It’s time for High School Musical to graduate. Both the original Disney Channel movie series and the Disney+ spinoff, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, have run their course. We’re going to need at least another decade before we can bring back the East High Wildcats for more kitschy dances and high school romances.
High School Musical: TM: TS has come a long way since it premiered in 2019, one of the very first original series to debut on Disney+. Original leading lady Olivia Rodrigo, who broke out on the series before becoming one of the world’s biggest pop stars, slowly inched her way off the show, going from leading lady to recurring guest star to completely absent in this final season. Other actors appear to have slightly outgrown the show, too, (or have been written off) like Larry Saperstein (Big Red) and Joe Serafini (Sebastian). The series has been whittled down to just a handful of original stars, who are now paired in scenes with less lovable newbies. Thank goodness the show is ending before Joshua Bassett is the only one left.
The first season of the show had a promising premise: over a decade after High School Musical, East High, where the movie took place, will put on a high school production of the show with Miss Jenn, who starred as a backup dancer in the movie. Since then, the series has veered away from its ironic beginnings. The series found a way to emulate the original High School Musical delights while also teasing it in a smart mockumentary format. Breitbart rioted over the fact that the HSM universe now prominently featured a gaggle of LGBTQ+ characters, and that *gasp* a young boy was now playing Sharpay—if you piss off Breitbart, you know you’re doing something right.
But the last two seasons have taken a slight detour into more hokey, less witty territory. Still, every episode is of equal quality to the original Disney Channel movies, and even if its legacy isn’t as strong as Kenny Ortega’s OG flicks, at least the show has made a huge star out of Rodrigo.
There are two productions at the heart of HSM: TM: TS Season 4. Miss Jenn (Kate Reinders) is skipping over the first HSM sequel and is instead staging High School Musical 3. (In the first season, the school put on a production of the original High School Musical.) Ricky (Bassett) and Gina (Sofia Wylie), who are finally an official couple, will obviously be Troy and Gabriella. Kourtney (Dara Reneé) will be Sharpay, and Carlos (Frankie Rodriguez) will play Ryan. The trouble is no longer a competition for who will be cast as whom. It’s that there aren’t enough drama club members to put on a show.
That’s because, across the hall, the High School Musical Universe is getting yet another reboot in the form of High School Musical 4. Disney is bringing the characters back for one last hurrah. Everyone—sans Vanessa Hudgens, Zax Efron, and Ashley Tisdale—is back, from Lucas Grabeel (Ryan, who is finally confirmed as gay in the HSM Universe) and Corbin Bleu (Chad) to Bart Johnson (Mr. Bolton) and Alyson Reed (Ms. Darbus). The plot will follow the new “it couple” at East High. Not so shockingly, a bunch of the drama kids land roles as extras. One even scores a leading role. But this only takes them away from their commitments to Miss Jenn’s (Kate Reinders) original drama club.
As always, the meta aspect of the series is a riot. Close behind, in terms of the show’s best attributes, is the growth these teens make: from shy nobodies to bubbly stars, from closeted to out and proud, from confused to certain. Two characters question their sexualities in this new season, both in unique ways. One character grapples with her dream of going to an Ivy League college, when the struggle no longer seems worth it. All of these arcs reach a wonderful climax in a flashback near the end of the show, in which we see where they were the day before signing up for musical auditions in the first season.
Then there are the love stories, which, sadly, take a real hit in Season 5. The romances in HSM: TM: TS have really started to feel like homework for the main characters. Everyone must have their perfect match. Happy couples are forced out of their relationships so that they can reunite or find new love in the final episodes. Characters who make no sense together end up in a boring pairing. It’s not that serious—it’s high school! Alas, gone are the days of Ricky and EJ (Matt Cornett) competing for Nini’s hand. Now, the characters are paired up as if they are all awkward musical dance partners with little-to-no chemistry.
Whereas the original High School Musical ran for three chapters—seeing Gabriella and Troy go from sophomores to graduates—its spinoff has stretched into four seasons, including one spent at summer camp. The original formula worked better: A humble start, a splashy sequel, and a tearful end. Instead, by adding one more chapter, HSM: TM: TS suffers from having too much ground to cover.
That said, its final season is not its worst. That title belongs to the third season, where only half the cast returned to take part in Frozen at summer camp. There are plenty of sentimental moments shared between Miss Jenn and her rambunctious drama club. But the final season is so sweet and tender that it verges on becoming too saccharine—we miss the goofy ukulele on Instagram live, the love triangles, and the weird teacher-student closeness Miss Jenn has with her students. (Actually, that last part is pretty accurate to the bond some theater kids share with their elders. Relatedly, go see Theater Camp.)
While the final season of HSM: TM: TS is not as fresh and invigorating as the first two seasons, the show still maintained its fresh and unique tone: a tongue-and-cheek mockumentary format in a high school setting. The series still has a knack, albeit not as sharp as before, for what it always does best: satire and earnest stories of teenagers finding their true selves. The two shouldn’t really go well together. But upon further examination of the self-deprecating teenage psyche, don’t they match perfectly? The final episodes don’t live up to the original season, but it’s grand that we had a show that explored corny teens the way this show did.
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