iReview

Okay, okay. It’s been nearly two weeks since Nickelodeon aired the crossover “iParty with Victorious.” I wasn’t going to do a review—it hadn’t crossed my mind. Then I was writing something else and used this as an example. When I realized I was off on a tangent, I decided to write a review.

So, leave it all to me, let it shine and beware SPOILERS!

In Seattle, Carly Shay (Miranda Cosgrove)—star of internet phenomenon “iCarly”—is in a very good mood. It is revealed that she has a new boyfriend named Steven. Steven is homeschooled because his parents have a unique custody agreement. He spends one month with his mother in Seattle, another month with his father in LA. But despite this, he and Carly have reached their three month anniversary. He gives her a present—a charm bracelet. They say good-byes as Carly regrets not being able to have their 100 day kiss.

In Los Angeles, Tori Vega (Victoria Justice) is in the middle of a scene with Beck (Avan Jorgia). Sikowitz doesn’t think their terror is convincing and tries to induce real terror in them. He finds Beck is a tough nut to crack and vows to scare him. Meanwhile, Cat (Ariana Grande) cannot talk due to nodules on her vocal chords. So the guidance counselor, Lane, gets her a special device to communicate. It’s your average computer reading program. We also learn that Tori has a new boyfriend named Steven. Who she has been dating for three months!

Robbie (Matt Bennett) takes a picture of the couple, immediately posting it to the internet. Steven freaks out about it, which should give Tori some indication that something was up. But Andre (Leon Thomas III) distracts them by inviting them to a party at the house of Kenan Thompson (“All That”, “Saturday Night Live”). Everyone is excited to go.

Up in Seattle, Carly discovers the picture of Steven and Tori. Sam (Jeanette McCurdy) thinks Steven is cheating on Carly while Freddie (Nathan Kress) is attracted to Tori. They decide to go to LA over the weekend and crash Andre’s party, which is now all over the internet thanks to Rex (Robbie’s puppet). Spencer (Jerry Trainor) agrees to drive them and brings Gibby (Noah Munck) along for his massages. They first stop at an ex-girlfriend of Spencer’s who is a makeup artist. The gang realizes that they will be recognizable due to iCarly’s popularity and want to disguise themselves.

They infiltrate the party, not that it’s hard to do. Rex’s tweet has brought out hundreds of teens to the party. Including Tori’s sister Trina (Daniella Monet), who brought the children she’s babysitting. There is also Andre’s grandmother and a tennis racket carrying panda. Spencer heads for a hot tub to help out his sore back, meeting Sikowitz. The teacher is still determined to scare his student as Beck and his girlfriend Jade (Elizabeth Gilles) also enter the hot tub. The four create an interesting group.

At the party, Carly finally spots Steven. He gives Tori a gift, the same he gave Carly. He even uses the same speech. Heartbroken, Carly sheds her disguise as do Sam and Freddie. Tori discovers them and freaks out as she loves iCarly. Carly reveals Steven’s deception and plots with Tori to get revenge. Sam encourages her to do it online as Freddie has apparently brought everything needed to do a live iCarly show.

Andre has been panicking the entire party as he’s afraid there are too many people there. Kenan arrives and declares the party too small, surprising Andre. He does have a rivalry with the panda, though. Andre and Kenan chase the panda until Kenan finds the iCarly Revenge Special. They ask for Kenan’s help and he flat out refuses to loan out money. He says he gets many monetary requests: Samberg, the original cast of “All That.” Once Carly and Tori rule out money, Kenan agrees.

Tori lures Steven into a closet on the pretense of giving him their 100 day kiss. Instead, he is ambushed by his two girlfriends, Sam and Kenan Thompson. He is thoroughly humiliated before Sam pwns Rex is a rap battle. The two casts then team up to sing a mash-up of their theme songs.

Going into the crossover, I was afraid iCarly would not acknowledge the fact that Victoria Justice had played a character on the show before. She played Shelby Marx in “iFight Shelby Marx.” They did acknowledge it. They didn’t acknowledge that Leon Thomas III has played another character on iCarly, but then again the iCarly gang hardly saw him. That was a problem with this crossover. While it featured both an “iCarly” plot and a “Victorious” plot, most of the characters never interacted outside of Carly-Sam-Freddie-Tori and Sikowitz-Spencer-Jade-Beck. Andre was too busy running after the panda bear, Cat had a brief moment with Gibby, Trina was dealing with the kids and Robbie pissed off everyone at the party.

The writing was very good. I was afraid the plot would be trite, but it somehow worked. Of course, the custody arrangement seems a bit extreme and one child psychologists probably would advise against.
I’ve also been wary of crossovers since the “CSI”/”Without a Trace” crossover back in 2007 disappointed me. I was disappointed that only Jack Malone (Anthony LaPaglia) came to Las Vegas. He stole the focus away from the main cast during “CSI”. When Gil Grissom (William Petersen) arrived in New York, he was placed in a corner. Or "That's So Suite Life of Hannah Montana" where the crossover was really between "That's So Raven" and "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody" while "Hannah Montana" had a regular episode with a little bit of Maddie (Ashley Tisdale) thrown in.

Here, all the characters were able to have a moment or two on camera, even if poor Ariana Grande didn’t have much speaking wise. It probably helped that the shows share a writing staff. However, I definitely preferred the Victorious bits over the iCarly ones. The different plots were closer to a Victorious episode. It would be easy to separate the iCarly bits and still have a Victorious episode. The iCarly bits were entirely dependent on the Carly-Steven-Tori plot. It held the promise of a good episode, but fall back on just playing up the characters: Spencer is eccentric, Gibby is wacky, Sam is violent and always hungry, Freddie is her straight man and Carly is our erstwhile heroine.

While flawed, it’s pretty good. I do not remember Nickelodeon ever attempting a crossover like this before. It is better than some of Disney’s attempts. They just realized “Charlie Shakes It Up,” a crossover between “Good Luck, Charlie” and “Shake It Up.” My sister wasn’t impressed. Neither was I, from the little I saw of it.

Otherwise, check out “iParty with Victorious.” It’s entertaining. And sometimes, that’s all we need.