I’d like to take a moment to alienate myself from the rest of the world and go on record as saying that I am a little more than slightly disappointed with the television show Glee.
Let the stoning commence.
When I caught the pilot episode last spring, I instantly fell in love. Here was a bold new show that not only featured brilliant musical numbers, but also tackled some rather important themes. Be yourself. Fight for what you believe in. Don’t let society tell you the role you should play in life. Don’t stop believing.
I was impressed. I was looking forward to adding this to my list of must-see shows. As it turns out, I may have been too quick to judgment.
We are now four episodes into the first season of Glee, and the show I fell in love with has virtually disappeared. In its place is an over-the-top campy mess that clearly has no clue what it wants to be. Gone are the characters I could root for. Gone are the important themes. All that’s left are pregnant teenagers, wives faking pregnancies, at least three rushed love triangles, characters that are dumb as rocks, and a plot point that’s already been played at least three too many times.
That plot point is the one in which the evil cheerleading coach tries to take down the glee club. In each episode she hatches some plan, but by the end of the hour her plan has mostly failed and the glee club is all smiles.
I don’t know about the rest of the more than six million viewers watching Glee, but I’m already over that cycle. Sure, the club needs an enemy. Yes, that enemy needs to try and squash the singers. But do we really have to live the entire cycle every week?
Outside of that cycle, we have the distinct honor of being introduced to a new protagonist each week. In the pilot episode, we were taught to root for Rachel. The over-achieving fame whore, Rachel was integral in getting the glee club on its feet. She was its shrewish backbone. She was its star.
The creators of Glee kept up that idea through the second episode, but by the fourth, Rachel was hardly on screen. Instead, the teacher who heads the glee club took center stage in the third episode. The fourth episode then centered around Kurt and his struggle to come out of the closet. Sadly, I don’t really see much of a role for Kurt in the future. Now that he’s out of the closet, his usefulness as a plot point has waned. And so, in Glee fashion, I’m sure some other character will rise to the top in the next episode, only to then be once again asked to sing backup.
It feels like the writers of Glee aren’t yet sure who they want their story to revolve around. For while this is clearly an ensemble show, even ensemble shows need anchors. Friends had Ross and Rachel. Gossip Girl has Serena and Blair. Beverly Hills 90210 had Brenda and Kelly. So far Glee has just about anyone who has ever appeared on screen.
So who am I supposed to care about? Who am I supposed to root for?
That question is difficult to answer when it comes to Glee. Rachel has become far too self-absorbed to be likable. Kurt is rather sympathetic, but, once again, I stand by my claim that he’ll soon fade from the spotlight. The other two prime contenders for the leads of this show, Will and Finn, are perhaps the dumbest men alive. And that, sadly, leads us down the soapy road Glee has taken.
Will’s wife is faking her pregnancy, right down to the padded belly she’s taken to wearing. Somehow, despite living with the woman and sharing a bed with her, Will knows nothing. Back on school grounds, Finn’s girlfriend really is pregnant. She’s also the president of the abstinence club. She tells Finn that she got pregnant that one time they were in a hot tub making out and he blew his load. And Finn believed her.
The girlfriend is actually knocked up with Finn’s best friend’s baby. Will’s wife is aware of this little problem and is clearly hatching some plot in which she will pass off the teenager’s baby as her own.
Someone may want to take this opportunity to tell the writers of Glee that this exact plot has been utilized at least six times by every major daytime soap opera that has ever been on the air. And it’s always come off as cheesy and incredible unbelievable, even for daytime soap operas.
Don’t get me wrong. I love soap operas. I love camp. A good unbelievable baby swap gets me every time. It’s just that Glee promised me so much more last spring. I feel cheated.
All that is left of the pilot I enjoyed so much are the musical numbers. And so now I tune in to Glee and wade through the ridiculous plot just so I can get to the good stuff. It’s kind of like porn, I suppose. But, like porn, even the good stuff is getting less exciting. It already feels stale. And that’s remarkably sad considering Glee really has a chance at being something fresh.
I hope that Glee will prove me wrong. I hope it gets its stride and reminds me why I waited all summer for it to hit my television screen. I hope I can soon become like everyone else on Facebook who posts multiple status updates about how amazing the show is. I hope I can be gleeful again.
For now I’ll simply take a lesson from the show I fell in love with and I won’t stop believing.
My beef (or bone, if you will) is with the character Lauren Yung. Lauren is a medical student. Her dad recently lost his job due to the downturn in the economy and thus can no longer pay her tuition. So Lauren is in a pickle. Luckily, Lauren just happens to fall into a sweet prostitution gig in which she’s paid $5,000 to sleep with some guy she was planning to sleep with anyway.
All of this makes Lauren really sad, however. She feels bad about selling her body to gorgeous wealthy men. She hates that she has to hide her shady new business arrangements from her friends. But she has to do it in order to finish her medical decree and become a top surgeon like the saintly Michael Mancini. Poor Lauren is really torn.
Why did this happen? How did this happen? Who is the one person that was caught on tape walking through a baseball stadium filled with unconscious people?
