Thursday, July 21, 2022

Disney+ Retrospective - High School Musical The Musical The Series Season 1


So, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, let’s take a quick look at the first season. Why am I doing a retrospective and not a breakdown, partly because I only have so much room in the schedule, and partly because season 2 felt too much like a straight comedy and doing a breakdown of the plot would be akin to telling all the jokes. But because my time has some value to me, I’ll be doing only the 10 episodes of the first season. 

And we’re off to a great start as Miss Jenn, the drama teacher says she was “triggered as a millennial” friendly reminder. Being triggered does not means mildly bemused or offended, it means it causes PTSD flashbacks. Do kindly refrain from using ‘triggered’ in that context because you are cheapening its meaning.

Back to the show, we’re introduced to Ricky (Joshua Basset) and his best friend Big Red (Larry Saperstein), his now ex-girlfriend Nini (Olivia Rodrigo), her best friend Kourtney (Dara Renee), the new drama Teacher Miss Jenn (Kate Reinders), who has announced the winter musical will be in Production of High School Musical, in the same East High High School where High School Musical was originally set.

We’re also introduced to Carlos (Frankie Rodriguez) the choreographer. We’re given a bit of character introduction through the use off The Office-style video diaries. We’re also introduced to Mr Mazzara, a STEM teacher who hates the idea of children having fun in their off-hours.

Next up on the introduction train in Nini’s current boyfriend, EJ Caswell (Matt Cornett). Nini’s nervous about the audition and goes to her grandma for advice, things are looking less great in Ricky’s home. His mother is in Chicago and the obvious incoming divorce is obvious to everyone but Ricky.

Seeing a photo of EJ and Nini as leads, Ricky decides to do something stupid and audition himself. Big Red tries and fails to stop him

“How do you know so much about High School Musical?”

Like, how could you not when you go to the school where it was filmed, that’s heritage. At the auditions, we’re introduced to Gina (Sofia Wylie) a recent transfer who is very full of herself, not helping Nini’s insecurities. Ricky is delayed to his audition because his computer freezes. Dude, turn it off at the plug. Later, we’re introduced to, and yes, I know I’m saying it a lot, Ashlyn Caswell (Julia Lester), EJ’s cousin and auditioning for Ms Darbus, she’s also an aspiring pianist and Miss Jenn tasks her with writing a song. And lastly, for the moment, we’re introduced to Seb Matthew-Smith (Joe Serafani), who’s auditioning for Sharpay.

Much in the style of Troy, Ricky arrives at the last minute, long after the auditions for the role of Troy have passed.

We also get the scene where the relationship between Ricky and Nini was put on pause, Ricky pondering the important questions of life like “do my feet stink?” and Nini formally declaring her love for him, he doesn’t respond to that well, deciding to put their relationship on pause whilst she goes to camp.

Ricky uses the same song Nini used in that flashback to declare her love to him for the audition, which is slightly disturbing but let’s skim ahead

OK, skipping to the results. EJ got the part of Chad and is understudy for the part of Troy, that part went to Ricky. Nini got the part of Garbriela, with Gina as her understudy. This doesn’t exactly make Nini any happier with Ricky.

Big Red gets roped into reading stage directions, a job that a director or a choreographer could probably have done, during a read through. And they probably would have been better off that way. Though that was not the only problem. Nini and Ricky are not in a good place, Nini refusing to make eye contact with him. Miss Jenn decides to address this by having the two go through the final scene of the film, which she has added a kiss to.

And worse it’s got EJ paranoid; he now wants Ashlyn to steal Nini’s phone. “She makes me better” though clearly not enough to consider the morals of stealing someone’s phone, EJ. Nini decides to make her position clear to Ricky, and Ricky takes it somewhat to heart, storming out and telling Carlos that he’s quit. He says to Carlos that him being there will get Nini to quit, something Gina takes interest in.

Gina somehow makes it to the skate-park Ricky was going to before he does. How does that even work? Some of what she says is good advice, the rest of it is such blatant manipulation I’m surprised Ricky would fall for it. Ricky gives them street cred? More than EJ does with his sports background? But he decides instead to stay up and practice, prove that he’s trying to take it seriously and that he isn’t a quitter.

