Reviews Series / Glee

20% Great, 80% Boring

Glee is, in my opinion, an okay show. The acting's not terrific, nor is the writing. It's not very funny and definitely didn't deserve to win an Emmy for Comedy. It's like a fusion of DeGrassi and High School Musical, trying to infuse some serious drama of the former while adding the sheer joyous cheesiness of the latter.

Most of the characters are flat, which over the course of a season could have been handled better. There's also the tendency for the show (which was kind of lampshaded in the episode "Throwdown") to shove all its minority characters to the sidelines, in both the songs and the plots. It's not so much a consolation that the showrunners seem completely aware they're brushing aside the supporting players, several of whom are more talented than the leads (Mercedes has a great set of pipes, and wheelchair-bound Artie is the best singer of all the male kids. And those two football dancers should dance more.)

Then there's the whole pregnancy/fake pregnancy arc to which I responded, "Yawn. Fast forward." Rachel gets torn about multiple boyfriends. Aack! These are some cliched high-school storylines that don't ever pay off.

The Emmy that Glee did deserve was for Jane Lynch playing Sue Sylvester. Without her, this show would be almost completely unwatchable, with a worse ratio of songs to filler than American Idol. There were a few attempts throughout the season to humanize her (boo!) but I felt they did that in order to justify her decisions during the season finale. A second breakout star is Brittany, whose few lines are like Jack Handy quotes ("Dolphins are just gay sharks.")

Finally, the singing. It's fun. It's jubilant. They do a great job with the music despite their music selection being iffy. They devoted entire episodes to Madonna and Lady Gaga, so if you're not a fan of those kinds of singers, it's going to be a tough show to listen to. Lea Michele can sing and is the only one who earns all the songs she gets to sing. The show has also done a good job of bringing in vocally talented guest stars (Neil Patrick Harris, Kristin Chenowith) because they really need the variety.

Overall, it's a show with some bright spots, but really has a lot of issues to resolve.