Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown Podcast

Welcome back to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown! Today we recap Breaker High, episode 16: “The Caber Guy.” If I’d known a caber was something to be thrown in the Highland Games, I would’ve gotten the pun and been able to guess where they are. Though they did come from Dublin last episode, so this makes sense.

The episode begins with Tamira playing the bagpipes and her friends attempting to be polite but all grimacing at the noise. Jimmy c...

Welcome back to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown! Today we recap Breaker High, episode 15: “Kissin’ Cousins.”

Ooh, this episode is getting under my skin already. Ashley is taking a magazine personality quiz about how good a friend she is, and clearly has no self-awareness as she marks down that she’s a great listener while at the same time is totally brushing Tamira off. Though when the words out of Tamira’s mouth are “I just don’t unders...

Welcome back to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown! Today we recap Breaker High, episode 14: “For Pizza’s Sake.” Italy perhaps?!

Seems we have some fallout from last episode already - Tamira comes upon Max and Cassidy sitting at a table on-ship holding hands and quickly kissing as Max gets up to leave. He greets Tamira with his hands on her shoulders as he passes by her; when Cassidy tries to call her over, she whirls around and heads the ot...

Welcome back to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown! Today we recap Breaker High, episode 13: “Tamira is Another Day.” I know the song I’m about to mention came out six years after this show aired, but if anyone remembers “Tomorrow” by Lillix - “Tomorrow’s just another day…” - that is now stuck in my head. You’re welcome.

We start on the deck, with Tamira trying to work up the courage to give Max a necklace she made for him and venting to Sea...

Welcome back to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown! Today we recap Breaker High, episode 12: “Out with the Old, In with the Shrew.” I would say I’m getting 10 Things I Hate About You vibes but it turns out this came out first!

We start with Tony getting rebuked by Captain Ballard - his title is “Activities Director” but all of his recent ideas have been total flops (I personally would have enjoyed “Karaoke with Your Inner Child” and “Tap Dan...

Welcome back to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown! Today we recap Breaker High, episode 11: “Chateau L’Feet J’mae” which I can only assume is a representation of a gross mispronunciation of the French language, and we are officially a quarter of the way through the series.

Our location is established right up front: Ashley is upset that the students are in Bordeaux, when Paris is so close, but she does have Alex’s arm wrapped around her and...

Welcome back to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown! Today we recap Breaker High, episode 10: “Rooming Violations.”

We start out on the ship with a sequence that I truly cannot tell whether or not it’s a dream. Literally everyone is complimenting Cassidy, Tamira talks about how she’s never had a boyfriend (okay that might be true), and Max is keeping Alex and Ashley apart on purpose because “she’s out of his league” (I would argue the opposit...

Welcome back to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown! Today we recap Breaker High, episode 9: “Belly of the Beast,” for which we are in Turkey!

The usual group has split up a little differently today. Cassidy, Tamira, Alex and Jimmy are all in on belly dancing (Denise begs off and goes back to the boat, claiming she has to study and that “shaking it in public” isn’t exactly a cultural experience in her mind), while Ashley and Sean, ever the sh...

Welcome back to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown! Today we recap Breaker High, episode 8: “Beware of Geeks Baring Their Gifts.” Full disclosure, I accidentally spoiled the episode summary for myself when I looked up the title to make sure I was spelling it correctly (and because as a self-identified geek I was slightly offended) but it didn’t mention everyone and actually sounded better than I thought we might be getting, so onward we go.

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Welcome back to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown! Today we recap Breaker High, episode 7: “Radio Daze.” It’s the first episode in a little while where the episode title doesn’t give away the next port, so anything could happen; let’s get going.

To start the show, Sean is DJing on the ship’s radio station (okay, I guess we could have guessed that from the title) and very much enjoying hearing the sound of his own voice. Seems like he’s over...

Welcome back to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown! Today we recap Breaker High, episode 6: “Tomb with a View.”

Breaker High is heading to Egypt, so Tamira, Denise and Ashley are teaming up on a school project about the country, focusing on jewelry. Ashley is fully prepared with an entire blueprint of the Cairo bazaar, with all the jewelry stalls highlighted and everything - Denise is half derisive and half impressed when she says, “Only you...

Welcome back to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown! Today we recap Breaker High, episode 5: “Kenya Dig It.”

As you might have guessed, Breaker High is on its way to Kenya, so the class is having two guest speakers come to prep them (turns out the woman advertising the fire-walking outing last episode is the onboard teacher, which I should have guessed). As luck would have it, they are two good-looking men, so Ashley and Cassidy are paying at...

Welcome back to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown! Today we recap Breaker High, episode 4: “Don’t Get Curried Away.”

We are officially in a time before social media, as the episode starts with Ashley requesting that Tamira take a photo of her with an actual camera so she can show her boyfriend back home, Tyler (who goes to Princeton, might she remind you), what it’s like on the ship. And of course, Ashley’s “everyday outfit” that she wears ...

Welcome back to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown! Today we recap the third episode of Breaker High: “Mayhem on the Orient Distress.”

The scene is set with a montage making it clear we’re in East Asia (given that the first episode was set in Japan, this makes sense), and we can officially put a pin in the map when Ashley complains about it being so crowded here in Hong Kong as she, Cassidy and Tamira walk through a market. The stereotypes j...

Welcome back to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown! To anyone who engaged with the first recap post and decided to come back for more, thank you. Today, as expected, we’ll be recapping the second episode of Breaker High: “Pranks for the Memories.”

Right off the bat, I have to say, I’m a little bit scared of this one, just based off the title alone, as secondhand embarrassment and I do not get along very well, and getting there from “pranks” ...

Welcome back to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown, debuting our first official recap post on this lovely #throwbackthursday! What I said in the intro edition about not knowing how many episodes I’d talk about per post? Yeah, it’s going to be one at a time, if only because watching TV takes longer when you’re writing notes, the text version of this post is already long, and so the audio version of this is bearable (and this is all just for ...

(New) Beginnings Are Hard.

Welcome to Teeny Bopper TV Breakdown! Like everyone else needing a funemployment project, I’m starting a Substack. As a person I need lines to color-by-number inside, so instead of choosing topics on a whim (at least to start; I reserve the right to add self-inserts, hence the URL with my name instead of the project title), I’m going to make public what I would have come up with myself anyway, which are *...