Danielle Fishel expresses frustration over Girl Meets World

Danielle Fishel expected Girl Meets World not to be a continuation of Boy Meets World.

Danielle Fishel was “very frustrated” working on Girl Meets World because it was constantly “in the shadow” of Boy Meets World.

The 45-year-old actress played Topanga Matthews in the original series, which ran from September 1993 until May 2000, and agreed to reprise the role in 2010 for the sequel series, but was left feeling unhappy that it picked up where the first programme left off as she had been led to believe from creator Michael Jacobs that Girl Meets World would be a “whole new show”.

Speaking to former co-stars Will Friedle and Rider Strong on their podcast Pod Meets World, she said: “I remember being really frustrated after the first season started.

“Before the show came out, Michael [and I] had a whole conversation about the idea that this was not going to be a reboot. It was going to be a whole new show.

“[Michael asked me to do] a whole blog about how this show was going to be its own thing.

“[I wrote] that there were going to be people who were coming from Boy Meets World who were going to be looking for things about this show to make them feel like it’s Boy Meets World.

“And you might get a few of those Easter eggs, but it is not Boy Meets World and you have to give it that grace…

“We got in there, and every day from morning until night was Michael and the writers trying to shoehorn Boy Meets World things into it.”

Danielle admitted the experience was “really frustrating” because “one of the reasons” she agreed to sign up for Girl Meets World was the distance from the original show, but she stressed she would have still taken the job.

She added: “I would have done it no matter what. I’m not trying to say, ‘I would have said no, had he said ‘I’m going to try to make it as Boy Meets World as possible.’

“I just would have probably at least had a better understanding of what I was agreeing to.”

And Danielle thinks the show struggled as a result of being so closely linked to Boy Meets World.

She said: “I feel like a reflection is what should have been the goal, and what ended up happening is it was in the shadow of [the original].

“That was a self-imposed shadow, and every time there was an opportunity for the new show to step out into the sun, the shadow would come back.”

And Rider, who played Shawn Hunter, didn’t see Girl Meets World as a true continuation of Boy Meets World, leaving the show even more at sea.

He said: “I think a continuation of Boy Meets World would have been better,” he said. “What it is is like a reflection of Boy Meets World. It’s these weird homages and it’s commenting on Boy Meets World and trying to reflect some of the themes and characters from Boy Meets World and reference them, but not actually continue them.”