AWASH IN SERIES finale nostalgia, what I think of as the most dramatic story of the 2009-2010 U.S. Television season has gotten a little lost: and that is the bizarre flameout of GLEE as an original, creative force.
I'm certainly not the first to lament about the decline of Glee since it returned for the second half of its first season. Not since first-season O.C. has a guilty pleasure series flamed out so fast. One of the best critiques I've seen (and I can't remember where I saw it now; if you know, please let me know the link in comments) is about the "two Glees." One is the show that's smart, with heart & surprising & interesting characters & situations and the other is the post-Success, Madonna-themed, shoehorn in as many numbers as possible Glee.
(EDIT: an enterprising reader emailed me the link. Of course the two Glees came from the excellent Maureen Ryan at the Chicago Tribune.)
Though the latter version is still capable of moments of beauty & pathos -- like the great sequence where Artie imagines rising from his chair to do "The Safety Dance" (like all things Gleek, it sounds ridiculous when you type it out loud) it seems like increasingly, the only thing keeping me watching is this:
And Brittany bon mots, as unexpected & wonderful & lovely as they are, aren't enough to keep me in the Glee camp. Not by themselves.
Add to that this speech. I can't figure out if it's sublime, or just overwritten. I'm a little thrilled to see this on network TV, but at the same time, it feels a bit ABC Afterschool special. But man, does Mike O'Malley sell it. Two snaps up for the Emmy bait.
Glee? Yay or Nay? Have at it below in the comments.
14 rumbles:
Glee. Yay.
It's not as good, no, but it's still doing interesting things, and the comedy/musical dance hour is hard enough to get behind sometimes.
It's problem, I think, is that it's an ensemble show searching to pretend it has leads. It's moments of pathos are when it reaches beyond the pat storylines that seem to consistently fall flat with Rachel et. al. and relate more to the Archies and the Kurts of that world.
But, y'know, overall Yay, mostly because I'm a musical theatre nerd.
I also say yay, although that Burt scene you posted came dangerously close to making me cry, which usually means it was overwrought and manipulative (I never actually cry at real moments of heartbreak on screen). And the Madonna episode left me cold, even though pretty much everyone I know went crazy for it. But my love for the peripheral characters is enough to keep me watching.
I freaking loved that speech because, obviously, yay homo, but more importantly, because they set the scene up with the creepy fact that fey little Kurt has been really manipulative with the poor dumb lug who gets called out in that clip.
I'd be as angry as the dad to hear Finn say "faggy" if it weren't a desperate freak-out from a straight boy who can't deal with Kurt's stalker vibe.
So even while I was cheering, "You go, angry dad!" I was feeling deeply sorry for Finn and that, for me, is good drama.
Glee is wildly uneven but more tension like that will keep me hooked.
Nay. Repetitve storylines clotheslining a lip sync contest...I mean c'mon, most of the dramatic beats in this weeks episode they'd used at least once before!
It's still on my PVR schedule, but tenuous... I'm just not sure *why* I'm watching it other than inertia at the moment.
I applauded them for preemptively retooling the season when it became clear that the "drama" elements they were threading weren't going to hold up over a whole season (esp Terry's fake pregnancy)... but instead of replacing them with new, better, storytelling engines - they replaced them with more dance numbers. This not only didn't fix anything - it just watered down the existing dance numbers.
The characters still vacillate between sparse characterization points (Kurt is secure in his sexuality, no wait he's not, no wait he's scheming, no wait he's not, no wait he's a cheerio now) with a lot of them entirely enigmatic (name *one* thing we've learned about Tina in the last dozen episodes)
Aside from the Vocal Adrenaline / Rachel's Mom uber plot thread name one advancement that *any* character's made since the revamp that would make storytelling with them more compelling going forward?
I could maybe even buy in to the changes from a pure performance point of view if the increased focus on music numbers improved the music numbers - but I sure can't think of a second-half number that stands up to any of the first-half numbers. Increasing them just seems to have diluted their punch.
Heck I have a hard time remembering what the current episodes *were* other than by gimmick music themes or guest-casting - and that's never a good sign.
Hey WB. I loved that speech. I do think Kurt has been a little too much (very pushy) but...wow, that speech was awesome. And you're right, it had to be delivered "just so," and wow, did he.
I'm a fan of the show, ups and downs and all, so I'll stick it out.
I'm gay and really loved the message. I do wish, however, that Finn's mom would step up and tell Kurt to back off. But that's commentary for another blog.
One thing: Why was your clip of that speech reversed? Everything was flip-flopped!
