If you listened to Podcast Audition, then you would have heard me mention that I was rewatching Big Time Rush.
So yeah, this is about that.
Hello and welcome to another Substack newsletter. Sit tight, have some shawarma and caprisonne, while I reawaken your childhood nostalgia.
I just realized that I watched Boarders season two and gave no update. But omo, it has passed. I barely remember it. I just know I preferred season one. (Honestly the only thing that kept me watching was Sekou Diaby who acts Toby. Jaheim had character development but still annoyed me sometimes. I was mentally irritated anytime I saw Femi, Omar used the entire season to annoy me, and don’t even get me started on the severe second-hand embarrassment I suffered in the hands of Leah)
Now back to the business at hand.
As a chronically online TikTok viewer, I tend to watch a lot of shows through clips by bots (y’know the random ones with edits after unrelated to the show).
I have seen so many shows through clips, and I think the show of the month is Big Time Rush and Tom and Jerry.
I’d been meaning to rewatch Big Time Rush (from now on this will be shortened to BTR), because at the time I watched it:
I didn’t understand the term sitcoms
I didn’t know these random episodes I watched had a storyline
therefore, I paid zero attention to the storyline and the characterization.
So, basically all I know I was watching then was ouu, four boys from a hockey town moved to LA in a band. Kendall and Jo, Lucy and James. Kendall is hot, I love Katie. Nothing else mattered or made sense. I didn’t care about the music sef. I remember hating the times where they were livestreaming BTR with One Direction cause then I didn’t even get the allure of concerts
Anyway, with this TikTok boom, I remembered that I had collected the show from my friend on a flash-drive and decided to watch it (keeping in tune with my resolution to watch more sitcoms this year)
I binged one season in three days guyssss.
Like come, no-one told me that BTR was a really good show.
First thing I noticed, there were two levels of smartness within the boys. Logan being book-smart and Kendall being cunning-smart. They all looked towards Kendall for plans and ideas. He became the unofficial leader of the group.
The beginning of the show immediately shows the group dynamics. Carlos, the wildcard, wants to turn on sprinklers to douse the girls’ volleyball team (I think? I just remember it was a group of girls). This immediately paints him as the impulsive daredevil that his character is. He doesn’t care if it’s stupid, as long as it seems fun, he’s doing it.
Then Kendall asks Logan what the probability of them getting beat up is. Setting Logan up immediately as the smart one. Kendall hearing that goes to join Carlos. Showing that he does along with the stupid ideas either way. James who was partially paying attention, grooming himself sees what they were doing and immediately joins.
Logan knowing fully well they’re going to get their ass beat, mutters to himself that he needs to get new friends (something he mutters to himself twice in the episode which shows that this is something he says a lot but never acts on it because he loves them).
All four of them are weirdly loyal towards each other. It’s an insanely tight bond.
Hollywood is James’ dream. Hockey is Kendall’s, Medicine is Logan’s. But when opportunity comes for James to potentially got to Hollywood, they all scheme their way across town in thirty minutes, heralded by pure determination (God, I sound like my mother), a learner’s permit and their neighbor’s car.
They all auditioned before James because he was nervous, though none of them really cared about it. Gustavo was mean to all of them, and they didn’t really mind, but when he shuts down James, Kendall (my man) scolds Gustavo. It starts a brawl as Kendall refuses to be dragged out of the theatre without saying everything he wants to say to Gustavo and the boys join in to help him get free.
Note this is still episode one and I just now realized I lost the plot because I wanted to talk about the season as a whole. We’ll get there sha
Anywho, like a masochist, Gustavo liked Kendall’s fire and spirit and wanted to sign him. Kendall said no. That his dream is hockey not singing.
Everyone, even James, convinced him to go and then he convinced Gustavo to make them a group, he’s not doing this without his boys.
The rest of the season holds the exact same dynamic. While all the boys are terrified of Gustavo, Kendall is always calling him out on his shit.
And we discover that the smartness for scheming isn’t just in him but in his little sister too.
Katie is ten years old with a very entrepreneurial mind. She thinks of ways to make money in every opportunity. In the season, we see that she has the exact same fire and spirit that Kendall has, as she and Bitters are always at odds (Bitters is the building manager who also wants money and gets upset that a ten-year-old is smarter than him)
Enough of me gassing up the Knight family and the boys.
Kelly is trying I swear to God. She’s an assistant to an insufferable, loud, temperamental boss, who occasionally steals ideas and never listens while simultaneously having to handle the schedules of four rowdy sixteen-year-old boys who break almost everything they touch. I would’ve quit. I couldn’t
Griffin on the other hand is a fun character to watch but if I had him as a boss, I will kill him then kill myself. That man was the weapon fashioned against Gustavo. Brother will just walk into the studio and make an outrageous demand that Gustavo has to follow. Like don’t you have someone else to terrorize?
Anyway, the entirety of season one is just them getting used to Hollywood while recording their first album. It’s everything that happened before they released a song, and the season finale is their first tour stop before their album sales went live.
The first season canonically has a six-month time frame, and the most notable character development was Gustavo because you see as he comes to genuinely care for the boys, going as far as to sell his mansion to fund their tour.
I love the show a lot more now than I did as a kid because I’m seeing the smaller details that were involved as opposed to just watching it.
I loved Kendall a normal amount before but now? That’s my man frfr.
On to season two (made myself not watch season two until I posted this, as motivation to finish this quicker).
Time to see if I’ll be Team Jo or Team Lucy (I was team Jo as a kid cause she was the original girlfriend. Now I can compare chemistry and compatibility, so expect me)
You sound like my mother is wild 😂
Time to rewatch BTR
I just finished rewatching victorious