Glee

Okay, I can top you. I watched the tour movie.
It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. I think most of the music and backing vocals were tracked, the performers were all "in character" which was also weird (even off stage) - must have been like those Brady Bunch singing tours (How they haven't ripped off that show yet is beyond me).

 

Last night was completely fucking terrible and, I hate to even use this phrase but i have to, it was the night Glee jumped the shark.

It's bad enough that they keep starting possibly interesting story lines only to ignore them or forget about them while they start seven more. It's even worse how their scrambling to give everyone a happy ending has robbed the season of any sense of consequences or stakes.

But now they actually had someone lose an eye, and decided that they didn't want the person responsible to get in trouble because it would detract from all the fun and games.

Your friend is assaulted, and has a severely damaged eye that he may not be able to see out of. You have the culprit, someone you absolutely can't stand, on tape admitting to it. You decide that no adults or authorities should get involved because it might cheapen your victory in the next show choir competition. Come the fuck on.

 

It's a musical. I refuse to get hung up on long-term story lines. It's just fine.

 

I watched most of last night's. I think what bothers me now, as opposed to when it started (though I'll have to go back and read because I'm not positive) but at the beginning it wasn't a musical. It was a show about a show choir where they sang AS PART OF THE SHOW CHOIR. None of this "breaking out in song in the middle of the hallway" that always bugged me about musicals.

I think it's just ... that now. And I don't like it.

 

Blaine got slushied by the Warblers, and they put rock salt in it, so he had to have eye surgery.

To me, though, the scene with Rachel and Kurt in the hallway where she didn't think she got into NYADA was one of the most real scenes on this show.

 

That's a good point. Yeah, I acknowledge that.

 

The jerky gay warbler tried to throw a slushie laced with rock salt at Kurt, but Blaine took it instead and had a scratched cornea. They are going to try to do surgery to try to save his sight in that eye.

The school district and police refused to do anything unless they could prove that it was more than just a slushie. So Santana gets the kid on tape admitting to the rock salt. Then, in possession of the tape, the Glee kids all decide that showing all the other kids in Warblers that the kid's a jerk is enough, because actually turning him in to the authorities would distract from sectionals too much, and show choir's are supposed to stick together.

That was great stuff. They actually sounded like teenagers for a minute there.

 

This is spot on, and something that has definitely bugged me this year about the show, because it was a departure from the original premise. Glee has always been what people refer to in TV as a "heightened reality," but that reality still had to be grounded in something. Yet doing it that way makes it harder to weave five songs into the plot every week, which is why they started using fantasy sequences, like going to the dentist, getting sleeping gas, and then dreaming about Brittay Spears numbers. They kept pushing and pushing boundaries of that, where you could have a fantasy sequence in a character's head and then he or she would snap back to reality.

But the thing where they sang "Bad" in the parking garage with extensive choreography had no fantasy pretense at all. It was just Westside Story: King of Pop Boogaloo.

 

You know, there are few things in SJ land that make me happier than DD saying he agrees with me.

 

That original premise really only existed for that first half-season run, though. They pushed the boundaries every once in a while then, too, but rarely. It continued to get more and more as the series has gone on. The show wasn't as good in the second half of that season as it was in the first. I'm not as down on this season, though, as others seem to be. I quit watching the show 8 or so episodes into season two because the storylines were completely incoherent and they would just leave some for episodes at a time before coming back to them.

I had some friends recommend checking out season three, though, so I've caught up in recent weeks. I think it's significantly better than what I saw of season two. There are still plenty of ridiculous plots and scenes, but they're usually ridiculous in an over-the-top and fun way rather than in a jumbled mess as they were in season two. There's a coherence and through-line to the stories this season that makes it better.

Also, in regards to the MJ episode, I don't care what anyone else says, the dueling cellos for "Smooth Criminal" were incredible. Also, the Warblers douche plays a good douche. Facially, he reminds me of a young Andrew Garfield. I agree that not turning him was a bad decision by the writers.

 

Hmmmm that explains it. I really only liked that first half season. I fell out during the long break over Christmas, then tried season 2 but just kind of faded out from there. I still catch it sometimes, but it's not a must-see.