Excuse the cheesy title for this review, I tried to emulate the title cards of each episode in the iCarly vein, and I hope it works. Anyway on with the review.
For starters, as with most people who grew up watching iCarly in the late oughts' and early 2010's, this shows alongside other Nick live action classics helped develop my sense of humor and was a fun and enjoyable watch that shaped me as a person. Even if my sense of comedy and tv tastes have changed, I will always have a place in my heart for the original series and how it revolutionized the cultural landscape of kids' media.
I wish I could say the same for the reboot/remake/sequel or whatever it's trying to be, but I can't in good faith give this show a good review after watching all of season 1 and most of season 2.
To start with, the show's comedy and jokes are very hit or miss and fall flat most of the time. The original show was known for its wacky and random bursts of comedy and even its heartfelt serious moments that made you empathize with and relate to the cast, even if the characters made questionable decisions, you could understand their motivations as they were young kids/teenagers and realized their lesson at the end of each episode, always trying to teach a good moral while telling a funny story.
To put it succinctly, this sequel's comedy is very corporate, derivative and juvenile. It's like a parody of the original show from the 2000's but add in a ton of sexual innuendos and swearing to make it seem as if it's for a more mature audience, which if anything it's not. This can't be for kids because of the reasons I mentioned prior, and it can't be for the adults who grew up with the show because the jokes feel like something out of a bad SNL skit or something an edgy teen would think is cool or hip and it comes off very "howdy doo fellow kids." It tries too hard to seem relevant and up with the times, when in reality it's lame and cringey.
When I mean corporate, it references a lot of other shows from modern pop culture and namedrops a few celebrities here and there as if that somehow makes up for the lack of original skits or comedy. This doesn't have the same creative spark as the original and feels soulless as a result, like old people going through midlife crises trying to get in with the younger crowd, it doesn't mesh well.
The only character worth seeing the show for is Spencer and him alone. Jerry Trainor is the only one who is actually funny on this show and he's still the same wacky older brother eccentric artist he was in the original, but even then, even he can't save this show from the terrible writing.
Carly's problems seem to be that she can never find a cute boy to date or when she does, she manages to mess things up, misunderstands the situation or her friends get in the way of her love life and frankly that dynamic gets old pretty fast. Miranda Cosgrove does her best, but Carly doesn't have much to do in this show other than simp for cute boys or be a girl boss or whatever. I don't get how she's supposed to be a struggling influencer when she has a rich brother and a military father who love her. Is rooming with her new best friend, and for some reason she doesn't appear to have a job outside of iCarly livestreams. How does she make money outside of being an influencer? Does she get paid sponsorships? Her character was alright, but I wish she focused on other things that didn't focus on dating or relationships.
Freddy is the same as always and Nathan Kress does a good job with his character, but much like Carly, his character is not that good either. You mean to tell me that AV tech nerd Freddy who graduated college and went to a top tech school is somehow still living with his mom, broke, had two failed business ventures, two divorces and still manages to raise his stepdaughter on his own? That seems like a slap in the face to his character. Also, why is he working in tech support when he can get any other tech related job in Seattle that probably pays better than his crummy current job, it just makes no sense.
With Harper and Millicent, I have nothing against the actresses, but to me they feel as if they were put in the show just to fill a diversity quota and to replace Sam, which doesn't work at all. Even though Jennette McCurdy quit acting altogether, no one could ever take Sam's place as the comedic foil to Carly's antics and these two can't hold a candle to her at all.
For a show that tries to have diverse messaging and touts itself as progressive, they turned Harper into a sassy, bisexual, aggressively confident black female character. That's not very original given that her character is pretty much a stereotype from the get-go, so yeah...
She feels more like the token black friend to service her white female friend in any rom com, and it shows. The OG show did have romance in it, but those were few and far between and whenever Harper is on screen, all she does is talk about fashion, complain about her exes and how many people she can screw around with and acts wild and crazy whenever wacky stuff goes down (because bi people totally love to sleep around and cheat, totally not another stereotype sigh...)
I also don't like how she seems to antagonize straight people, including Spencer, even if they don't like each other. Imagine if someone said, "those pesky gays" or "those freaky trans people," everyone would be up in arms against that person, but I guess hypocrisy is okay against the straight white male I suppose. Harper is a walking diversity checkbox and that's a shame because she does have her good moments and funny lines, but instead she's poorly written and if you take out those facets of her character, you'd be left with nothing else.
Millicent is the stereotypical bratty, annoying and in your face Gen Z kid character you will see on any kids show, and yes they do mention she is Gen Z as well. She's one of those "mature for her age" kid characters who actively treats the cast like crap half the time and manipulates people into getting what she wants, including Freddy her stepdad. She did grow on me a little, but depending on who you ask, you'll either like her or want to punt her into the sun immediately.
