When I first saw Glee coming up on the DVR, I thought nice, another new show for me to watch and review. Only after that did I decide to do a bit of research and find out that this show is what they are calling a one hour musical comedy. I like comedy, but I really can not stand watching people sing, so all of you American Idol fans can start hating on me. Then something interesting happened, the show started and I didn’t actually hate it.
McKinley High School’s Glee Club used to be at the top of the show choir world, but years later, a series of scandals have turned it into a haven for misfits and social outcasts. WILL SCHUESTER (Matthew Morrison, Broadway’s “Hairspray”), a young optimistic teacher, has offered to take on the Herculean task of restoring McKinley’s Glee Club to its former glory with the help of fellow teacher EMMA PILLSBURY (Jayma Mays, “Ugly Betty”). It’s a tall order when the brightest stars of the pitch-imperfect club include KURT (Chris Colfer), a nerdy soprano with a flair for the dramatic; MERCEDES (Amber Riley), a dynamic diva-in-training who refuses to sing back-up; ARTY (Kevin McHale, “Zoey 101″), a geeky guitarist who spends more time avoiding bullies than chasing girls; and TINA (Jenna Ushkowitz, “Spring Awakening”), an awkward girl who needs to suppress her stutter before she can take center stage.
Will’s only hope lies with two true talents: RACHEL BERRY (Lea Michele, “Spring Awakening”), a perfectionist firecracker who is convinced that show choir is her ticket to stardom; and FINN HUDSON (Cory Monteith, “Kyle XY”), the popular high school quarterback with movie star looks and a Motown voice who must protect his reputation with his holier-than-thou girlfriend, QUINN (Dianna Agron), and his arrogant teammate, PUCK (Mark Salling).
I heard or read somewhere that they were casting unknowns for this show, and if this is right, I do not know what the word unknown means anymore. OK, maybe that is a bit harsh because a fair amount of the cast is unknown, but Finn, Emma, Arty are all known to me. It is a rather large contingent of the cast though that are unknowns and that is refreshing. The same thing was done for Friday Night Lights and it made the show more enjoyable for me not having to think about any type cast characters. I also hold the similarity to Friday Night Lights in the fact that it has a rather large cast, and hopefully it can take come cues from FNL and remove some of the concerns that I will speak on below.
Lea Michele and Cory Monteith do a real good job at their rolls, it was interesting at the beginning of the show you felt like how could Rachel (Lea Michele’s character) not be well liked in the school and popular? During the course of the show though, Lea Michele does a great job showing us why.
Jayma Mays as Emma works well as the school counselor that is in love with the married Glee coach Will and Jane Lynch as Sue Sylvester is a good choice even though she will always be Charlie and Alan counselor on Two and a Half Men.
So as the norm, I watched this show with my wife and she actually made the comparisons to ‘Til Death and Aliens in America…I do not think that this was the first time I disagreed with her, but we did find some middle ground by saying it had a lot of American Pie feel to it, without the R rated sex comedy. The character of Finn has a close correlation to that of ‘Oz’ and Rachel in Glee is similar to the Heather character in American Pie. I am not saying that this is a bad thing though, as American Pie was one heck of a franchise. Well, at least the first two were. My wife’s comparisons probably refer more to the school settings of both of the shows in my opinion.
My two concerns for Glee center around the time dedicated to the story and the singing which are obviously two very big concerns given the nature of the show. The story line itself was very good, the problem that I had though, given multiple episodes, does the singing lend itself to enough time to dedicate to the story even with the show being an hour? Yes the first episode had some set-up to do, but it still seems like the story could be trumped by the singing and that would be disappointing with the amount of good story lines I can already envision. The second concern is about the singing in relation to the cast. Will I get bored by hearing the same people sing each week? I like the fact that this week they visited some of their competition and that lent itself to hearing some singing not by the McKinley School. That is a good start, I just want to wait and see how they keep the singing portion hot each week. Maybe they will take the FNL approach and bring in new cast members and new classmates to keep the story line fresh as well, if they give themselves enough time with the story.
Glee was a pleasant surprise and a show that I will continue to watch when it goes live. The cheerleading squad the “Cheerios” is going to lead itself to something interesting in contrast the glee club. I just hope enough people watch this based on the fact that the word musical is in the description because if not it seems based on the first episode they might be missing out on something.
The singing is a real concern. Too belt it out for my taste. Real glee clubs do a wider range of song. Not just Broadway baby stuff.
Yeah that is true, I think the interesting part will be where they take the singing as well. They have put it out there as a musical comedy and may have been better served as a comedy with music if you know what I mean. I still hope they have a good plan to keep the music part fresh. While you comment surely applies to most glee clubs I wonder though if the glee clubs that are trying to make it to nationals follow some sort of broadway music game plan these days? Im not that well versed in current glee club though.
Not speaking on the quality of this show or those in it (as I haven’t watched). The idea of a musical on television show/sitcom/drama (whatever) is perhaps the ultimate turn-off for me.
I have found that I have very little patience for musicals (or shows that have a heavy dose of characters performing), no matter what the content is in between.
Yes, I thought Mamma Mia was UNBEARABLE.
If you aren’t Linn Minmei, a smurf, or a classic Disney production – knock it off!
I think that it’s about time that a show with real talent is on t.v. and while you sit there are critisize something that you could probably never do why not take into consideration what they’re actually aiming for. They’re taking it upon themselves to get the current generation of people who don’t love musicals into music and singing and real talent besides stupid things like rap and such. So next time before you say what they’re doing isn’t good take into consideration what they’re actually doing.
And ps. Mama Mia is a horrible play, you can’t judge musicals by shit like that
Journey is broadway?
As is Rehab.