Glee

[zero]

I think naiwf pretty much nailed it. It was this witty, charming show about this small town teacher who was bored and trapped in a loveless marriage who found some hope with a ragtag group of losers in an underfunded glee club. It had all the potential to touch on issues like high school funding for the arts, especially when put against sports, LGBT rights, divorce, and typical high school drama... since the second half of season one, it has failed on every level.

Every character has become a walking cliché, especially Kurt, who was bordering on gay predator for awhile, Schuster's love life has been completely abandoned, hell, Shuster's character has been pretty much abandoned, this underfunded Glee club, who struggles for bus service, can somehow manage to pull off these ridiculous elaborate productions, and there are so many characters at this point, they never take the time to sit down and focus on their stories, instead just bouncing around like a pinball.

There's so much potential here for a witty high school comedy, but instead, it's Ryan Murphy's little vanity project and a personal "fuck you" to anyone who dares say anything bad about his darling show.

[Your Mom]

I saw so many ads for it tonight so I decided since they were really building it up this would be their chance to hook me and man did they ever fail

[GoGo Yubari]

Schuster's love life has been completely abandoned

And thank fuck for that. But I know it's going to rear it's ugly head sooner or later when it's been the driving force behind the absolute worst episodes of the series this season.

[LUKIE]

I think naiwf pretty much nailed it. It was this witty, charming show about this small town teacher who was bored and trapped in a loveless marriage who found some hope with a ragtag group of losers in an underfunded glee club. It had all the potential to touch on issues like high school funding for the arts, especially when put against sports, LGBT rights, divorce, and typical high school drama... since the second half of season one, it has failed on every level.

Every character has become a walking cliché, especially Kurt, who was bordering on gay predator for awhile, Schuster's love life has been completely abandoned, hell, Shuster's character has been pretty much abandoned, this underfunded Glee club, who struggles for bus service, can somehow manage to pull off these ridiculous elaborate productions, and there are so many characters at this point, they never take the time to sit down and focus on their stories, instead just bouncing around like a pinball.

There's so much potential here for a witty high school comedy, but instead, it's Ryan Murphy's little vanity project and a personal "fuck you" to anyone who dares say anything bad about his darling show.

Ever so much this. I sit there, and complain when they go and do a rendition of whatever song, and it has major production values, where, theoretically, they are playing the song to absolutely no one. It's ridiculous.

It went from being a drama/comedy to a bunch of people putting on musical performances.

[thatblindgeye]

I'll be honest, I'm not as excited about the show as I was for the first season. Not to say I don't enjoy it, or at least enjoy parts of it. I'd say I can enjoy certain scenes in an episode while not really caring for others/finding others to be stupid (the whole girls playing football thing). The rarity of there being an episode that I flat out love is rather high, and I really only care about seeing what songs they cover (the mash ups they've done thus far I have loved for the most part).

Last nights episode... I dont know. I like that they had the football team and Glee club team up briefly, only for it to not matter in favor of high school status quo and drama, but it wasn't some great return episode for me. The high point of the entire episode was, A) Sue throwing the tantrum in the principals office set to that lovely piece of music (name escapes me), and for her to just randomly barge into the locker room and thrown another tantrum to the same music; and B) Sue telling Brittany about the baby cannons.

The high production values they use for performances for nobody also gets to me, just as much as people randomly starting to sing in public with everyone around them acting like they aren't.

It is a show that I dont particularly find as good as I did in the first season, but it is also a show I can sit down and watch and never really be bored by it or find any one episode overly bad for the most part.

Edited February 7, 2011 by Vitamin E

[zero]

I can understand randomly bursting into song, that's what happens in musicals, so it works in the context of the show. What I don't like is the fact that the underfunded Glee club puts on these elaborate productions (and for no reason half the time) and the fact that they're auto-tuned while singing in class. Only the crazy dream sequences or flat-out spoofs should be that polished and produced, but when they sing in class, it should be completely un-produced.

[LUKIE]

And how everyone busts out into perfect choreography.

[GoGo Yubari]

You know what? "Silly Love Songs" wasn't bad. Somewhere near "Duets" as far as season two Glee episodes go. I have absolutely no clue what the Tina number was about, though.

[Katsuya]

In many ways I think it would have been a good fit in Season One (as in the tone of the episode). Lauren is fast becoming one of my favourite characters, but it was pretty much the Santana show in terms of the entire episode. I'm not mad about Quinn/Finn/Sam, since it's practically a rehash of Quinn/Finn/Rachel. Rachel/Mercedes/Kurt, however, I can get behind very easily - it makes sense for the three of them to be friends, plus they've slowly sort of built up the friendship between the three of them since Sectionals. It makes me able to watch Rachel too, considering how I was on borderline hate at the start of this season. Nice to see that Blaine isn't infallible, too.

Glee's biggest problem is that the main characters are just wholly unlikeable, unfortunately. There's a reason Chris Colfer and Jane Lynch won and Matt Morrison/Lea Michele didn't - it's because the supporting characters are just so much better. Even when they don't have much depth (admittedly less applicable to Kurt and Sue now) they still tend to be the most entertaining things on the show. I'd much rather watch a Glee episode full of Mike/Brittany/Santana/Becky/Lauren/Karofsky than an episode about Finn and Sam. Quinn is excused because I sort of love Dianna Agron.

Also - I sort of laughed at the time with Tina's breakdown, but looking back at it, it was kind of out of character for her. Would have worked better if it was Santana faux-crying for Puck or something.