What also kills this show is the forced political/social talking points that seem to crawl into every piece of media these days. Just in the first season one alone they mention "disintegrating democracy", "my body my choice," "feminism and all girl spaces," "non-binary lawyers," "a squirrel who's anti-vax?" and "threesomes." Again, how are we supposed to enjoy this show when every line out of these characters mouths sounds like it came straight from the mouth of a political activist's Tumblr soapbox ranting session.
The OG show never once delved into political topics nor did it ever reference current modern-day celebrities. The original show is timeless for a reason and this new show will become dated almost immediately with how many liberal/progressives talking points they can cram into one episode. Heck they even made two boys that Carly liked into incels just because she didn't want to lead them on and broke up with them, I can't make this up.
Not to mention these characters will do selfish things to each other, but when it doesn't go their way, they try to outdo the other in how selfish they can be just to get what they want. Carly has a date she wants to impress but the others barge in on her date because I guess no one can do their stuff in a different room and Harper has a fashion job interview but has to appease Carly or Spencer and give up her career so they can enact some wacky scheme. These characters make dumb choices and feel out of character half the time with how self-absorbed they can and that's not good writing at all, especially with established characters like these.
As for the cameo characters, if you blink, you'll miss them, that's how important they are to this show's episodic plots. Crazy Nora shows up for a few short scenes and never contributes to that episode's plot at all, Nevel's cameo is decent and it's nice to see other cameos in later episodes, but like I said they're just there to pander to nostalgia and it doesn't work well. These characters only work if they're the central focus of the episode/s narrative and diminishing them to split second scenes does them a huge disservice.
To summarize my rant review, this show has no overarching narrative, the comedy is juvenile at best and terribly executed or tone deaf at worst, the characters aside from a few feel-like shells of their former selves, the social justice messages are ham fisted and immersion breaking, the romantic drama is overdone and boring and the worst part is that this show lacks heart and passion. It feels like it was created because Paramount plus wanted to cash in on our nostalgia and the actors were in desperate need of work since they've not been in anything noteworthy since the original show's conclusion.
If you want to watch these characters again and relive the joy of your childhood, just rewatch the original show on Netflix or Paramount plus, you'd have a much better time than with this lackluster parody.
For starters, as with most people who grew up watching iCarly in the late oughts' and early 2010's, this shows alongside other Nick live action classics helped develop my sense of humor and was a fun and enjoyable watch that shaped me as a person. Even if my sense of comedy and tv tastes have changed, I will always have a place in my heart for the original series and how it revolutionized the cultural landscape of kids' media.
I wish I could say the same for the reboot/remake/sequel or whatever it's trying to be, but I can't in good faith give this show a good review after watching all of season 1 and most of season 2.
To start with, the show's comedy and jokes are very hit or miss and fall flat most of the time. The original show was known for its wacky and random bursts of comedy and even its heartfelt serious moments that made you empathize with and relate to the cast, even if the characters made questionable decisions, you could understand their motivations as they were young kids/teenagers and realized their lesson at the end of each episode, always trying to teach a good moral while telling a funny story.
To put it succinctly, this sequel's comedy is very corporate, derivative and juvenile. It's like a parody of the original show from the 2000's but add in a ton of sexual innuendos and swearing to make it seem as if it's for a more mature audience, which if anything it's not. This can't be for kids because of the reasons I mentioned prior, and it can't be for the adults who grew up with the show because the jokes feel like something out of a bad SNL skit or something an edgy teen would think is cool or hip and it comes off very "howdy doo fellow kids." It tries too hard to seem relevant and up with the times, when in reality it's lame and cringey.
When I mean corporate, it references a lot of other shows from modern pop culture and namedrops a few celebrities here and there as if that somehow makes up for the lack of original skits or comedy. This doesn't have the same creative spark as the original and feels soulless as a result, like old people going through midlife crises trying to get in with the younger crowd, it doesn't mesh well.
The only character worth seeing the show for is Spencer and him alone. Jerry Trainor is the only one who is actually funny on this show and he's still the same wacky older brother eccentric artist he was in the original, but even then, even he can't save this show from the terrible writing.
Carly's problems seem to be that she can never find a cute boy to date or when she does, she manages to mess things up, misunderstands the situation or her friends get in the way of her love life and frankly that dynamic gets old pretty fast. Miranda Cosgrove does her best, but Carly doesn't have much to do in this show other than simp for cute boys or be a girl boss or whatever. I don't get how she's supposed to be a struggling influencer when she has a rich brother and a military father who love her. Is rooming with her new best friend, and for some reason she doesn't appear to have a job outside of iCarly livestreams. How does she make money outside of being an influencer? Does she get paid sponsorships? Her character was alright, but I wish she focused on other things that didn't focus on dating or relationships.
