Might actually make the NYC scenes bearable if they showed that.
Do you think Glee meets those conditions? Because I sure don’t. Not anymore. Whatever benefit of the doubt I was still willing to extend to this show after the three-episode arc about Rachel’s non-pregnancy was destroyed when they decided to follow up a school shooting episode (aired just months after a real school shooting that left 20 small children and 6 adults dead) with a “wacky PTSD” episode.
It’s the execution that I’m complaining about. I can think of other shows, even other comedies, that I would trust to deal seriously and respectfully with the revelation that a significant character was molested as a child, has an unwanted pregnancy, was diagnosed with cancer, is being abused by a spouse, attempted suicide, etc. But Glee has proven again and again that it can no longer manage this for more than a few minutes at a time.* Then it’ll turn around and go for cheap laughs, magically undo whatever happened, or get distracted and forget about it entirely. That’s not such a big deal if the topic is teen heartbreak, losing a choir competition, or not getting into the college of one’s choice, but I’d prefer to see this show just stay away from heavier issues when it’s inevitable that it will fail to handle them well.
*In season one, a teen girl’s unwanted pregnancy was a topic worthy of an entire season and impacted most of the show’s major characters. In season four, a teen girl’s unwanted pregnancy got a few brief scenes, turned out to be a false alarm, and hasn’t been mentioned since.
Murphy’s telling how he tosses keywords and “mood” to a writer for the episode explains a lot about the schizophrenia of the characters and why Sam is sensitive and at least reasonably intelligent in some episodes and a jerk and-or stupid as Brittany in others.
To me, Becky is the hanging offense of this show for reasons gone into in detail before. Possibly the worst writing ever for a retarded character.
Does anybody else have an almost visceral revulsion at Nene Leakes? And it so pisses me off that if they just have to have a Loud Sassy Black Stereotype that rather than choose from the lines of talented black actresses who are not only in need of work but would be cheaper and funnier, it’s sickening they’d go for an abrasive no-talent 3rd tier reality show figure and non-actress who’s already playing an identical character on another Murphy show.
In Season 1, it was a high school girl, and the pregnancy didn’t affect the concept very much.
In Season 4, it was a college woman, and it would have had a serious effect on the concept.
They could have had Rachel get an abortion, but that might be the point where a considerable number of parents draw the line at their teenage kids watching - assuming Fox would even allow it to air. (An episode of Family Guy where Lois aborts a baby never aired on Fox, even though (a) it was a surrogate for a couple who died, and (b) the only way you know about the abortion is that Peter mentions it in the last line of the show.)
Question - which do you think is greater:
(a) The number of people who stopped watching the show because of Leakes;
(b) The number of people who turned the show on, even for just one episode, because they heard she was on it?
If b > a, then you have your answer.
Also, I have noticed that a number of people make jokes about her character winning an Olympic medal in “solo synchronized swimming,” apparently unaware that, in 1984, 1988, and 1992, there really was such an event (and the 1992 one had a rather controversial result).
Can they please just go back to the fun times? Will singing Gold Digger, and getting Finn on the beat, finally? Where the football team dances to Single Ladies? Where Will and April sing the most soulful duet I’ve ever heard?
You’ve broken my show, writers.
People heard of her before she was on the show? I did not know that.
I do feel a lot more sympathy for the staff writers after reading that interview. It can’t be easy trying to write a good, or even coherent, TV show if one of their bosses is coming in once a week and giving them instructions like “Figure out a way we can do a tribute to orange.”
My theory is that she knows where Murphy hid the bodies.
So why did they introduce a pregnancy storyline for Rachel in the first place? (Other than Ryan Murphy coming in one week and saying “Rachel’s pregnant, make it happen!” and then “Why is Rachel pregnant? What were you people thinking? Now you have to say it was a false alarm!” a week or two later.) Rachel’s short-lived belief that she was pregnant didn’t have any impact on the show’s many other running storylines. It could plausibly have led her to reconsider her relationship with her college boyfriend and decide that this wasn’t a guy she saw herself wanting to start a family with, but that’s not what happened. (Which is a shame, as it would have made a lot more sense and been a lot less disturbing than the way that relationship actually did end.) This non-pregnancy plot was a complete waste of time on a show that’s frequently overstuffed anyway. The only thing it accomplished was allowing an episode to end with a meaningless cliffhanger, as if it were a chapter in a Goosebumps novel.
I have a difficult time believing that (b) is a number greater than 0, and the ratings suggest that if anything she’s had a negative effect on vieweship. According to Wikipedia, “Lights Out” was one of the least-watched episodes this show has ever aired.