[GoGo Yubari]

Nah, bursting into tears is definitely a Tina thing. I just thought it was leading to something whereas it was I guess played for laughs.

But yeah, this episode really succeeded on the strength of Lauren, Santana, and I'd say even Blaine who both got a really fun number (I forgot that Robin Thicke song for years and so I was like "holy shit what is that song, I remember thinking that song was catchy as fuck") and, shock of shocks, an actual character. I definitely agree with you on Glee's supporting cast being miles and miles stronger than its leads.

[Katsuya]

I dunno, I've always seen Tina as the strongest female character next to Mercedes. She stood up to Artie constantly and she's had a go at Mike already (over the chicken feet), so to see her suddenly break down was a bit weird for me upon reflection.

[GoGo Yubari]

I've never really seen that in Tina, so I dunno. But then again she gets by far the least screen-time/storyline focus, especially for someone who's been in the Glee club since episode one.

[Daniel Bryan]

Did the Lauren/Santana thing make anyone else uncomfortable? I mean, she's like three times Santana's size and was just beating the shit out of her. It would have been funny if she'd tossed her into the lockers once, but it went on waaaay too long. It's not like she even deserved it, because while she's always kind of a bitch, I can't really think of anything that bad she's ever done to anyone.

[GoGo Yubari]

Did the Lauren/Santana thing make anyone else uncomfortable? I mean, she's like three times Santana's size and was just beating the shit out of her. It would have been funny if she'd tossed her into the lockers once, but it went on waaaay too long. It's not like she even deserved it, because while she's always kind of a bitch, I can't really think of anything that bad she's ever done to anyone.

... did you see the same episode I did? The one with Santana giving people mono on purpose? I love Santana, she's actually quite possibly my favorite character on Glee right now since they've overused Brittany and Sue's been a bit inconsistent this season, but she earned that asskicking and it's not like it had any lasting effects whatsoever.

[Nick Adams]

I laughed during the ass kicking. If it happens again, I might be concerned. But she's had that coming to her for the entire series, and it hasn't happened until now. It was just every bitch slap that she hasn't received, rolled in to one decent beating. And she did threaten to throw down, so there's that.

[Daniel Bryan]

... did you see the same episode I did? The one with Santana giving people mono on purpose? I love Santana, she's actually quite possibly my favorite character on Glee right now since they've overused Brittany and Sue's been a bit inconsistent this season, but she earned that asskicking and it's not like it had any lasting effects whatsoever.

Sure, but the mono thing was after the asskicking, and I took it as a reaction to that. Besides, she only did it because Quinn and Finn were cheating. Her only other crime is being snarky with people, and that hardly deserved the beating where Lauren just kept going after her. It'd be like if Kurt made another of his bitchy comments to a football player, and they suddenly started kicking the shit out of him, and we were expected to laugh at it.

[GoGo Yubari]

... did you see the same episode I did? The one with Santana giving people mono on purpose? I love Santana, she's actually quite possibly my favorite character on Glee right now since they've overused Brittany and Sue's been a bit inconsistent this season, but she earned that asskicking and it's not like it had any lasting effects whatsoever.

Sure, but the mono thing was after the asskicking, and I took it as a reaction to that. Besides, she only did it because Quinn and Finn were cheating. Her only other crime is being snarky with people, and that hardly deserved the beating where Lauren just kept going after her. It'd be like if Kurt made another of his bitchy comments to a football player, and they suddenly started kicking the shit out of him, and we were expected to laugh at it.

She was also the one who provoked the fight both verbally and physically. And has gotten into fights or attempted to get into fights with multiple other characters (Quinn in the season two premiere comes to mind immediately). As for the mono thing, as her voice-over when she devised the plan indicated, this is the kind of shit she pulls when she doesn't get her way, and she hasn't gotten her way on almost anything all season.

... dear god I am getting into a canon-dissection argument over Glee, this is the lamest thing I've argued over in a while.

[Sam]

Okay I caught up on both episodes from this week and definitely preferred the valentines day one, it was typical glee, really enjoyed the Puck/Lauren interaction and Santana the bitch. The best bit from the super bowl episode was Sue finally losing it and getting that cannon, the Sue's path of destruction scenes are always great fun to watch, I like that her character is basically dick dastardly, always trying to do something to beat Glee club and then failing to do it. Plus I love her interaction with Becky, that is a great partnership.

[Katsuya]

I thought last night's episode was pretty good, actually. Not as good as Silly Love Songs, but that was probably one of the best episodes of this season so far - but definitely better in the overall scheme of things. Next week looks great too from the promo, especially since by the looks of it...

Blaine appears to end up having to kiss pretty much every girl and not Kurt

But, yeah. In the past two episodes, I've gone from hating Rachel to actually really liking her. Pairing her up with Mercedes/Kurt/Brittany was such a good idea and I was so damn happy that they didn't throw away the Rachel/Mercedes thing and had them still be friends and overcome Sue. The songs weren't that great, but Bieber was never going to really work. Lauren and Puck's storyline is really good and Brittany becoming the new queen of the school is pretty hilarious.

[Sam]

Quinn is so much better looking now she's not in the Cheerios outfit, the imagining people in their underwear was good, I notice how the guy playing Sam doesn't seem to mind stripping off as all the other guys are sat there in their vests!

I like the Sue being a coach for the other team idea too, changes it from the normal way things develop with her and her need to kill the Glee club!

Edited February 16, 2011 by Sam