Around five months ago, Disney+ released a series on their stream app called High School Musical: The Musical The Series based off the fan favorite movie, High School Musical. When the series first came to the surface, a lot of people did not want the series since it is centered around the original movie that came out in 2006. However, once the series was released, it quickly became a fan favorite as well.
When the Disney+ original came out, I was pretty skeptical about watching it since it was a spin-off of High School Musical and spin-offs rarely do justice. Then, I saw that the series was trending on Twitter because of the season finale, which is when I decided to start watching it.
The show was definitely not what I thought it was going to be. I truly thought it was going to be a reenactment of the first HSM movie, but it was the complete opposite of that. The show is actually about a group of high school juniors sign up to be a part of the cast of the school’s musical, High School Musical.
Throughout the series, there is a ton of drama between all of the characters but there is also amazing friendships/relationships that are created. High School Musical featured drama between Troy being in a relationship with Gabriella with the input of Sharpay, but in the series, there’s drama all throughout the episodes among all characters.
The show normalizes the life of an actual high school student. From having rivalries, break ups, new relationships, to even having family issues. Disney also includes a couple of LGBTQ+characters in the show, which adds onto to Disney’s pursuit normalizing the life of an high school student.
The characters evolve through a great character development. It was exciting watching all of the characters get closer to each other, but the show reflected more realistic character dynamics through situations such as arguments over which students star in the play.
Overall, I loved the show, it was very interesting to watch. Disney did a really good job with this series. It definitely was not like the High School Musical films, and I appreciated the unique qualities in the series. I highly recommend High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. The first season is only ten episodes but you wont have to wait much longer for the second season, where the musical in progress is Beauty and the Beast!
If you are still skeptical about watching the series, here are some more reviews!
Rotten Tomatoes gave High School Musical: The Musical: The Series 76% rotten tomatoes for all critics and 79% for an average audience score. For Rotten Tomatoes, this is decent.
High School Musical: The Musical: The Series averaged a 4.7 star review on Google.
“It was great, it doesn’t go along the story line of High School Musical which I liked, it is its own show that’s like Glee.” says Maddie LoRae, CHS Senior.
“I didn’t think I would like the TV show since I am such a big fan of the original movies, but after I watched the first episode I was hooked,” said Kayla Pimpleton, CHS Junior.
“The series is not a reinvention of its genre, but it shines in its little specifics…” says Margaret Lyon from The New York Times.
If you have Disney+ and downtime, I would definitely recommend the series.
THE WARRIOR WORD 