I went back to the cast recording (it’s NOT A SOUNDTRACK!!!) of A Chorus Line and I do like Glee’s interpretation of* At The Ballet *better because they slowed it down. The cast recording voices were the piercing stage type which I can’t stand; though, the cast recording highlighted the harmonies and the orchestral riffs better.
Also, SJP was pretty brave to take the part where she sings she’s not pretty like the other girls. Not many famous actresses would do that I would think.
*Glee *is back tonight with a Stevie Wonder tribute episode.
I thought this episode was surprisingly good. It was a rare Glee tribute episode where they performed a bunch of songs by one artist without turning into a fawning hagiography of that artist. Which is kind of funny actually, because while I know very little about Stevie Wonder’s personal life it’s my impression that it hasn’t been a massive train wreck like Michael Jackson’s, Whitney Houston’s, or Britney Spears’s.
Mercedes was back and actually got a storyline, and so did Artie although his felt rather rushed. Best of all, IMHO, we got a Burt storyline and learned that his cancer is now in remission. He also did his best to (nicely) talk some sense into Blaine, who somehow got it into his head that it would be a good idea to propose to Kurt even though they’re not actually even dating and, as Burt pointed out, we’ve already had a teen marriage plot on this show before and it was dumb then too. I couldn’t help but think what a different show this would be if the glee club were led by a mature, compassionate, and rational adult like Burt instead of…Will. Who fortunately was mostly in the background this week, but in recent episodes has actually started to seem like an even worse educator/role model than Sue.
I also appreciated that the newbies mostly remained in the background when not singing and dancing. The major exception was Quinn 2.0’s sudden interest in Artie, which really didn’t make sense to me. I get that she’s supposed to be nice now, but it would have seemed a lot more plausible to have Tina express concern for Artie’s future. They’re both seniors, they’ve known each other for four years, and they used to date and have apparently remained on good terms. It would also have helped to rehabilitate Tina’s character – she’s basically been a creep all season. We got another joke tonight about how she felt Blaine up while he was unconscious, so I guess this show is finished with pretending to take female-on-male sexual assault seriously.
It did seem odd that Artie and Tina’s post-graduation plans had never come up before now. It’s not clear to me what Sam is planning to do after he leaves McKinley either, although it sounds like Brittany will be going to MIT and Blaine intends to attend NYADA although we haven’t seen him audition. There have been persistent rumors that the season four finale next week will not mark the end of the current, in-universe academic year, but that the first part of season five will cover the late spring of 2013. At this point I assume that at the very least the season four finale will end on some sort of cliffhanger that won’t be resolved until the season five premier, because there’s just too much going on for it to be wrapped up in one episode. There’s Regionals of course, Rachel’s second callback for Funny Girl, Will and Emma’s second attempt at a wedding, and presumably some sort of development with the Kurt/Blaine plot, the Sue plot, and the goddamn boring catfishing plot. (The latter two were mercifully absent from this week’s episode.) There’s also the possibility of another performance at Nationals, not to mention prom and graduation for the class of 2013.
Anyone know if Barbra Streisand is actually going to show up at Rachel’s audition in a cameo?
Of all the silly things that happened this episode, of which there were many, the silliest was that suddenly evil dance teacher became nice dance teacher. I mean, there’s being tough on someone to push them, and then there’s being personally abusive. On the other hand, this is Glee, and it’s never encountered a sudden and unexplained character personality reversal that it didn’t like…
I haven’t heard that she’s expected to guest star. There are two pretty big name guest stars set to appear next week, though:
Patty Duke and Meredith Baxter, reportedly playing an old lesbian couple.
Yeah, I didn’t mention the Rachel storyline because I wanted to stay as positive as possible, but it was dumb and boring. The promo for and opening of this episode suggested that we’d actually find out whether Rachel got the part this week*, but instead there was a bunch of Kate Hudson being mean to her again and then – SURPRISE! – Kate Hudson suddenly being nice because this show never created a sadistic villain who it wouldn’t suddenly turn nice. (Although even with Sebastian last season they at least attempted to come up with some sort of flimsy justification for it.) And they couldn’t just have her sternly wish Rachel luck or something, she does a whole “best wishes” musical number.
The big surprise for me was that Rachel is even still taking a class from this woman. We haven’t seen her in dance class since “Swan Song” back in December, which was also Kate Hudson’s last appearance on the show, so I figured Rachel wasn’t taking a class with her in the spring semester. I didn’t feel any need to see the Rachel/Kate Hudson rivalry storyline revisited, and with everything else going on I feel this easily could have been dropped entirely.
*I am really hoping she doesn’t, because there’s been a little too much of Rachel just getting handed things this season. One of the few things that kept her usual behavior/personality from being totally insufferable in past seasons was that, despite her talent as a singer, she was still kind of an underdog and it was presumably going to take a lot of hard work and determination for her to make it as a Broadway actress.
