Here follow the results of what seems to have been a serial mass-deletion by Valjevert, to be dicussed and (if the editor or other tropers so choose) defended. In order to limit personal bias from me, I'm adding all of the relevant cuts to this list, without the exception of sections that have an obvious, non-subjective reason for being cut (like June 02, lines 670,673, regarding Rachel and the tickets to Cats, which had already been discussed in greater detail, including everything from that section, further up the page. Those I will add to the bottom, for a separate discussion if anyone cares). Following these is a compilation of the one other unjustified deletion I found for this page while I was keeping an eye out for them. There may be other unjustified deletions that I didn't catch, and they, too should be dealt with if found.
Unjustified edits:
2nd June, 2011
Lines 641,660
Quinn's Haircut
Obviously, the show was trying to invoke Important Haircut with Quinn as an attempt for her to get beyond Finn dumping her. I don't have issue with the show trying to develop the characters, and the scene with Quinn, Santana, and Brittany was nice and well acted. My problem was that after the haircut, no one brought it up. I usually find myself struck by Important Haircut, but the way she just appeared with short hair and have not a single person mention how good she looks or even joke on it made me question why they did it. If they wanted Quinn to do something to try to get beyond Finn, there were so many other options like getting a tattoo or getting a special piercing. Those at least had a lot more potential for humor or relating to the episode's message of being swept into the hype of New York City. It just bothers me
Quinn's Big Plan
Did I miss something, or did the writers completely fail to follow up on last week's cliffhanger? Someone told me the plan was to ruin everything by telling on Rachel and getting her suspended, but Quinn had no way of knowing that opportunity would present itself. Someone else said it was the haircut, but that was Santana's idea. (Not to mention, that's a pretty lame excuse for a "big plan" and could have been done in Lima as easily as New York.) So what the heck?
The plan was, basically, wait for Rachel/Finn/both to sneak off and tell Mr. Shue, at which time he would be in hot water and the Glee club would have to go back home and may-or-may-not be dispanded. Not the best plan, but it may have worked.
A better way to give quinn her Heel–Face Turn would be to have her talk to beth over the phone, you know, her ****ing daughter no one seems to remember?
While that would have been nice and especially convenient considering Shelby and Beth were said to be residing in New York, one: Beth can't talk yet. Two: There was no way it would've fit in the plot. Three: The writers probably forgot about that.
Don't most adoption systems believe in clean breaks? Quinn has given her baby up, she basically has no baby.
Open adoptions (in which the birth mother stays in contact) are becoming more and more common, but Quinn made it pretty clear that she had no interest in such an arrangement. Contacting Shelby and Beth now would be really out of character.
The Kiss Cost Them The Win?
I get that it was unprofessional, but couldn't the thing that cost them Nationals be that, I don't know, they didn't even have their set list ready before they got to New York?! The one thing Jesse got right last week was that you seriously need to practice if you want to get anywhere. Vocal Adrenaline practics almost 24/7 and placed on top. Shouldn't that be a clue?
Well, considering they came up with those original songs the day before the competition, and Will did seem confident as they entered the building, my guess is that they were all confident that those original songs were so good in their opinion that they could have placed if it wasn't for the kiss. And judging by audience reaction to "Light Up The World," they probably could have. But yes you do have a point. They deserved to lose if that was their work ethic. Maybe the judges were super-conservative.
I don't know exactly how judging works in show choir competitions, but marching band competitions occasionally are decided by as little as a fraction of a point. They were up against the best show choirs in the nation. Something as unprofessional as the kiss could easily have knocked them down a few places if the scores were close enough. Remember, they only missed out on the top ten by two spots.
Not preparing for NATIONALS
I was flabbergasted when they decided to 'let New York be their inspiration' and prepare the songs the day before the competition. That was so wrong and totally arrogant of the club I was actually happy when they ended up in the twelfth place. And I don't think that was the writers' intent. And why didn't Schuester prompt/force (so to speak) them to prepare earlier? My, have they been flanderizing him this season...
2nd June, 2011
Lines 712,716 (edited for spelling. "Dubble" is part of a brand name. Is has to my knowledge never been in common English usage as its own variant of the word).
Sleeping Arrangements
Rachel sleeps alone in a double bed while Quinn sleeps in a chair. WTF?
It might be her own choice, Rachel and Quinn don't really get on together so Quinn would probably protest like that.
It looked more like a case of drop where you stop to me. Rachel did still have hold of a pencil and notebook after all.
Speaking as someone who has been on a trip very similar to New Directions with my own high school glee club when beds are limited it's first come first served. If you don't want to share with whoever got there before you too bad so sad.
