“Every time there was an opportunity for the new show to step out into the sun, the shadow [of the original] would come back.”

Danielle Fishel says she was promised Girl Meets World wouldn’t be a Boy Meets World reboot: ‘Frustrated’

“Every time there was an opportunity for the new show to step out into the sun, the shadow [of the original] would come back.”

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

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August 21, 2026 9:14 p.m. ET

Danielle Fishel in West Hollywood on Oct. 8, 2013. Credit:

Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage

- Danielle Fishel said that she was “really frustrated” after beginning work on *Girl Meets World*.

- The actress said that she and series creator Michael Jacobs “had a whole conversation about the idea that this was not going to be a reboot” of *Boy Meets World*.

- Fishel said that *Girl Meets World* was “in the shadow” of the original show.

*Girl Meets World* wasn’t exactly what Danielle Fishel thought it would be.

The actress, who played Topanga on *Boy Meets World* and its 2010s sequel series, discussed her honest thoughts on the follow-up show in an episode of *Pod Meets World* alongside her former costars and current podcast cohosts Will Friedle and Rider Strong.

“I remember being really frustrated after the first season started,” she said, opining that Michael Jacobs, the executive producer who created both shows, made *Girl Meets World* too similar to *Boy Meets World*. “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.”

Fishel said that Jacobs encouraged her to do “a whole blog about how this show was going to be its own thing,” which she did. “[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*,” she said. “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.”

Danielle Fishel, Ben Savage, and Rowan Blanchard on ‘Girl Meets World’.

The actress was surprised when, in her estimation, Jacobs was cramming more *Boy Meets World* into the follow-up show than she had been led to believe. “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,” she said.

** has reached out to a representative for Jacobs for comment.

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Strong, who played Shawn Hunter on *Boy Meets World* and guested on seven eps of *Girl Meets World*, said that he got the same impression.

“That’s what I felt ... when I showed up to act,” he said. “I didn’t remember any of these things that they were making me do [from *Boy Meets World*]...when I showed up for that first scene and they’re like, ‘Remember when you and Ben [Savage] did this?’ And I’d be like, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Like ‘You’re sleeping, do the snoring thing!’ And I remember just being like, ‘Do we have to?’”

He added, “It seems like [Disney] were okay with it being different, and that Michael and the writers were the ones that kind of wanted to look at it more as a continuation.”

Fishel confirmed Strong’s hypothesis. “It was definitely more Michael and the writers,” she said.

The actress said the experience was “really frustrating” because “one of the reasons I agreed to do” *Girl Meets World* was that purported distance from the original show. However, she clarified, “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.”

Strong didn’t think that *Girl Meets World* could be accurately characterized as a true continuation of the original show. “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.”

Fishel added further criticism. “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],” she said. “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.”

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*Girl Meets World *ultimately ran for three seasons on Disney Channel from 2014 to 2017. The original *Boy Meets World* ran for seven seasons on ABC from 1993 to 2000. Fishel thinks that the jump from a major network to a cable channel didn’t help *Girl Meets World*.

“Even if every person who had loved *Boy Meets World* [had watched], you’re not going to get that many,” she said. “It’s cable, you’re not going to get that many adults who are going to pay for cable and then start watching. They were catering to the wrong audience.”

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