Okay, so I kept rackin’ my brain on what to blog about today for a long while. I’m trying to keep up a one post a day thing, and so far I’m doing pretty darn good… so, I thought long and hard about today’s subject. Last night, I had trouble falling asleep, so, get this, I got out my old Nintendo DS and played cooking mama for a while… and then I played the old iCarly game I still have, haha. Don’t make fun of me, either; I’m sure you used to play Nintendo and Game Boy all the time, too! And, if you didn’t, then you’re either a lot older than I am… or you had parents that were anti-video games or something, I don’t know.

Anyway, I played that game until I finally fell asleep past 2 a.m., and then earlier today, I turned the T.V. on, and guess what I saw on Nickelodeon? Yeah, iCarly. And, since my blogsite is actually kind of named after the show, I decided it was only fitting to give my own personal review on the sitcom.

So, let’s begin.

iCarly was a show that started up and aired mostly while I was in middle school (as usual, I’m not telling y’all my real age… but you can infer it if you’d like) and, at first, I wasn’t sure if I was really gonna like it or not. All of my friends were hyped up about it coming on, though, so I decided to give a try. And… then it became my favorite show for the entire running that it had. Also, I balled so hard during the last episode, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. With that backstory told, you can make your own interpretation as to whether or not my review is biased (hint: it probably will be).

iCarly, for those of you who don’t know (or do but want to reflect on it with nostalgia), was a show about 3 teenage best friends (Carly, Sam, and Freddie) who start a webshow, named iCarly, after Freddie posts a video online of both Carly and Sam making funny remarks whole judging a talent show competition, which receives a lot of postive feedback from online viewers. The actual sitcom itself shows more of the stuff that happens outside of their webshow, but it also shows segments of the actual webshow every once in a while, too.

One thing that I believe made this show really great was the characters. Yeah, really, the characters. Sometimes… or, actually, a lot of times, the characters in teen/preteen sitcoms are way too cliché and are, in a lot of ways, just basic teen stock characters. The dumb one, the girl that says ‘like’ and plays with her hair all the time, the mean one with an ‘unexpected’ soft side that randomly surfaces at times… I could make a list, but you get the point. These characters are annoying and they’re in way too many kid and teen shows and they make me wanna rip my hair out.

However, the characters in this show are different. They’re realistic. Sam and Carly are just two normal best friends that almost every girl can relate to. Spencer (Carly’s older brother and legal guardian) is a fun, sort of crazy character… but he’s not out of control and shows in several episodes that’s he’s still… well, Carly’s older and protective brother. Freddie has a long-time crush on Carly, but he also develops feelings for Sam later on in the season, who always picks on him and makes fun of him… but also admits to having feelings for him, too. The scriptwriters of the show didn’t simplify or ‘dumb down’ the characters just because they’re in a kids show. And just that, at least, makes me really happy.

Along with the fact that the characters are very minimaly static, so are the situations that the characters get into. I mean, it is a sitcom, after all… but it’s not one of the kind that makes you go, ‘oh, I know what’s gonna happen…’ or ‘yeah, I saw that one coming’. Well, most of the time. I won’t say it’s perfect or anything; every sitcom has its predictable situation moments… but, point being, again, a lot of teen shows have typical storylines that are overused and pretty much boring. For example, I don’t know… like, okay- a teenage girl is overly excited for a date with a really hot guy… who is kind of ‘out of her league’. You and I both already know that something is gonna happen on their date, make her upset and cry uncontrollably all night, and then finish with some type of satisfying consolation from her gal-pals in the very end. Think about it; how many times have you seen that portayed in a television show or movie? Or, here’s one that drives me up the wall- a group of friends are stuck in some sort of sticky situation for the entirety of their show’s episode until the very last minute, when one person of the group miraculously grabs an idea to get them unstuck from literally nowhere. Like, a whole twenty minutes went by of being trapped in a janitorial closet and you just now thought of using the paper clip in your shoe to pick the lock and get out? That’s my own crappy example, but you get the point. What’s even worse is when a bunch of intelligent people can’t figure out something really tough, and then the ‘dumb’ person somehow understands and gives them the correct solution at the end. Ugh… cliché, cliché, cliché.

Okay, I wanted to keep this review at least semi-short, so we’ll stick to 3 main points and start to wrap things up.

The last thing I want to praise this show about doing right, aside from the things I pointed out from a story writer’s perspective, is the actors. Just in general, too. The acting in the show was never amateur or cheesy, even in the beginning (when the actors were really young), and, when you watch the show, you can tell that everyone really got along and had fun making the show. Sure, yeah, really good actors can make it look like they’re having a good time on set when they aren’t… but this show was never on Entertainment Tonight or in the tabloids for having its actors slam each other in the media, so I’ll believe the interviews with each of them proving they had a blast making the show. I know this may seem like a minor detail in the grand scheme of things, but I still think it’s important and really helps boost every other aspect of the show.

iCarly was a great T.V. show with a great reputation. If anything, at least I love it and enjoyed it during the time that I was… you know, growin’ up. It kind of taught me a few lessons along the way, too, like… okay, maybe not any important lessons or anything, but it was still an awesome show.

Also, it once inspired me and a few of my friends to make a plan to start a comedy webshow of our own. Thank God we never actually went through with it, though, it probably would have left awfully embarrassing memories of us doing dumb things on the internet forever…

Anyway, I think I’ve shared enough of my own words for now. Let me know what you think/used to think of the show!

-iKari