Tonight after American Idol, Fox premiered Glee, a new hour-long (!) comedy about a high school glee club. The idea was that people who enjoy watching young people sing for real will also enjoy watching young actors sing in the context of a sitcom. Fox has so much confidence in this show that it's showing this pilot episode a full season before the show actually begins (next fall). Whoever thought that this might be a good idea deserves a gold star, because the potential is there and the marketing is smart, but whoever produced it (ahem, Nip/Tuck's Ryan Murphy et al) deserves to be pelted with rancid tomatoes. This show is not only unfunny, but it is brimming with inauthenticity and overdone cliches.
1. Apparently only five kids wanted to be in the glee club, and I, for one, was completely blown away by all of their auditions (especially "Respect" and "Mr. Cellophane"!), though the teacher running the audtions didn't seem too impressed. The glee club consists of the Gay Kid, the Black Girl, the Asian Girl, and the Superstar (and a Wheelchair Kid -- who didn't get an audition scene for some reason). We didn't see a single bad audition -- apparently the producers don't realize that half the love for American Idol is schadenfreude for awful singers, or at least people that have noticeable flaws that may be eventually overcome. They also don't realize that the average singing group usually has at least one person who couldn't star in a traveling show of Les Mis.
2. The first time we see them sing together, they produce a really well put-together and harmonious number ("Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat"), complete with a finished musical quality and comical choreography. When they're done, the teacher is like "ok, we can get better" and the Superstar girl runs out in a huff. What!? Where's the rehearsal? When did they get this together? How did they memorize and choreograph all of this, and why did we not see any of it? Where was the MONTAGE? Anyone, anyone? Not to mention that for a group singing together for the first time -- hell, for any performance -- they weren't half bad.
3. I never knew there was so much hatred for singers in high school. Perhaps I was spoiled, but my experience is that all sorts of people try out for musicals (maybe less uncool than glee club, but still. . .), inlcuding jocks and cheerleaders and, um . . . actually, according to the cosmology of the American high school provided by Glee, that's it: just jocks, cheerleaders, and the uncool. Can this be? In a world where everyone and his brother has a band? Where everyone wants to try out for American Idol? The cool jock (who sings flamboyantly in the locker room shower) has to be blackmailed into joining the group by the teacher who leads the glee club, and then when he does, is shot with paintballs by his teammates. Really? P.S. the jock really does a 180 by the end of the episode that is largely unexplainable -- he saves one of the dorks from his asshole teammates, and then gives a speech about everyone being uncool. Make me gag.
4. By the way, speaking of the teacher who heads the glee club: What is he, exactly? A conductor? I didn't see him conduct anything. Does he arrange music? Anything? All we see is him watch them perform and go, "hmm. that was OK. Let's run it again." He does about as much work "leading" the glee club in any meaninful way as Jerry McGuire does being a sports agent.
5. No character development for the Gay Kid, the Black Girl, the Asian Girl, or the Wheelchair Kid. Apparently, the show wants us to care ONLY about the teacher, the unpopular, obsessed Superstar girl, and the Jock, as it gives them Election-style voiceover narrations and flashbacks. In fact, the show wants to relegate these other kids to singing back up to the Jock and Superstar, wasting their considerable talents on a capella "do do's" and "wah wah's" even though there is a rock band backing them up.
6. Guess what? There's gonna be a love triangle! The teacher is married to a wacked out Pottery-Barn addict who's having a hysterical pregnancy (meaning fake, not crazy), but the germaphobe guidance counselor is in love with him. No tension there, because his wife is an unsympathetic maniac. Gag me twice.
7. The very praiseworthy Jane Lynch is wasted as The Villian, the cheerleading coach who wants to destroy the Glee Club (say it with me: "huh?"). I'm sure she'll have her moments (not even bad writing can keep a good one down), but she should be leading the choir instead of trying to destroy it. Has anyone seen A Mighty Wind!?
After watching this show for one hour (!), I now feel what plastic surgeons must feel about Murphy's Nip/Tuck (picture me shouting at the TV -- "that's not how it happens!"). Not only do I doubt that any of the writers have ever been in a choral group, but I wonder whether any of them have even stepped foot in an American high school. Who wants to watch supertalented kids in a fake universe spontaneously break into song without any practice*? Long story short, instead of focusing on what's funny about glee clubs (eccentric enthusiasm about music, rehearsal mishaps, rivalries, and talent gaps), Glee focuses on interpersonal drama and unnatural hatred of highschoolers for musicians. As a result, it's nothing new. It's 90210 with dorks.
* Is that what happens in High School Musical?
