Disney fans the company is a few days away from launching it's streaming service and well the company did something great. They released the first episode of it's new show High School Musical: The Musical: The Series on ABC as a special preview which is something that alot of studios never do and I don't get why since it's free advertising and so here are my first impressions of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series and yes there will be ONE spoiler.
The plot of this episode is East High the school where the movies were filmed is finally putting on a production of High School Musical with this episode mainly focusing on the auditions for the production. In terms of story it's understandably pretty basic since all it does is set up the characters and nothing more but at the same time I would have liked it if they had a bit more going on to keep me interested in the series long term.
Starring in this episode and the rest of the series is Joshua Bassett as Ricky Bowen , Olivia Rodrigo as Nini Salazar-Roberts , Kate Reinders as Miss Jenn , Sofia Wylie as Gina Porter , Matt Cornett as E.J. Caswell , Julia Lester as Ashlyn , Larry Saperstein as Big Red , Dara Renee as Kourtney , Frankie Rodriguez as Carlos , Mark St. Cyr as Mr. Mazzara , Joe Serafini as Seb Matthew-Smith and Alexis Nelis as Natalie.
If i'm being honest the acting in this episode isn't that good but given that this is the first episode that's understandable. The actors are clearly talented and so over time you just know that the acting is going to get better as the series goes on but it still does leave a mark on this episode tho and so it's something that I have to talk about but like I said the actors are talented and so there's more room for them to grow.
Now the aim of this show from what I can gather from the first episode is about the characters growing and becoming friends. Which is honestly something that i've personally not seen before in any show and so it was really refreshing for me to see it possibly be the aim for this show and if it is then great because it's something new and something different and we need new and different now with so many streaming networks coming.
What I found very hard to believe is that everyone in the world of this show loved High School Musical and if they didn't at the start then they did by the end of the episode. I get that it's an instalment of that franchise but it's ok to have characters that don't like the film or it's sequels in fact it would be really refreshing since then they could offer a viewpoint that you wouldn't get from people who obsess over it.
Like I said Disney aired the first episode on ABC however what they did was have the cast talk about the show several times so instead of being around twenty minuets it's around forty minuets. I would have preferred if they didn't have the cast interrupt the episode since that way you'd be able to get a better feel for what the show is going to be like but they chose not to go that route which would have made more sense if you ask me it would be like having the cast of a movie interrupt the movie your seeing to talk about the movie your watching is what i'm getting at.
SPOILER IS STARTS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There is one sequence that I have to talk about because honestly it was so good and was easily the best moment of the whole episode for me. It's Nini's version of "Start Of Something New" I just loved that sequence it starts with her singing in the dark because the power died and then one of the male characters uses his phone to give her some light and then another male character does the same and then the whole scene transitions it this beautiful looking stage full of chandeliers with Nini wearing Gabriela's red dress and I just loved it.
SPOILER ENDS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This actually a musical series and will include original songs as well as cover versions of songs from at least the first film. We do get an example of one of the original songs in this episode with "I Think I Kinda, You Know" and like I said "Start Of Something New" both of which are being sung by Olivia Rodrigo and man can she sing if she doesn't want to act anymore she could very easily make it as a singer and I like the fact that the show is using a mixture of old and new songs because it keeps things fresh which is always good.
Overall this was a really good episode one thing I forgot to mention was the comedy which was very hit and miss for me personally but there might be some people who find this episode to be funny as heck. For those of you who don't know I don't give out ratings when I do a first impressions just because that rating might go up as the series goes on and I have no idea if i'm going to watch the rest of this series or not so I don't know if there will be a review of it or not and yes the teacher does mention being a backup dancer in the original film which was pretty funny. #HSMTMTS