Scott, great point about the context of that scene. I scanned the episode lightly. that 2nd level makes me feel better about the scene -- we know how horrible the criticism is for Finn because of the context -- and that's also why maybe it going on longer than you would think is acceptable -- since it gives him more time to twist.
Wow. Though I agree with the general sentiment of that scene, I can tell you that if you come to that as someone who never watches the show it's kind of excruciating. Regardless of context or subtext, that's some seriously on-the-nose, inelegant writing right there. And not terribly well-acted -- though I'm not sure it could be.
But whatever. I don't get this show. Watched the pilot, decided it wasn't for me and never went back. I mean, yeah, I love Jane Lynch as much as the next person but I'd just as soon watch A Mighty Wind again.
Now you kids get offa my lawn 'fore Black Betty here start's a barkin'.
Yay. What Scott said about that scene, and generally while Glee's got its flaws, I love it because it's so unabashed somehow. Between that and the song and dance, I find it just joyful.
Yes, the back half of this season has been spotty. I couldn't believe that with an already sprawling cast they don't have time to serve between musical numbers, they devoted a whole episode to a guest character (Kristen Chenoweth, love her, but still a guest character) and the Madonna ep felt forced.
But I hope this is just a bit of early sophomore slump, or success going to the head. Given the show's capacity for genius, the tonal tightrope it's walking, the characters and cast, and the music - there's so much there to root for. I think it's way too early and unforgiving to call "flameout" just yet.
The earlier comment by theBigSmoke nails it in my mind - stunt work, not writing; Will & Grace, not Arrested Development.
I think part of the trouble with these later episodes is that nothing is left to fester. Rachel wants to find her mom - boom, finds her almost immediately. Finn doesn't want to move in with Kirk - over and done with in the space of an episode. And so on.
In the first run of shows there were time-bombs that kept ticking over a number of episodes. For example the fear of revealing Puck as the real father kept building. And of course the looming sectionals and all its obstacles.
I think this is part of what sank Heroes after the first season. I stopped watching at a point where Syrus (sp?) had switched alliances like five times in the space of two or three episodes. So none of the betrayals meant anything. But if he had been given time to really believe in and need one of his allegiances through some trials, and *then* been betrayed, it would have hurt a lot more.
Same thing with Glee. So for example what if Finn didn't like moving in with Kurt, but then he came to depend on his new sorta-brother (and his mother grew happier and happier in *her* relationship) over time and *then* something caused his freak-out?
Anyway, that's my wall o' text for the day.
Great point.
While I did enjoy Glee's first half season, I never saw it as a particularly new. It combined High School Musical with Election. But they did some fun things with the characters and won me over.
But the truth, it's not all that different now. They've just lost that focus on actual characters. In the end, people stayed with Lost for the characters they loved to see tested.
Flash Forward died because they spent more time on the plot than creating interesting, realisitic characters.
In the end, it's always characters. They sing whengiven thoughtful development and croak when it isn't
Bang on, BigSmoke.
I, too, have it tenuously scheduled on my TiVo. I loved it at first, but, man, has it started to sell out and the writing has gone downhill.
I have noticed poor writing in may of the shows I've followed for years. I watched Grey's Anatomy regularly thanks to a girlfriend, but that season finale was ATROCIOUSLY written. Don't get me started on Smallville (which I watch only because it uses the Superman mythos). I don't believe they know the meaning of the word "subtext" in that room. While LOST had its issues over the years, I thought the finale had some serious cojones.
As for Kurt's dad's speech, I thought it was great but would have been more powerful in the right context. In this case, it seemed that it stemmed from a misunderstanding of a point Finn was trying to make. (or that I thought Finn was trying to make) There has been all this emphasis on people accepting Kurt for who he is, that people may have been overlooking the fact that they ought to accept Finn for who he is as well. Finn may accept Kurt, but was Kurt accepting Finn? Kurt clearly had the power and was imposing his wishes on Finn. Why did Finn have to live in that room, decorated to Kurt's tastes with no regard for his own? I actually thought the scene was making a valid point but then got sideswiped when Kurt's dad flipped. I thought Finn's use of "faggy" was intended to make the point of "see how you like it" as opposed to being an actual slur.
In subsequent scenes, Finn was reduced to begging Kurt for forgiveness when, in fact, I thought Kurt ought to have his own moment of clarity and realize he was at fault as well. I was actually disappointed that the show took the easy route ("Oh! You used that bad word! You are bad and he is good!") - I really thought it was more nuanced than that. Guess I was wrong.
All I got to say is that it's a good thing that confrontation took place BEFORE Finn's mom sold her house!
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