When Paige convinces Dirk to stop doing such risky dares, his brother Kirk is worried the dare-devil is broken for good. Meanwhile, Bernie tries to find an office space to call his own for an important meeting. (imdb.com)

I decided to check back in to Bizaardvark, now that it is seven episodes into its run.  I still found it formulaic and I still found the characters somewhat one-dimensional but, surprisingly, I found the episode amusing.

We had two main storylines going on here.  First, Paige and Frankie are concerned that Dirk’s dares are too dangerous.  So she administers an 800 question career test – and it suggests that Dirk would be best served being a daredevil, a stuntman, or a librarian who doesn’t like to sit still.  When Dirk explains the physics behind one of his dares, Paige decides to connect Dirk with her school’s Physics Club.  There’s only three kids in the club apparently.  What I liked about this scene was Dirk’s ability to explain physics on his own terms.  As a teacher, I think we do these types of students a huge disservice when we require them to confirm to school norms.  Different students learn different ways and we need to celebrate that.

Of course, Dirk is so disenfranchised by this whole approach that he decides not to do any more dangerous dares.  His brother shows up and wonders about the latest, greatest dare.  Dirk realizes that doing dares is in his blood – and does the dare successfully (using physics!).  Paige learns to not advocate for people changing their interests.

Meanwhile, Frankie and Bernie are involved in a separate storyline about Bernie getting his own office.  LIam first gives him a storage room/server room – and the physical comedy here is reasonably good.  Because Bernie has arranged for a meeting with a top TV executive to bring Bizaardvark to TV, he and Frankie decide to bribe Liam into getting a better office – specifically his office.  I’m not sure why they wouldn’t just clean up the office they have but , oh well.  In the end, after all of the back and forth bribery (which seems out of Frankie’s character, but not Bernie’s), it turns out that the “top TV executive” actually videotapes all of the sporting events at Tarzana Community College.  It is sort of a flat ending to a somewhat flat story.

I find it better when a show sends its two main characters off into different storyline directions.  The show still has too many shades of iCarly but, as long as Bizaardvark is on TV, that will be an ongoing comparison.