The Quinton Reviews iCarly/Victorious Project

Recently a YouTube channel called Quinton Reviews released the second part of a 13.5 hour Victorious review. For some reason, this went viral and everyone on tumblr was (kind of ) talking about it. The jokes really just seemed to revolve around two things: the insane length of the video and a scene of the show wherein a car battery falls on the character Jade's head. Really, there wasn't much else to take away from the video. In my opinion, it was mostly just episode recaps with very little commentary and analysis. A lot of the videos' length was eaten up by filler like reviewing Victorious merchandise and video games. There was even a whole aside about Garfield video games. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy this, but I am saying that this is the reason, in my opinion, that the video didn't really spark that much conversation about the content of the show online, like I may have expected.

My main takeaway from the Victorious videos by Quinton Reviews was that the show was a lot creepier/more perverted than I remembered it being and that I had no desire whatsoever to rewatch it like Quinton did. There were so many underage sex jokes. So. Many. When I was a teenager watching the original run of the show, it didn't faze me. When they kept writing about how "hot" these characters were I was just like... yeah, they are hot. But as an adult, I would feel really uncomfortable watching something where the whole point of the show was that I should find teenagers sexy.

So, I decided to go back and watch his iCarly review and see if it gave me the same impression. I had much fonder memories of iCarly than Victorious, so I was kind of dreading it, figuring he would "ruin my childhood." But I was surprised to find, at least for his review of the first three seasons, I did not feel that way. Yeah, there was a bunch of cringey, stupid stuff and a lot of mean spirited jokes. But the show didn't go out of its way to remind its audience that we should be lusting after these pubescent characters. The characters' defining traits were that they were funny, creative, and clever, not just "sexy." The show was also really ahead of its time and seemed to understand the way that the internet was going to replace cable TV, in a sort of ironic twist, considering that iCarly the sitcom ran on cable TV.

The last three seasons weren't so great, as the show failed to keep up with the internet and seemed trapped in a 2007 internet culture, even though the last season aired in 2012. The show was also kind of insulting to its audience. I won't lie, a big reason I watched iCarly as a kid was for the shipping. I wanted Sam and Freddie to get together and the first three seasons of the show catered to fans who were interested in this sort of Carly/Freddie/Sam love triangle. But at a certain point, the show seemed to want to make fun of the kids watching for that reason. It seemed really unfair. And the shipping-focused episodes after season three were all horribly messy and unsatisfying. The writers of the show refused to give their fans a satisfying ending and that really sucked. Not to mention how incredibly outlandish the show became in later seasons.

But I was like, huh, I feel like I remember way more than 50% of iCarly being really good, but if the first three seasons were good and the last three seasons were bad, I guess I'm misremembering. No. I wasn't. The show was more than 50% good. The first three seasons were all like double the length of the last three. iCarly had a really good run and I think I could go back and rewatch at least those first sixty or so episodes and really enjoy myself. I doubt I would enjoy rewatching any of Victorious. (And I'm not even going to touch the iCarly reboot). And that's my review of Quinton Reviews' review.