He gets Carlos’ attention and shows him the fruits of his labour. Nini happens to see some of it, and is troubled enough to head to the stage, running into Ashlyn, as she’s preparing the original Ms. Darbus song. So, with Ashlyn not playing ball on the stealing Nini’s phone idea, Gina ends up making it easy for him and through her he steals it anyway.  

EJ is listening as Ricky makes a call, leaving behind a message that infuriates him enough to delete it. The phone does get back to Nini, the next day, after Gina had ensured that she’d be late to a rehearsal where she proposes a dance routine that she knows Nini can’t do. Nini doesn’t take this lying down and decides to steal Gina’s shoes, and then things get a bit out of hand. EJ feels guilty and decides to make an apology song, unfortunately it sounds about as sincere as the one by Justin Bieber.

After an altercation with Ricky, he backtracks on apologising but after he shouts at Ricky about the message, Ricky tries to apologise to Nini, alerting her that EJ had her phone. Unrelated note, Mr Mazzara has it out for Miss Jenn for really petty reasons but discovers that she may have bigged up the size of her part in the High School Musical movie. I genuinely despise the notion that someone can just do that but I digress, comedy.

The fallout of that is not pretty, Nini dumps EJ the next day and because Ricky is stuck with issues at home, the two are forced to perform together, and their animosity is bleeding into their performance. Ricky showing up late without a scene from his script and an incident involving a missing hamster only exacerbate matters and Miss Jenn calls an end to the session there.

Gina sees a poster for an upcoming dance and comes up with a plan. First off, convincing EJ to follow along which isn’t easy as EJ is a senior (UK Y13) and she’s a sophomore. (UK Y11) Ricky does not want to go home after hearing that his mother and father were legally separating, he tries to stay at Big Red’s but it isn’t going well as Big Red is not really an emotional support guy, as much as he tries. Also, he takes oxygen to sleep at night, snores and listens to wild animal noises to sleep.

With nowhere else to go, he decides to head to Nini who despite having had a pretty bad day herself is able to provide some comfort to Ricky after his pretty bad day. It’s still a little weird between them. Having exhausted all his options, EJ goes to Gina for help, and Gina’s idea I guess is for him to take her to the dance, I guess is the intent is to make Nini jealous or something. I don’t think Gina knows what the plan is either.

Ricky decides its too awkward to stay with Nini and decides to head home. Nini’s had it up to here with everything and decides she wants to skip homecoming entirely, and Miss Jenn hears and wants in… Teachers should not be hanging out with students outside of official function… This is going to upset my enjoyment of the episode going forward.

So lets talk instead about the other plotlines going on in the episode instead, Carlos and Seb agree to go to homecoming together. And Ricky is taking Big Red, mostly as an excuse to get away from his father who has taken to becoming a major slob in the wake of the breakup.

OK, we have to go back to the main plot. Miss Jenn has taken Kourtney and Nini to a karaoke bar, here to hear some of Utah’s worst vocalists, people are less talented but more confident than Nini. Ricky’s father co-incidentally heads to the same bowling alley/bar that Miss Jenn goes to and the two begin to flirt.

Carlos is in a bit of a state as Seb hasn’t shown up yet. Ricky tries to tell Gina she can do better than EJ, which she takes pretty well. The next thing we see of her is her and EJ arguing and her throwing a drink at him, saying it’s part of the plan. Not sure whether it was or not but… Turns out, as expected that her plan was reliant on Nini and Kourtney actually being there, and it was barely a concept even as it was.

Speaking of Nini, her confidence is shattered. And to inspire her it’s time for hands-down the best song of the series “Born to be Brave.” Carlos is ready to dance alone but Ashlyn steps in to dance with him. And it’s just as the song ends that Seb comes in, having had an emergency at the farm where he lives. Also, this is clearly not Valentines Day [this episode is in the first semester] so why is “It’s great to be in love on Valentines Day” playing? Ricky takes Gina home after apologising and the two kiss.

