TV

[dsrtao]

Glee is a new (2 shows so far) comedy on Fox. It's about an earnest, well-meaning but utterly clueless and ineffective high school Spanish teacher who has just taken over the Glee Club. His glory days were in this very high school, and he clearly wants to relive them.

Loser.

Worse, his wife is a liar, a compulsive spender, a wastrel, a manipulator, and an egomaniac with few if any redeeming virtues.

The pretty red-headed English teacher who has a crush on him (which is unacknowledged but requited) has an obsessive-compulsive disorder involving dirt-phobia.

She is being courted by the loathsome gym teacher/football coach.

The coach's star player has been blackmailed into singing in the Glee Club, although it appears that he likes it more than he likes football. He's quite talented, but has been poorly educated. Possibly this is actual stupidity, or perhaps just raging hormones. Or stupidity: he joined the Celibacy Club in order to get intimate with the president, who is the head cheerleader.

The cheerleaders' coach is a caricature of iron-fisted queen bitchdom; her sense of entitlement and outrageous demands are only now being reigned in, slightly, by the penny-pinching and cowardly Indian-stereotype principal.

And I haven't mentioned the other members of the Glee Club: Ms. Female Lead, who has been prepared all her life to parlay her actual talent into divadom, but hasn't quite managed it; the gay fashionista, the kid in the wheelchair who is in with the A/V Club, the Jazz Club, and probably the theatre folks; and the African-American girl with the voice of Aretha Franklin and an attitude to match.

Everyone acts like a hormone-crazed teenager, especially the adults. The singing, however, is lots of fun.

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Comments

[the-nita.livejournal.com]

Oh thank you. I'd heard a few good things about this, but ugh. That doesn't make me want to watch it at all.

[dsrtao]

The dialogue is extremely witty.

"I am not homophobic. In fact, I have two gay dads. See, I was born out of love. My two dads screened potential surrogates based on beauty and IQ. Then they mixed their sperm together and used a turkey blaster. To this day we don't know which one is my real dad, which I think is pretty amazing."

(She shows us a family picture: one of her fathers is clearly of African descent. The other isn't, and neither is she.)

Background details are well thought out. Pamphlets in the guidance counselor's office:

Ouch! That Stings!
Divorce: Why Your Parents Stopped Loving You
I Can't Stop Touching Myself
Radon: The Silent Killer
My Mom's Bipolar and she Won't Stop YELLING
Wow! There's A Hair Down There!
So You Like Throwing Up: Understanding and Overcoming Bulimia

[elizabear.livejournal.com]

Hmm. DSR doesn't actually say that he likes it, which I think he does. The writing is really terrific, and the characters are interesting. The music is fun. If you look at his points, it's all the negative aspects without the acting context, which I think is what makes it work.

Stupid like a wolf

[metageek.livejournal.com]

Or stupidity: he joined the Celibacy Club in order to get intimate with the president,

Maybe not so stupid, given how poorly abstinence training actually works.

Re: Stupid like a wolf

[dsrtao]

The President makes it clear that "our mission is teasing, never the pleasing".

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

So far, I like it. I wouldn't say that the teacher is completely ineffective - he's got passion for this, and it shows. While he is indeed often clueless, he's getting something done with those kids.

Oh, and you forgot the (stereotypical) "dyke" (much though I hate to use that word).

The show is clearly not to be taken seriously outside of that auditorium and certain scenes about relationships. I would love to see what British TV would do with this series.

[dsrtao]

The rest of his life is ineffective, though.

Sheesh, I overlooked a singer. She hasn't had many lines, has she?

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

Agreed - partly because he allows himself to be influenced/controlled by others. A merciful God would make his wife unable to conceive, at least with him, so that when he wakes up and divorces her no kids are harmed.

The singer (Tina Cohen-Chang) doesn't yet have many lines, but she's set up to be a backup singer anyway. You want she should say "shoo-wop"? They may develop her later; who knows? It seems she was put there for some stereotype/shock work anyway. Note her introductory song...

[jducoeur]

The pilot was fun enough, but I'm not clear whether there's enough There there to sustain an ongoing series. It's on probation for us...