23rd May, 2011
Lines 604,621
No Sam, you normally would NOT agree with Finn. What are you talking about Finn? Building a performance around one person is EXACTLY New Directions style.
I don't quite see what you're getting at - that New Directions does numbers like, say, "Highway to Hell" or "Bohemian Rhapsody" where Jesse does 90% of the singing (which they don't, not really)? What Finn is referring to as "ND's style" is flashy group numbers where everybody sings like "Don't Stop Believing." There are solos, yes, but it's focused on the entire club. The number of times they've done that outweigh the times they don't (like "Valerie" or "Get it Right." "Don't Rain on My Parade" was a last-minute thing.)
Why did they bother with so many unnecessary songs in this episode?
It's a common law of musicals that the best songs are the ones that progress the stories. If they reveal motivation, develop character, or push the musical forward, then they are usually meaningful and great. Glee obviously has the issue of only doing covers and therefore having to sometimes pick songs that fit an episodic theme. Still, did anyone find the auditions for the solo to be so meaningless and tiring? I won't deny that Santana, Kurt, Mercedes, and Rachel sang well, but I found the plot to be so fundamentally weak that it just irritated me. It brought the episode to a halt just so we could have more songs to sell on iTunes. I know Glee is expensive and it helps Fox out by giving them some money, but I began to notice some issues with the use of the songs on the show.
Because Glee can't always find songs to progress the story, they just picked songs to fill half the episode with. "Pure Imagination" was the one song that had any emotional connection to the episode, and even though they could have found any song to fill the place, it had some heart and allowed us to see Sue in a state of vulnerability, which I absolutely love when they do the sort of thing ("Landslide" was one of my favorite songs from this season because of this as well). But when it came to the audition songs, it showed a fundamental weakness in the songs, where the characters could basically sing anything and it wouldn't affect the plot. How did they decide to do this? They had the characters sing songs from artists and shows they have already done to death before.
Santana sang Amy Winehouse. That's the second time she has sung something with Winehouse and the third time the show used a song by Winehouse ("Rehab", "Valerie", "Back to Black"). Kurt sang a song from Gypsy, the second time he has sung something from that show ("Rose's Turn" and "Some People"), and it once again brought up the fact that he tends to sing songs from Broadway shows traditionally sung by women (the entire "Defying Gravity" subplot from Wheels). Mercedes once again sang a classic song performed by African-American musicians that allowed her to belt out as many notes as she could (I won't even list), and Rachel sang Barbra Streisand, being the SIXTH Streisand song sung on this show ("One Less Bell to Answer", "Don't Rain on my Parade", "Funny Girl", "Get Happy/Happy Days are Here Again", "Papa, Can you Here Me?", and "My Man") and the third song from Funny Girl.
I know these songs reflect the characters, but isn't this old news? My point is that the four songs they sang were so uninteresting (as song choices, not as performances) that they could have sang anything, and my ranting shows that I don't really enjoy when they could be singing anything. It is just copying and pasting song titles for no reason.
Some of the songs did have some relevance to characters: Santana's song connected to her unhappiness over her situation with Brittany; Rachel's connected to her relationships with Finn and Jesse; and Kurt's both showcased the increased professionalism he's learnt from the Warblers and put a spotlight on his commitment, ambition and - through the dance element - his roundedness as a performer (all things that have been backgrounded in Season 2 due to other plots), as well as acting as a commentary on Schue's discontented feeling that he's one of the people who's 'got the dream but not the guts'. The only one that didn't really connect to anything was Mercedes', and that had a lampshade hung on it by Jesse in the dialogue.
Will rejecting Becky
Was it really necessary? Will has accepted people who are openly hostile to the ND before, and Beiste and him forced the football team to join ND despite being a week away from the championship. It's not like they already have a set list and are rehearsing it. If he didn't want Becky to perform with the other kids(Which would be kinda unfair for the other members of the club), he still could have accepted her under those conditions, it's not like they're overflowing with members.
My problem with it was the delivery. Instead of saying that he could help try to get to the bottom of why she was kicked off the Cheerios, or saying that he won't be able to get her into Nationals but that she can join unofficially/at school immediately (granted, it took me longer than a couple of seconds to figure out how to phrase the part after "won't be able to get her into Nationals", but that part alone could have solved the problem of Nationals), he responded to "I just want to fit in" with "I'm sorry, but we just don't have a place for you". Cold, William Schuster. Cold and cruel.
Justified edits, and one unjustified edit that has a non-natter reason obvious to me.