But the next day there are bigger things to talk about as it’s come into the open that Miss Jenn may have exaggerated details on her resumé and now there’s going to be a schoolboard meeting regarding what to do, Carlos is asked to keep this secret but he’s terrible at it, and that’s bad news for Ricky as right now the show is what’s keeping him going. Gina tries to comfort him, and actually she does a decent job of it, her homelife is hardly much either, but she’s more used to things changing.

EJ decides to confess… everything to Nini. It doesn’t really do anything but alleviate his conscience. Speaking of that, Miss Jenn has to sit down with Carlos, confessing something or another. OK, do you have a teaching qualification or not, if you do, great, her acting history doesn’t really matter, if you don’t, you never should have been hired in the first place. She hands Carlos her directors file to give to her replacement.

Somehow this ends up with a big meeting in Big Red’s basement and the students decide to do something about this. And it’s here where Miss Jenn meets Ricky’s father again. It’s the day of the meeting and it turns out Miss Jenn does have a teaching qualification, just from some obscure online university. How did they not validate it, if it’s a valid qualification, it’s a valid qualification, no matter where it’s from. Though it being online implies no actual teaching was involved which is sketchy to say the least.

Truth, Justice and Songs in Our Key is the song that follows, honestly, it’s another great song. Even the parents are relatively supportive of her, especially Ricky’s father, and the song and dance routine gets all of them to cheer. This was all done in one night by the way. Ricky gets a first glance at Miss Jenn and his dad being all flirty. So, Miss Jenn’s job is saved.

It’s Thanksgiving suddenly and everyone’s about to have their few days off. Ricky needs to call his mother, but is hesitant to. EJ is doing Instagram confessionals to further clear his conscience. Ashlyn has the house to herself that evening and is throwing a party for all the theatre kids who have names you remember.

But Miss Jenn and Mister Mazzarah have escaped their thanksgiving feasting to work, and find that with their combined expertise they can help each other.  This is actually a great thing for Gina who’s never felt more like she belongs. Ricky has problems to, when he makes the call a guy named Todd picks up the phone, his mother’s new Boyfriend. But the good things for Gina don’t last as her mother tells her she’s leaving in 10 days to Washington. She breaks off any hope of a relationship with Ricky and Ricky in turn is cold to Nini.

Nini begins writing a song ‘for herself,’ Ricky tries but can’t bring himself to text Nini an apology and EJ is starting to lose followers over his confession videos. Ricky does call his mother but it’s left a bit open whether or not she actually answers the phone. Nini also looks into getting into an acting school. Miss Jenn and Mr Mazzarah fall sleep as some dodgy plugs cause a fire.

The fire destroyed most of the stage, costumes, props and sets were destroyed and they’re red tagging the whole stage area for at least a month. Basically, they can’t do the show there. Carlos says he can use family connections to allow them to use the El-Ray theatre, something Miss Jenn shows some discomfort with for reasons to be explained later. 

At some point or another EJ steals Miss Jenn’s notes, which claim he wasn’t emotionally connecting to the material. He sets out to prove Miss Jenn wrong, but at a tech rehearsal where he and Carlos are only standing in for the leads, it’s not as awkward is you might think, it’s much worse. Ricky and Nini are in a closet or something rehearsing the same scene.  

Ricky makes his apology, eventually, the two reminisce and are about to kiss as Big Red walks in on them. Carlos tells EJ that his performances don’t always feel authentic, Miss Jenn reveals that she had a line in the original movie, but it was cut and it freaked her out. Oh yeah, Nini mentions the performing arts school and surprisingly its Ricky who’s supportive and Kourtney less so.

Kourtney gets a chance to sing and she’s amazing, as expected but Miss Jenn is having a real crisis and only a dream sequence where she’s dancing with Lucas Gabreel. And they got Lucas Gabreel. This is Miss Jenn’s big musical number and it’s a good one. Miss Jenn decides their best bet is to head back to East High. Kourtney, having had a change of heart rings the academy on Nini’s behalf.

