I agree that last night’s ep wasn’t as attention-grabbing as the first two, but I actually think that’s a good thing: they’re settling into a show that they can keep producing week after week, with a good mix of music, comedy, and an overall story (and actual characters) to hang the first two elements on. I find this immensely watchable and already consider it one of “my” shows for this year.
And I can’t wait to see Victor Garber sing and dance! (You know they’ll give him a number sooner or later.)
I thought it was a fine episode. I love how they mix in surreal comedy when you’re least expecting it.
The whole scene with the shop teacher who lost his thumbs was hilarious. Trying to eat the thumb cake while not actually having thumbs… And I just about split my gut open when they’re going around the table talking about their various problems… I don’t have thumbs!.
The cheerleaders did try to convince Mercedes that he was into her, and she seemed inexperienced enough to believe that they, the popular girls, would know.
I would ordinarily say that this episode was just treading water, but any episode with dancing bikini-clad cheerleaders has to represent progress in its truest sense, so…
Wow @ a Jim Abbot reference. I’m no baseball fan or anything, but one of the few baseball games I ever went to, he pitched at, and he was amazing to watch.
Kind of painted Will as a dick. A couple weeks into leading Glee Club and he’s off chasing a shiny new thing. Made me think that maybe he and his wife are good for each other after all.
And not that it is important for time line to be super consistent but parts of this episode seemed to happen over two days and other parts over several weeks. Just didn’t seem well structured.
I like it so far, though I preferred the first episode more than the second. I also second the OP’s worry that everyone in this show might end up being unlikeable. The kids are okay (I mean, they’re high school kids, so there’s going to be some flaws and bad decisions), but jeez, Will’s wife annoys the hell out of me.
Finally watched the third ep last night, and this show is officially un-DVRed now. I loved the premise, but it just didn’t work for me.
The plot and characters simply haven’t gotten interesting. It’s been a parade of cliches, stereotypes, and formulaic stories. Not BAD, but simply uninteresting.
The overproduction of the musical numbers fights the premise. Autotune artifacts are seriously ugly. And why do I care about a Glee club when apparently everybody in this town is capable of performing top-notch song and dance numbers at the drop of a hat?
The musical selections are lousy. Too much crappy radio pop / hip hop. I was hoping we’d hear something a little more interesting. More offbeat numbers, stuff with a little more humor and heart to it. I thought the “Don’t Stop Believing” cover in the pilot was a standout, but I don’t like the direction the show’s headed musically since.
Musical fantasy numbers don’t work well in a show about musicians performing music, especially when they don’t feel “different” enough. The show has a hard time drawing a line between fantasy and reality, and that makes it hard to care about the dramatic elements.
Wow you hit it on the head. The show really needs to return to people only singing in the reality of the show and not in fantasy sequences, sound like they are actually singing without a ton of computers processing their voice and adding unrealistic backup music, and picking better songs. “Don’t Stop Believing” was really a standout number, but the other songs from the premiere really made sense too. While I thought “Rehab” and “Golddigger” worked well in their contexts (other than the overproduction on the latter) as selections, the show is heading towards too much generic hip hop pop stuff. Rehab worked really well when it was by itself and it a special context, but too much of this and it becomes a endless moosh of indistinguishable lame attempts to be cool. Glee needs to pick the songs carefully, and make each episode’s songs have more diversity from each other and from the songs in other episodes. The rock in the window song was really lame both as a selection, for it’s context, and for starting what hopefully isn’t a trend for fantasy sequences.
I was absolutely praying that the best-show-choir-choreographer-in-the-midwest would be played by the same guy who played Sparky Palastri in Bring It On, as I felt like that whole plot point was WAY too similar to not be a (slightly odd) homage, right down to the bikini car wash. (And note that the only members of the choir he DIDN’T insult were the cheerleaders…)
I think you are really Not Getting This Show. Welcome to the concept of a musical, where performers sing to communicate what is going on in their hearts or to advance the storyline. Rachel’s “Take A Bow” was *heartbreaking *in the context of the show and arguably better performed than Rihanna’s original pop hit, and Mercedes stopped the damn show with “Bust Your Windows,” which is definitely better than the original. The show is quirky and occasionally surreal, and definitely not for everyone, but to say they need to keep the music to reality-based sequences shows a lack of imagination. If you don’t appreciate musicals, you aren’t going to like this show. It’s not a docudrama about a glee club, it’s a musical fantasy.
In theory, I’d guess it’s supposed to be a comedy and it grinds to a halt for me during the extended musical numbers. Largely (I suspect) because the lip synching was so God awful the times I’ve seen it that now I spend the numbers looking for all the mistakes. That and the musical selections don’t interest me for the most part.
After a pretty lackluster third episode (they even left it off the preview discs for critics), I’d say they were back to full form this week.
The Ryan Murphy-ness is beginning to show with some of the story lines, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’ve always thought the potential of musical performance has always been tragically overlooked on TV (we’ve pretty much only gotten Cop Rock and Viva Laughlin before this), so I’m going to love and cherish this baby, flaws and all.
Also, I never thought I’d be into the stereotypical last minute football game scenario…but by God if that scene doesn’t take the cake in the category!
Kurt comes out to his dad, who . . . doesn’t mind. “I’ve known since you were three, all you wanted for your birthday was sensible heels.”
Puck date-raped Quinn and gets her pregnant; she tells Finn he’s the hot-tub father; nobody wants the baby but Teri. Finn learns that you can borrow books from the library!
Principal Higgins has a side gig selling support hosiery.
The Most Valuable Player on the McKinley High School football team? Beyoncé. Second place? Kurt. “I’ll be auditioning for the role of kicker.”
Sue stands up for littering on The C Report and visits Sandy: “The only thing missing from this place is a couple of rotting bodies in shallow graves under the floor boards.”
That football routine was hilarious. Though, it probably would have been a false start penalty as the linemen were all in their set positions (and that’s the first thing that actually came to mind) ;).
And we get 3 more male singers in Glee (Puck was foreshadowed in Acafellas, but now he’s got a better reason to join glee club).