I liked this episode. There wasn’t much to it, but it was pleasant and happy and had great music. I can’t ask for much else.
I could see her arc ending in defeat, with the lesson being that it’s amazing that she got that far, but she still has a ways to go. They could set up thematic similarities with the New Direction’s defeats in season one’s “Journey to Regionals” and season two’s “New York,” where the lesson was pretty much the same thing. Hubris was definitely involved in their “New York” loss, but Rachel is far from free of hubris.
It seems like it has been a very long time since there’s been an episode of this show where, by the end, everyone (or at least everyone prominently featured) was reasonably happy or hopeful.
I forgot to mention before, but the biggest surprise/unexpected pleasure of this episode may have been that Kurt was able to use the lower part of his vocal range for an entire solo. I’m not sure that’s ever happened on Glee before, unless you count “Pink Houses”.
Although I did just say I was glad “Wonder-ful” was an episode that ended happily, I’m kind of excited at the possibility that the season finale might end with New Directions losing Regionals for the first time since season one and Rachel at the same time learning she hadn’t been cast as Fanny Brice. (I actually really, really wish they had stuck with the idea of New Directions being eliminated at Sectionals and having to decide if they cared enough about the choir to carry on as a non-competing club for the rest of the year.)
And really, if Rachel lands her dream role on Broadway at age 19, where else is there for the show to go with this character? She’d have achieved the major life goal she’s had for herself since the pilot episode. It would be a nice happy ending for her character (if Michele leaves the show before it ends) or the entire series (if she doesn’t), but continuing the show with Rachel as a major character who’s now a Broadway star doesn’t seem like it would work. It’s not that there couldn’t be a show about a young actress in her first big role on Broadway, but that’s not Glee. It would basically just be Smash.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t put it past the writers to have Rachel win her dream role in the season four finale only to have it end in disaster by early season five – like maybe the director dies of a second heart attack in the operating theater and the producers decide not to go on with the show – leaving her to claw her way back up to the top again. That could be interesting.
I couldn’t agree more with that, and I think that when the dust settles on this season (which I do think has been an improvement on season 3), that will be my biggest disappointment. I hate how they undermined the wonderful “Swan Song” by forcing the club back into the competition circuit on a technicality that doesn’t even make sense.
The one thing that might save it a little is a loss at regionals to thematically connect with a loss at Rachel’s audition. A real loss from the club, not a Marley-fainting type loss. And a real loss from Rachel, not a choking-on-stage type loss.
How can they even compete at regionals? Ever since Joe and Sugar died from the flu (they must’ve died, otherwise they’d have been long before now) they’ve lacked the required number of members.
Also, kinda weird how Finn hasn’t shown up to help the club at all ever since reconciling with Will. Odder still how he didn’t show up to support Burt.
And Rachel’s storyline can go die in a fire.
New Directions has managed to round up an extra warm body or two several times in the past, but if Wikipedia is correct then Sugar and Dreadlocks will be back in the finale. Sugar was mentioned in one of the recent episodes (someone said she couldn’t be the catfish, since she wasn’t at practice the day of the school shooting incident) so she is presumably still in the club even though she hasn’t bothered to show up for months.
The real mystery is how they can compete at Regionals when they didn’t merely lose to the Warblers at Sectionals but were disqualified due to a rule violation of their own. The only choir that should be eligible to move on to Regionals is the Mennonite one, who took second place on their own merits and are the only team from that competition not to have been disqualified. The New Directions are lucky that Mennonites are pacifists, because I think the Mennonite choir has good reason to be angry about how things have worked out.
Cory Monteith is in rehab, and had to miss shooting for the last two episodes of the season. I remember hearing a few weeks ago that his absence would be explained within the show (presumably with their usual “Oh, he has the flu” excuse), but I don’t think it was mentioned at all in this episode.
Joe and Sugar (and maybe Rory) moved to Mandyville and started school there. 
If worse comes to worse, they can always bring back one or two of the anonymous TroubleTones, who never seem to be on the bus with the others and aren’t on stage when the others are accepting their awards. (At least on Smash, the dancers get credited.)
Even though New Directions (or is it The New Directions this week?) needs at least 12 singers, they don’t all have to perform at once; this was brought up in, IIRC, a Season 1 episode when Sue was the “co-coach”.
They weren’t necessarily disqualified. All we know is, Sue came into the choir room and told them that the judges had voted then and there to make the Dalton Warblers the winners.
Remember, at the start of a later episode, they had the local TV news coverage of The Warblers failing their drug tests and New Directions being “declared” the winners in their place (after which one of the news anchors stormed off the set - “This is what passes for news nowadays?”)
Or they could just use what really happened to the recent attempt at a Broadway revival of Funny Girl and simply kill the show when the investors pull their backing.