02 June, Lines 670,673 (Redundant. Shall we re-add into the appropriate section, or leave it out? I vote to leave it out.)
Rachel buying tickets to see Cats
I know it was a joke, but it was such a spectacularly bad joke that I need to go over it. Rachel is supposed to be well versed in musical theater, so how does she not know that Cats is no longer playing on Broadway? I know the guy she bought the tickets from was crazy because she said he swiped her credit card on his butt crack, but that is even more confusing. I see that they are trying to play him as crazy, but it still is strange. Why would he carry about 12 small slips of paper designed to look like tickets for Cats? And if he was trying to get money, then why did he take a credit card? Shouldn't they have at least joked about her losing money or something? Also, what would swiping it in his buttcrack accomplish? Is he mad that she paid in credit? Is it just that he is mad? I shouldn't be looking at this joke so much but it is so bad and confusing that I have to address it. They create such a troubling offscreen character that it is making me more concerned about why this would be than what was actually going on!
Thank God I'm not the only one who noticed that.
14th May, 2011
Lines 482,487 (Marked "complaints" in conjunction with the entry directly below)
The Prom Setlist
Two of the songs that we see the Glee club perform at the prom are "Jar of Hearts" and "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You". Why didn't anyone in the club think "these aren't really lyrically appropriate for a night of celebration and joy"? Both songs fit the scene they're set in, but in the story they would have been chosen days in advance. Slow dancing to "Jar of Hearts" just looked incredibly awkward.
That hasn't stopped either song from being played and/or performed at school dances across the country, all that matters is that they're popular and kids like them.
If they were Top 10 hits, then I'd be inclined to agree and accept it as just being a couple of popular songs but... they aren't. "Boyfriend" was a very modestly performing single three years ago, and while "Jar of Hearts" is currently enjoying a little more popularity (though how much can be related from its exposure on Glee I couldn't say), it's inclusion doesn't really fit with the atmosphere of the event.
Sometimes people want to just sing a song that they like. Given that the club performing at all was organized at the last minute, it's very likely that the set list consisted solely of the songs that whoever was singing wanted to sing period and that the band could learn to play quickly. After all, they even lampshaded the fact that there was no lyrical theme to the episode in the beginning.
14th May, 2011
Lines 522,523 (Marked "complaints" in conjunction with the entry directly above)
Kurt asking Dave to come out in the middle of prom
First how the hell is that a good timing? Second... how? I mean, was Dave suppose to say to everyone "I am queer, I am here and I sexually harassed Kurt in the past!"?
Unjustified deletions by other tropers:
12th May, 2011
Lines 447,448 (Accidentally deleted and intentionally replaced by sparkpoint, subsequently deleted by Hallo Hallo)
Most of the ND-kids, even pre-Glee club, were picked on already. Artie, for example, was likely picked on because he is in a wheel-chair (and to a degree, probably because he dresses like a nerd and was in the AV-club). Kurt was likely bullied pre-Glee club because of how he dresses and his transparent sexuality (despite not coming out officially until episode 4). He's at the bottom of the social ladder because he's different, and he's different because he's gay. Glee club just added to reasons for them to be bullied. It's why Glee has so many stereotypes, because the kids start of as stereotypes stuck in the perceived status quo and they try to use Glee to break out of it. Also, to address your question of why Kurt finds it offensive, it is because while he IS effemminate, at the end of the day, he is NOT a girl (despite the fact that he says he considers himself an honorary girl). Proof of how he finds it offensive to be called a girl is in Furt, when he tells Sue that he finds it hurtful when she calls him "Lady".
Also, while the rest of the school is never shown to actually bully Kurt because he is gay, they're also the same group of people who simply walked by and ignored Kurt being bullied. Homophobia doesn't have to be explicit or physical.
My suggestions, for all but the three unjustified edits at the top (I will add my suggestions for those either here or in the discussion when it's not so late in my time zone or I need not be up early in the morning):
Rachel buys tickets to Cats: Marked with my opinion. The Prom Setlist: I think the headscratcher is pointless but the responses are valid and raise their own points. I vote to leave it in. If the wiki wasn't experiencing troubles with the parser, I would have planned to defend my vote (because of the responses), but as it is I'm probably going to leave it at this. Kurt asking Dave to come out at the middle of the prom: Full of bile and venom, but a good point. I vote to put it back if it can be fixed it to be more neutral. If it cannot (or mayn't) be fixed, I abstain my vote but feel really guilty about doing so. Hallo Hallo's deletion: I don't know what the context was. If anyone knows where it should go, I shall cheer. Possibly in a verbal fashion. As it is, I think it may be one of those entries that won't be replaced because no one knows where it should go.