Freddy is the same as always and Nathan Kress does a good job with his character, but much like Carly, his character is not that good either. You mean to tell me that AV tech nerd Freddy who graduated college and went to a top tech school is somehow still living with his mom, broke, had two failed business ventures, two divorces and still manages to raise his stepdaughter on his own? That seems like a slap in the face to his character. Also, why is he working in tech support when he can get any other tech related job in Seattle that probably pays better than his crummy current job, it just makes no sense.
With Harper and Millicent, I have nothing against the actresses, but to me they feel as if they were put in the show just to fill a diversity quota and to replace Sam, which doesn't work at all. Even though Jennette McCurdy quit acting altogether, no one could ever take Sam's place as the comedic foil to Carly's antics and these two can't hold a candle to her at all.
For a show that tries to have diverse messaging and touts itself as progressive, they turned Harper into a sassy, bisexual, aggressively confident black female character. That's not very original given that her character is pretty much a stereotype from the get-go, so yeah...
She feels more like the token black friend to service her white female friend in any rom com, and it shows. The OG show did have romance in it, but those were few and far between and whenever Harper is on screen, all she does is talk about fashion, complain about her exes and how many people she can screw around with and acts wild and crazy whenever wacky stuff goes down (because bi people totally love to sleep around and cheat, totally not another stereotype sigh...)
I also don't like how she seems to antagonize straight people, including Spencer, even if they don't like each other. Imagine if someone said, "those pesky gays" or "those freaky trans people," everyone would be up in arms against that person, but I guess hypocrisy is okay against the straight white male I suppose. Harper is a walking diversity checkbox and that's a shame because she does have her good moments and funny lines, but instead she's poorly written and if you take out those facets of her character, you'd be left with nothing else.
Millicent is the stereotypical bratty, annoying and in your face Gen Z kid character you will see on any kids show, and yes they do mention she is Gen Z as well. She's one of those "mature for her age" kid characters who actively treats the cast like crap half the time and manipulates people into getting what she wants, including Freddy her stepdad. She did grow on me a little, but depending on who you ask, you'll either like her or want to punt her into the sun immediately.
What also kills this show is the forced political/social talking points that seem to crawl into every piece of media these days. Just in the first season one alone they mention "disintegrating democracy", "my body my choice," "feminism and all girl spaces," "non-binary lawyers," "a squirrel who's anti-vax?" and "threesomes." Again, how are we supposed to enjoy this show when every line out of these characters mouths sounds like it came straight from the mouth of a political activist's Tumblr soapbox ranting session.
The OG show never once delved into political topics nor did it ever reference current modern-day celebrities. The original show is timeless for a reason and this new show will become dated almost immediately with how many liberal/progressives talking points they can cram into one episode. Heck they even made two boys that Carly liked into incels just because she didn't want to lead them on and broke up with them, I can't make this up.
Not to mention these characters will do selfish things to each other, but when it doesn't go their way, they try to outdo the other in how selfish they can be just to get what they want. Carly has a date she wants to impress but the others barge in on her date because I guess no one can do their stuff in a different room and Harper has a fashion job interview but has to appease Carly or Spencer and give up her career so they can enact some wacky scheme. These characters make dumb choices and feel out of character half the time with how self-absorbed they can and that's not good writing at all, especially with established characters like these.
As for the cameo characters, if you blink, you'll miss them, that's how important they are to this show's episodic plots. Crazy Nora shows up for a few short scenes and never contributes to that episode's plot at all, Nevel's cameo is decent and it's nice to see other cameos in later episodes, but like I said they're just there to pander to nostalgia and it doesn't work well. These characters only work if they're the central focus of the episode/s narrative and diminishing them to split second scenes does them a huge disservice.
To summarize my rant review, this show has no overarching narrative, the comedy is juvenile at best and terribly executed or tone deaf at worst, the characters aside from a few feel-like shells of their former selves, the social justice messages are ham fisted and immersion breaking, the romantic drama is overdone and boring and the worst part is that this show lacks heart and passion. It feels like it was created because Paramount plus wanted to cash in on our nostalgia and the actors were in desperate need of work since they've not been in anything noteworthy since the original show's conclusion.
If you want to watch these characters again and relive the joy of your childhood, just rewatch the original show on Netflix or Paramount plus, you'd have a much better time than with this lackluster parody.