I recently watched the Disney Channel tv show Life with Derek that I enjoyed watching as a kid. Upon watching the show I learned so much about it that I had not known or noticed before and I am going to share with you what all that is.
1. Canadian
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I didn’t realize that the show was set in Canada when I watch this show on Disney channel when I was nine. Now that I know that a lot of things make more sense. I always wondered how Hockey was a sport at school that Derek played. I also should have known based on their accents. I guess when I was younger where the tv show was set and filmed didn’t matter or add to the plot as much as it does to a college student who is reminiscing on her childhood television shows.
2. No laugh track
I also didn’t realize this as a kid but one of my friends did. She said that she felt like Life with Derek was her first “adult” tv show because there is no laugh track. As I watched the show again I noticed this a second time around. It is really interesting for a children’s show to not have laugh track but there are still silly sound effects in the show so it’s not completely relying natural sound and acting.
3. Odd romantic tension
When I was younger I oddly wanted Casey and Derek to get together at weird points in the show and I never understood why. Watching the show again I found that the two actors just had really good chemistry. I asked my friends and they all thought the same thing and upon watching the show again we all found that the show just was filled with sexual tension because they are teenagers all living in a small house navigating high school and middle school.
4.How much the show deals with the battle of the sexes
The show is always a battle between Casey and Derek. Derek likes sports, girls, and goofing around and Casey likes being neat, doing well in school, and is a bit OCD. Casey is a feminist and so is her mom and little sister. There are several episodes that deal with the topic of feminism and they reach a moment where the show could deal with the subject matter that is really important and is something with struggle with today but all of the episodes fall slightly short where basically I just ends with everyone being happy about no real progress is being made. I still applaud the show for touching on the feminist movement but I wish they had taken it a little bit further.