I didn't intentionally single out Valjevert, and I'm sorry if that person feels bad in any way because of this. That particular editor just happened to have made several extensive unjustified deletions on the same page that I caught. This is not a personal thing (I almost wish it was, because then I could feel smug instead of guilty, and guilty about feeling guilty).
Here follow the results of what seems to have been a serial mass-deletion by Valjevert, to be dicussed and (if the editor or other tropers so choose) defended. In order to limit personal bias from me, I'm adding all of the relevant cuts to this list, without the exception of sections that have an obvious, non-subjective reason for being cut (like June 02, lines 670,673, regarding Rachel and the tickets to Cats, which had already been discussed in greater detail, including everything from that section, further up the page. Those I will add to the bottom, for a separate discussion if anyone cares). Following these is a compilation of the one other unjustified deletion I found for this page while I was keeping an eye out for them. There may be other unjustified deletions that I didn't catch, and they, too should be dealt with if found.
Unjustified edits:
2nd June, 2011 Lines 641,660
Quinn's Haircut
Obviously, the show was trying to invoke Important Haircut with Quinn as an attempt for her to get beyond Finn dumping her. I don't have issue with the show trying to develop the characters, and the scene with Quinn, Santana, and Brittany was nice and well acted. My problem was that after the haircut, no one brought it up. I usually find myself struck by Important Haircut, but the way she just appeared with short hair and have not a single person mention how good she looks or even joke on it made me question why they did it. If they wanted Quinn to do something to try to get beyond Finn, there were so many other options like getting a tattoo or getting a special piercing. Those at least had a lot more potential for humor or relating to the episode's message of being swept into the hype of New York City. It just bothers meQuinn's Big Plan
Did I miss something, or did the writers completely fail to follow up on last week's cliffhanger? Someone told me the plan was to ruin everything by telling on Rachel and getting her suspended, but Quinn had no way of knowing that opportunity would present itself. Someone else said it was the haircut, but that was Santana's idea. (Not to mention, that's a pretty lame excuse for a "big plan" and could have been done in Lima as easily as New York.) So what the heck?The Kiss Cost Them The Win?
I get that it was unprofessional, but couldn't the thing that cost them Nationals be that, I don't know, they didn't even have their set list ready before they got to New York?! The one thing Jesse got right last week was that you seriously need to practice if you want to get anywhere. Vocal Adrenaline practics almost 24/7 and placed on top. Shouldn't that be a clue?Not preparing for NATIONALS
I was flabbergasted when they decided to 'let New York be their inspiration' and prepare the songs the day before the competition. That was so wrong and totally arrogant of the club I was actually happy when they ended up in the twelfth place. And I don't think that was the writers' intent. And why didn't Schuester prompt/force (so to speak) them to prepare earlier? My, have they been flanderizing him this season...2nd June, 2011 Lines 712,716 (edited for spelling. "Dubble" is part of a brand name. Is has to my knowledge never been in common English usage as its own variant of the word).
Sleeping Arrangements
Rachel sleeps alone in a double bed while Quinn sleeps in a chair. WTF?23rd May, 2011 Lines 604,621
No Sam, you normally would NOT agree with Finn. What are you talking about Finn? Building a performance around one person is EXACTLY New Directions style.
Why did they bother with so many unnecessary songs in this episode?
It's a common law of musicals that the best songs are the ones that progress the stories. If they reveal motivation, develop character, or push the musical forward, then they are usually meaningful and great. Glee obviously has the issue of only doing covers and therefore having to sometimes pick songs that fit an episodic theme. Still, did anyone find the auditions for the solo to be so meaningless and tiring? I won't deny that Santana, Kurt, Mercedes, and Rachel sang well, but I found the plot to be so fundamentally weak that it just irritated me. It brought the episode to a halt just so we could have more songs to sell on iTunes. I know Glee is expensive and it helps Fox out by giving them some money, but I began to notice some issues with the use of the songs on the show.Because Glee can't always find songs to progress the story, they just picked songs to fill half the episode with. "Pure Imagination" was the one song that had any emotional connection to the episode, and even though they could have found any song to fill the place, it had some heart and allowed us to see Sue in a state of vulnerability, which I absolutely love when they do the sort of thing ("Landslide" was one of my favorite songs from this season because of this as well). But when it came to the audition songs, it showed a fundamental weakness in the songs, where the characters could basically sing anything and it wouldn't affect the plot. How did they decide to do this? They had the characters sing songs from artists and shows they have already done to death before.
