The infamous “High School Musical” saga has returned to Disney Channel, but this time around, it comes in the form of a TV series. “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” (HSMTMTS for short) tells the story of the love triangle between Ricky, EJ, and Nini, their lives at East High, and their journey to perform a live musical of High School Musical. The show; however, is only streamed on Disney +.

Now, I was a huge HSM fan in my youth, as I went as far as seeing it live and on ice. So you could only imagine my excitement when I heard that there was going to be an HSM 4 being released. I was ecstatic to hear this until I became aware of the fact that it wasn’t actually an HSM 4 with the original cast, it was a reboot with a teenybopper cast. I was crushed, and at that point, I swore I wouldn’t watch it.

I eventually succumbed to my own curiosity after hearing a few of my friends rave about the show and decided to give it a shot, and I was not disappointed. Sure, I was right about there being a teenybopper cast, but they are teenyboppers in the best way.

First, let’s talk about Joshua Bassett and his character Ricky and Olivia Rodrigo and her character Nini. Ricky was desperate to get back his ex-girlfriend Nini after they broke up over summer break, so he joins the school musical to get closer to her. He gets cast as Troy while Nini is cast as Gabriella, and from there, the two get closer. Now Bassett and Rodrigo are incredibly talented, as they both had original songs of their own that ended up being included in the show’s soundtrack. As teenagers, to be able to write original songs for your own Disney show, it takes an insane amount of talent and hard work, but Bassett and Rodrigo nailed it.

Not only was the cast amazing, but the storyline was actually riveting. I was fully expecting the screenwriting of the show to be mediocre, but again I was wrong. The script has the perfect amount of high school awkwardness, and it had a great amount of conflict and drama that kept me on the edge of my seat. From Gina’s disappearing act to EJ’s stalker-like actions, I had a nice fill of drama.

My final praise for the series has to be the soundtrack. From the iconic HSM originals that were included on the soundtrack to the new songs like “All I Want” and “Just For a Moment,” the entire soundtrack is great, and it really adds to the show. Overall, I’d highly recommend “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” and I’d rate it a ten out of ten.