10 comments:
It seems that all of your reasons for disliking the show are based on its having a lack of continuity with your own individual reality. I hope YOU get cancelled.
TJ: And you liked it because it conforms to your view of reality? Please tell me more, this time without being personally insulting, if possible. That is, of course, unless you are incapable of criticism without resorting to ad hominem attacks.
I don't disagree with most of the things you said, but hoping for a show to be canceled by Fox is something I'll probably never do. Unless it's reality.
Yeah, it doesn't reflect realistic process (coming from another long time singer), but I don't think that's what it's about. I doubt that shows like 24 or any action show really reflects exactly what goes on in the government and as you said, most medical shows are probably just the same.
The point isn't always to make sure things work with the realistic side of things. TV characters will always be prettier, wittier, smarter and more talented than most of the people out there. I didn't grow up in the US, so I'm not really sure what the jock to geek ratio is, we don't even have jocks.
I enjoy musicals, I enjoy big extravagant over-the-top performances and I enjoy cover songs a whole lot. I was blown away by the way they showed Rehab and I enjoyed the vocal performances of the main characters too. I also enjoyed the humor around it.
Yeah, some of it was annoying (and I do get annoyed easily by shows and movies), for instance the flashback scenes and the paintball thing for no actual reason. Characters seemed to have very shallow personalities (Jock hate geek. Chick wants fame. Teacher is passionate and wants to relive his glory days). There isn't a doubt that we've seen it all before, but there are tons of shows that you can get pissed at for being cliche.
I watch Castle too, and man is that show a huge cliche. Hard nosed female agent with silly male colleague help solve cases by completing eachother's sentences. But once you've accepted that the show isn't trying to be more than that, you can sit back and enjoy it.
I don't think Glee is trying to be anything more than a cute show with musical numbers, and I'm willing to give it a chance at that.
John: You didn't create the program, you simply reviewed it (in a way I found distasteful and off base), and so there can be no other argument BUT ad hominem. Wordsmithing will not save you.
I found the show surprisingly enjoyable, especially for a pilot. The characters were introduced as shrill, two-dimensional archetypes that slowly came to reveal broader, deeper personalities (Ex. Teri, the stereotypical nagging wife with sad tears in her eyes at the announcement of something that should have been pure joy). This is more ground than is generally covered in a whole season of the OC/90210 rip-offs that run riot on the airwaves today.
Concerning realism: Of course it doesn't conform to my reality. OF COURSE. The technique employed in the musical segments of the show remind of strongly of magic realism, introducing the conceit that such talented youth (and with such drive) exist anywhere, let alone everywhere. The musical segments make a clear break from the rest of the reality of Glee, allowing them warrant to make it... ENTERTAINING.
It is a television show after all.
I guess I feel the same way Mike Bristow and Peter Griffin feel: This show insists upon itself. I just couldn't shake the feeling that it was trying way too hard to be quirky without taking it further into the soapy stylings of Nip/Tuck ( a show that started great then lost me.)
Im so glad you made refrence to Election. The superstar, the Jock, and their voiceovers felt pulled right out of that much better movie. I also had this desire to watch Hamlet 2 again something that knew how to take this material to the next level.
I didn't hate the pilot, but unless I hear that this gets way better I will most likely avoid this one.
I think you mean a 180, not a 360 ;)
I enjoyed it. Are you really so jaded and cynical that a lighthearted construct around some musical numbers annoys you that much? Makes a nice change from endless reality TV and there's only so much hardcore drama I can take.
Yes, 180 -- thanks.
Not jaded, nor cynical. In fact, a show that utilized actual elements of the thing it purported to present to facilitate comedy and drama would have been great. That's why I watched the pilot. I just didn't expect to see "Another High School Show" sprinkled with professional musical numbers. You ever hear the phrase "it's funny because it's true." Glee was unfunny because it's not true -- if you're going to go in an unauthentic direction, why not have the cheerleaders and jocks be into glee club? -- at least that would be original.
50 bucks they will be.
Sorry John, but this show isn't going anywhere. I want those 50 bucks Joel ;) There are too many gleeks out there to let this show fall through. Why not try singing along? It could help the experience! Whatever, I ,for one, am done with law shows and over-the-top dramas. It's nice to have a change of pace. Glee essentially re-invents the wheel.
I can't believe this thread is still alive -- I guess I should pick on popular material more often. P.S. I haven't watched any of the episode besides the pilot, so I have nothing more to say about it. You're all right, it probably won't be canceled. We're living in a universe now where tastes are made by these Disney-style musical shows that have been jammed down the throats of adolescents for the past ten years. :(
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