If you’re a reader of a certain age, there’s a chance you grew up watching “Boy Meets World.” The coming-of-age comedy lasted for seven seasons, and audiences were able to watch Cory and Eric Matthews, Shawn Hunter, Topanga Lawrence, and Angela Moore transition from childhood into adulthood, all under the watchful eye of their parental figures and their collective mentor, Mr. Feeny. Years after the show’s end, “Boy Meets World” returned for a new generation as “Girl Meets World,” focusing on the daughter of Cory and Topanga, Riley, and her mischievous friend Maya Hart, played by pop sensation Sabrina Carpenter. The reignited love of the series inspired the iHeartPodcasts network to launch “Pod Meets World,” a retrospective series where the show’s stars Danielle Fishel (Topanga Lawrence/Matthews), Will Friedle (Eric Matthews), and Rider Strong (Shawn Hunter) revisit each episode.
The trio is often on the convention circuit together as well, which allows fans to hear about the personal lives of the actors responsible for bringing to life some of their most formative TV favorites. It’s also a great way to hear behind-the-scenes stories, gossip, and personal feelings about the show after all these years. For example, in a 2023 episode of the podcast, Rider Strong passionately confessed that the season 3 episode “Train of Fools” is his least favorite episode of the entire series. With 158 episodes to choose from, that’s a pretty huge dishonor to tack on the episode.
“I think this is hands down the worst episode of ‘Boy Meets World,’ sorry to anybody who loved it,” Strong said. “There are episodes that I don’t like for, you know, I disagree with the way the characters are behaving but this is just like … I just think this is kind of a bad episode like performance-wise, story-wise,” he continued. “It even kind of looks weird to me. Like there’s, no, like nothing about this episode worked for me…”
But is the episode really that bad? I gave it a rewatch to find out for myself.
Boy Meets World does New Year’s Eve on the subway
“Train of Fools” is a New Year’s Eve episode about the first time Cory and Eric are allowed to celebrate the holiday away from their parents. Eric has a date with supermodel Rebecca-Alexa, Cory can’t wait to kiss Topanga at midnight, and Shawn is excited to go to a cool party with them all. Unfortunately, after Cory sends away the last cab in the city fearing that the driver is an imposter who is going to drive them to a secluded area and cut out their livers (always living in reality, that Cory Matthews), the group decides to take the subway, which breaks down en-route.
It’s definitely a sillier episode of an admittedly silly show, but it’s also a bit cringe in its sense of humor. This is the era where Eric becomes pretty unlikable and returns to his season 1 shallowness, as Rebecca-Alexa is perfectly content with hanging out at the Matthews’ home but Eric insists on “being seen” together at the party, which got them all into the mess in the first place. Shawn doesn’t have a whole lot to do other than pop in and out of train cars with news of weird happenings with other people off-screen, while Topanga and Cory somehow generate props and food for an NYE party based on supplies other passengers have in other cars. It’s best not to think about the logic of how they pulled off appetizers and party hats. There’s also a subplot with Turner and Eli — two teachers (one of whom is Shawn’s guardian) — and a bunch of Turner’s exes showing up to talk and ruining their “boys only” NYE plans that … doesn’t need to be there.
But the absolute worst part of the episode is the situational humor of the white “Boy Meets World” kids being thrust into the seedy underbelly of *gasp* PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION! that really drags the episode down. It’s not fair to judge the social norms of a work through a contemporary lens, but it doesn’t make watching them all not understand a Black teenager saying “Parrr-tayyy” as “party” any less embarrassing. So is it the worst episode of “Boy Meets World” ever? That’s up for debate, but I wouldn’t rule it out.
