#tfpoba

ASHLEY’S AGE

This was the first thing I noticed, and boy, did it bug me. Early in season one, Ashley Banks is stated to be nine years old. But towards the end of season one, there’s an episode where they celebrate Ashley’s birthday, and she’s turning twelve. Less than a year has passed since Will arrived in Bel-Air by that point (they kept the timeline fairly precise with the kids’ school year and the Christmas/Thanksgiving episodes), so there’s no way she’s suddenly jumped from being nine to almost twelve. 

I get that they probably changed it because they realised they wanted her to be a bit older and figured nobody would notice, but I see y’all...

Not to mention, at the very beginning of season two, within the first couple of episodes, Phil says she’s thirteen! Keeping in mind that season two pretty much picks up where season one left off, meaning only mere weeks will have passed since Ashley’s twelfth birthday. 

PHIL’S FATHER’S DEATH

So in early in season one, Phil’s parents pay a visit to the Banks household, both his mother and his father. A little later in season one, only his mother visits after she’s been getting over a cold/flu (and Will sneaks her out to a rap concert). I don’t remember if it was even mentioned why her husband didn’t come with her, especially if she was recently poorly -- I actually don’t recall him being mentioned at all -- but it seems a bit odd to me that a husband wouldn’t accompany his possibly sick wife on a long trip to go and visit their grandchildren. But considering he apparently dies with no mention just a short while later, maybe we can assume he was really ill and insisted she go and visit the kids anyway. I don’t know. 

We get another visit from Granny early on in season two, where it becomes apparent that she’s widowed. (Wikipedia says for about a year, I don’t recall if they actually say that in the show, but if so, that’s a bit yikes and makes no sense in terms of how much time has passed since her previous visit... meaning perhaps he was actually dead not long after the very first episode that featured Phil’s parents). 

It seems strange to me that they had this emotional episode about how she has lost a husband and is lonely, and about how Phil has lost his father, but there was no mention of it previously. I’d think him losing his dad and the Banks kids losing a grandfather would be pretty traumatic at the time of it actually happening. 

NICKY’S AGE

This isn’t necessarily a plot-hole because they directly address it, presumably to dodge confusion, but still... it bugged me. 

So, at the end of season four, the Banks family holiday in Philadelphia over the summer with Will so they can visit his mother. Will decides he wants to stay in Philly, and the season ends on somewhat of a shock moment. 

At the start of season five, Will’s voice-over explains it had “been a while” since he left the family back in Bel-Air. Pretty vague. There’s then a really jokey segment where someone from the network takes him back to Bel-Air because the contract said the show was The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, not The Fresh Prince Of Philly. So it leaves viewers free to imagine he had some lapse in judgement and wanted to go back to Bel-Air. 

But upon returning, a few things are different, namely that Nicky, the youngest Banks child, has suddenly went from being below a year old to possibly pre-school age. He looks around about two or three but has good language skills. Jazz comes to visit Will and directly addresses this -- this was written in purposefully because they wanted to explore storylines where Nicky is older but seemingly without a huge time-skip so they just magically aged him. I get that but it’s sorta annoying. For it to be plausible, it means Will has been gone for at least a year, and that means he must have dropped out of college too. I can’t imagine his mother would have been too pleased with that even if it was to stay home with her. I more envision it like Will decided to stay in Philly for a couple of months over the summer vacation and then realised his future lies in Bel-Air, and moved back. But Nicky would only be maybe a year old if that were the case. 

ANNOYING. I get why they did it but ANNOYING. 

I guess you could hella stretch it and say Will just took a couple of semesters off from college to figure things out in Philly and Nicky is just a SUPER ADVANCED CHILD. But... yeah. 

THE APARTMENT INVESTMENT

In season five, Will almost gets married to his girlfriend, Lisa. They end up calling off the wedding and breaking up, but prior to the wedding, Will is attempting to make some more money so that they’re financially stable. He eventually convinces Uncle Phil to buy an apartment complex, give it a makeover, and let Will become the landlord, which he does.

...And then it gets completely forgotten about.