Opening night is imminent and both Ricky and Nini have gifts for each other, a tag for a Ricky and a song for Nini. Kourtney has been asked to replace Gina on stage. They’ve secured use of the gym for the theatre, Ricky and Nini meet but it’s two awkward and they hold off on giving each other their gifts. The cast receives bunch of flowers from a mystery assailant.

The stage is ready and the audience are coming in, including Ricky’s mother and father, who hug as Ricky watches. The play goes off without a hitch, but then we come to dancing and Kourtney is not really a dancer, especially not one at Gina’s level. But Gina suddenly shows up, intending to just wish them well but she gets roped into her old role. Miss Jenn promises something for Kourtney after the Christmas break.

We get the awkward reunion between Ricky and Gina and it’s time for Getya head in the game. Nini scans the audience and notices the dean from the acting school, Kourtney finally revealing what she’d done on Nini’s. Whilst she’s nervous she’s also really excited. Getya head in the game is better than the original version, and you can quote me on that, it’s largely because the person who’s singing it is actually singing it. And in a rather authentic twist, right as Troy’s head is supposed to be leaving the game, something happens to get Troy’s head out of the game, Todd arrives.

They break for intermission. And that’s where Ricky finds out about the dean evaluating Nini for the performing arts school. Already feeling shaken up, he decides its better for Nini if he sub out and EJ take his place.

With EJ now playing Troy, Carlos has stepped up to play Chad. Miss Jenn is apparently blissfully unaware of all the drama, despite being in the audience, she must have seen Todd arrive late. Nini also unaware of everything so gets a bit of a shock seeing EJ subbing in for Troy. Then Nini begins asking about it, on stage in the middle of the scene, don’t do that, it breaks the immersion.

Ricky’s mother comes to find Ricky and I’d like to just point out how rude it is to just enter into a production whilst its underway like Todd did. If she wanted to bring him, he should have been there at the start. Nini only gets the message afterwards. Gina is the next to talk to Ricky and convinces him that if he isn’t going to lead, he can at least watch, of course, this should have happened in intermission, not whilst they’re actually performing, I feel lessons weren’t learned there.

And we’re at Breaking Free. And as soon as Ricky enters, Nini freezes but it’s at this point that EJ concedes his role so she can help Ricky and the two together sing Breaking Free. Turns out it was EJ who bought Gina’s plane ticket so she can be here. And with that there’s only one song left, We’re all in This Together. I should mention during all this, Big Red has been doing the tech stuff and got the hang of it pretty quickly. Nini sees the dean leave before the end and is a bit quashed by it

Miss Jenn teases that she has something picked for the Spring Musical, but season 2 will contradict that.

The flowers turned out to have a card, they were for Ashlyn, from Big Red. Nini and Ricky talk and Ricky finally says ‘I love you’ back to Nini like 6 or 7 times in succession and the two kiss. There’s an after-party, of course but Gina’s not able to come, she’s flying back home in a couple of hours. But Ashyln has an idea, to have Gina stay with her family in the guest room through the school year.

Though Miss Jenn and Mr Mazzarah are in hot water over the fire, Nini may find some relief. The dean didn’t leave because she was unimpressed, she had a phone-call to make that couldn’t wait the 5 minutes before the show ended. Nini is offered a spot, but starting next month. The credits roll and we see that Big Red has some moves of his own, he’s a tap-dancer, also he and Ashlyn kiss.

The season isn’t that heavy on the comedy, mostly using some asides and witty dialogue. Try as they might, the scenarios themselves aren’t portrayed in a way that lends themselves to comedy. I did not have a single laugh out loud moment in the entire production. But its value as a comedy is not the only criteria, as a musical it is packed with strong musical numbers. Some from the original High School Musical film and some original to the show.

They also have a fun and diverse core cast of characters. No-one’s a complete abject stereotype but everyone has their quirks to make them funny or to enhance the drama. Nini and Ricky share top billing but the main arc of this story is Ricky’s, he’s the new guy to the theatre group, doing it for all the wrong reasons who has a lesson to learn.

I could call this a guilty pleasure, in fact, maybe Praise4Media is where this retrospective belongs. But I won’t be as kind to season 2, which we will get to eventually.

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