by pulling out of the project, which is revealed to have been based on Katy's life. The episode really stretches the believability of the typically grounded show, and often seems more preoccupied with surprise twists than solid character building.

"Girl Meets World: Of Terror" is a Season 1 episode that began a tradition of doing a Halloween-themed episode each season. Based on the IMDb ratings, however, these episodes are consistently among the most disliked of the series. This episode is hosted by Riley's younger brother Auggie, who is parodying several classic horror hosts, such as Bob Wilkins and Alfred Hitchcock. He introduces the audience to three separate spooky stories, which include Farkle being scared of a softball, Riley being scared to sleep over at Maya's house, and Auggie being afraid of a monster under the bed.

While it's not the worst of "Girl Meets World's" Halloween-themed episodes, "Girl Meets World: Of Terror" fails to deliver either terror or laughs. Much of the problems are due to the episode's strong focus on Auggie, who is consistently one of the show's most poorly written characters. His dialogue never comes off as authentic, and his role as host and narrator of the episode casts a poor shadow over the rest of the stories. Additionally, none of the three stories really capitalize on the spooky premise, with only one (Auggie's fear of a monster under the bed) actually using the Halloween theme to its full extent.

"Girl Meets World: Of Terror 3" continues the show's tradition of Halloween-themed episodes hosted by Riley's younger brother Auggie. Unlike the first season episode, "Girl Meets World: Of Terror 3" focuses on just one story. Auggie kicks off the episode by barging into Riley's class and telling everyone that it's time for more "Halloween Spookytime Theater," to which the class replies with an exasperated moan, unintentionally mimicking the feelings of many viewers at home.

Auggie introduces a "what if"-style scenario where Riley and Maya never became friends, altering everyone's personality. Riley has become more childlike, taking her stuffed bear to school every day and treating it like her best friend, while Maya has become more angry and jaded, struggling to make friends herself. Things go even further south when Auggie discovers that he was never born in this scenario due to Riley being more challenging to raise, so he sets out to make things right by repairing Riley and Maya's friendship. Once again, this episode focuses too heavily on Auggie's character, and the alternate universe versions of Riley and Maya feel too underdeveloped to root for.

"Girl Meets Fish" is an Auggie-focused episode whose plot revolves around the mysterious death of Cory Matthews' class pet fish, Chelsea, who died moments after Riley took possession of it. Auggie, who was present in the class when the incident happened, takes it upon himself to solve the case. For the remainder of the episode, Auggie mimics a film noir detective, and goes about interrogating each student in the class.

The humor in this episode is particularly grating. Auggie tries annoying Riley's classmates into confessing, trying tactics such as loudly crunching on graham crackers. While these are meant to be funny, they end up proving just as obnoxious to the viewer at home as they are to the student being interrogated. Additionally, after Auggie discovers that each classmate (including him) has killed Chelsea multiple times, the episode tries to make a point of how all life is precious and needs to be preserved, but it's hard to take that message seriously when every few seconds the show cracks another joke about one of the many Chelseas' deaths.

"Girl Meets Commonism" follows Riley's brief adoption of various communist ideals after a dispute with her father. When it's discovered that Maya cheated off Farkle's exam to get a good grade, Cory wants to see her punished by the School Honor Board. Riley, who is on the Honor Board, pushes back, not wanting to see her friend in trouble. She even notices that Maya has become more interested in learning after the incident, arguing that it may have been good for her. Cory pushes back, saying each student needs to stand by their individuality in their testing, and that everyone helping everyone would be communist, prompting Riley to adopt communism so she can help Maya.

While the ideas behind the episode are interesting, the execution unfortunately falls flat. Most of the major players feel really out of character here, making decisions that only serve the plot, and aren't backed by their typical thoughts or actions. Neither side of the debate is well represented either, and while it makes sense for Riley to understand very little about communism, Cory's arguments against it should have been more compelling than "that's not how it's done in America" in order to make the conflict meaningful.

This manages to be the worst installment in a trilogy of bad Halloween-themed episodes. In "Girl Meets World: Of Terror 2," Riley and Maya are visited by the ghost of a flapper from the 1920s. She forces them to do dance routines, so they try to help the ghost find her old friend in a different house. The episode is also a crossover with the show "Austin & Ally," and the two protagonists of that series join Riley and Maya in their quest to help the ghost.

The entire episode lacks a compelling plot or anything interesting for the characters to do. Instead, it fills time with multiple, overlong dance numbers that are meant to elicit laughs due to their ridiculousness. While the dance sequence is fun the first time, its repeated use grows old pretty quickly, and the attempt to liven things up by introducing a crossover cameo with one of Disney's other shows further cheapens the episode's appeal.