Like most people here, I grew up with this show and watched every episode numerous times, so it's safe to say that I was excited for the reboot. However, I was also pretty nervous about whether the reboot would overly rely on nostalgia or social media, or if it just wouldn't work like the original did. Watching the first two episodes, I was really surprised at how much fun I was having, and I found myself laughing out loud many times. They had just the right amount of nostalgia, there wasn't as much references to social media as I expected, and most of the jokes landed perfectly. I do have to say, even though it's technically an adult show, it relied on the childish and goofy humor from the original, which I'm not sure is a good or bad thing. It was also kind of off putting seeing the show structured so differently from the original, but I got used to it by the end of the second episode. The characters were mostly good, especially Spencer and Freddie, who were as funny as ever and seemed like themselves from the original show. I'm not sure what they did with Carly's characterization; I found her to be really one-dimensional and she behaved like an angsty teen girl, craving a boyfriend and likes on the internet. This is ironic since she was more mature in the original, when she was actually a teen. Harper was okay, and I didn't really have any issues with her. I found Millicent to be really annoying (no disrespect to the actress), but it was okay since she didn't take up too much screen time. The reboot was going so well and I felt that it had good potential, until the third episode. This episode completely shifted its focus to social media, with a constant barrage of jokes about memes, influencers, cancel culture, and Instagram. I wouldn't have had such a big issue with this, but the jokes were so awful, and barely any of them landed. Also, Millicent had way too much screen time for my liking, and there was some satire and commentary added in this episode that just didn't work at all. Carly saying a curse word and recreating her "interesting" meme unfortunately doesn't save this episode. I obviously know this was just three out of thirteen episodes, but I really hope that future episodes have better writing and aren't like the third one. I just don't want to see one of my favorite shows get ruined! The first episode gets a 7, the second episode gets an 8, and the third gets a 4.
Review of iCarly