Santana sang Amy Winehouse. That's the second time she has sung something with Winehouse and the third time the show used a song by Winehouse ("Rehab", "Valerie", "Back to Black"). Kurt sang a song from Gypsy, the second time he has sung something from that show ("Rose's Turn" and "Some People"), and it once again brought up the fact that he tends to sing songs from Broadway shows traditionally sung by women (the entire "Defying Gravity" subplot from Wheels). Mercedes once again sang a classic song performed by African-American musicians that allowed her to belt out as many notes as she could (I won't even list), and Rachel sang Barbra Streisand, being the SIXTH Streisand song sung on this show ("One Less Bell to Answer", "Don't Rain on my Parade", "Funny Girl", "Get Happy/Happy Days are Here Again", "Papa, Can you Here Me?", and "My Man") and the third song from Funny Girl.
I know these songs reflect the characters, but isn't this old news? My point is that the four songs they sang were so uninteresting (as song choices, not as performances) that they could have sang anything, and my ranting shows that I don't really enjoy when they could be singing anything. It is just copying and pasting song titles for no reason.
Will rejecting Becky
Was it really necessary? Will has accepted people who are openly hostile to the ND before, and Beiste and him forced the football team to join ND despite being a week away from the championship. It's not like they already have a set list and are rehearsing it. If he didn't want Becky to perform with the other kids(Which would be kinda unfair for the other members of the club), he still could have accepted her under those conditions, it's not like they're overflowing with members.Justified edits, and one unjustified edit that has a non-natter reason obvious to me.
02 June, Lines 670,673 (Redundant. Shall we re-add into the appropriate section, or leave it out? I vote to leave it out.)
Rachel buying tickets to see Cats
I know it was a joke, but it was such a spectacularly bad joke that I need to go over it. Rachel is supposed to be well versed in musical theater, so how does she not know that Cats is no longer playing on Broadway? I know the guy she bought the tickets from was crazy because she said he swiped her credit card on his butt crack, but that is even more confusing. I see that they are trying to play him as crazy, but it still is strange. Why would he carry about 12 small slips of paper designed to look like tickets for Cats? And if he was trying to get money, then why did he take a credit card? Shouldn't they have at least joked about her losing money or something? Also, what would swiping it in his buttcrack accomplish? Is he mad that she paid in credit? Is it just that he is mad? I shouldn't be looking at this joke so much but it is so bad and confusing that I have to address it. They create such a troubling offscreen character that it is making me more concerned about why this would be than what was actually going on!14th May, 2011 Lines 482,487 (Marked "complaints" in conjunction with the entry directly below)
The Prom Setlist
Two of the songs that we see the Glee club perform at the prom are "Jar of Hearts" and "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You". Why didn't anyone in the club think "these aren't really lyrically appropriate for a night of celebration and joy"? Both songs fit the scene they're set in, but in the story they would have been chosen days in advance. Slow dancing to "Jar of Hearts" just looked incredibly awkward.14th May, 2011 Lines 522,523 (Marked "complaints" in conjunction with the entry directly above)
Kurt asking Dave to come out in the middle of prom
First how the hell is that a good timing? Second... how? I mean, was Dave suppose to say to everyone "I am queer, I am here and I sexually harassed Kurt in the past!"?Unjustified deletions by other tropers:
12th May, 2011 Lines 447,448 (Accidentally deleted and intentionally replaced by sparkpoint, subsequently deleted by Hallo Hallo)
My suggestions, for all but the three unjustified edits at the top (I will add my suggestions for those either here or in the discussion when it's not so late in my time zone or I need not be up early in the morning): Rachel buys tickets to Cats: Marked with my opinion.
The Prom Setlist: I think the headscratcher is pointless but the responses are valid and raise their own points. I vote to leave it in. If the wiki wasn't experiencing troubles with the parser, I would have planned to defend my vote (because of the responses), but as it is I'm probably going to leave it at this.
Kurt asking Dave to come out at the middle of the prom: Full of bile and venom, but a good point. I vote to put it back if it can be fixed it to be more neutral. If it cannot (or mayn't) be fixed, I abstain my vote but feel really guilty about doing so.
Hallo Hallo's deletion: I don't know what the context was. If anyone knows where it should go, I shall cheer. Possibly in a verbal fashion. As it is, I think it may be one of those entries that won't be replaced because no one knows where it should go.
I didn't intentionally single out Valjevert, and I'm sorry if that person feels bad in any way because of this. That particular editor just happened to have made several extensive unjustified deletions on the same page that I caught. This is not a personal thing (I almost wish it was, because then I could feel smug instead of guilty, and guilty about feeling guilty).