"Glee"- I want 9 months of my life back

What’s not to love about a bunch of spunky highschoolers signing songs and dancing like crazy? How about everything? The season finale of Glee was this week, and after not watching the last 5 episodes, I was reminded of why I quit watching the show in the first place.

What started as a brilliant concept and some quality script writing a year ago, has devolved into a mash up of clichés, over-tuned singing, and acting that would even make Keanu Reeves cringe, (Quinn’s delivery scene in the finale anybody?). When Glee first premiered last year after American Idol, I watched the show live and was very surprised with how entertaining it was. From the moment Sue Sylvester, played by the always excellent Jane Lynch, first barked through her megaphone, “You think that’s hard? Try water boarding! That’s hard!” I knew that Glee would be a show to watch for in the upcoming fall season.

And throughout the fall Glee kept up on its initial promise of entertainment. Between great story lines such as Kurt coming out to his father, which I definitely got a little teary eyed at, and some excellent performances, specifically Mercedes’ “And I’m Telling you,” Glee seemed like a pretty bright light compared to the rest of the fall lineup. The group went and won Sectionals, and the future seemed so gleeful for those darn kids. But then the show took a several month hiatus, and came back changed. All of the story lines and relationships that the show had been building to were dropped and those formerly touching moral stories of acceptance were corrupted into stereotypical gags with poor taste. The season finale opens with a flashback of Quinn and Puck fooling around, and Puck’s lines could practically be written down for a handbook of manipulating relationships for sex. When Quinn is hesitant Puck just has to utter, “You’re not fat.” Oh quality writing at its finest.

And whoever’s idea it was to start autotunning the singing should be tarred and feathered. In the second half of the season, Glee sported a terrifically talented supporting cast. With Broadway vets Idina Menzel and Jonathan Groff appearing for multiple episode arcs, the singing talent in the show skyrocketed. But nearly every time these two actors performed, their vocals seemed fake, like some sound engineer’s third grad son was playing around with buttons. Jonathan Groff has been making tween girls weak in the knees for the last 4 years with his work in Spring Awakening, and Menzel has a Tony. They don’t need to be tweaked!




They should have stuck to infomercials


In one of the final scenes of the finale the characters sit around telling Mr. Schuester what he has meant to all of them, while Sue watches on in the background. It is in these two characters reactions that we are reminded of what this show is capable of. The actors follow with a scene filled with great banter, and I grudgingly admit that it made the pain of the last hour a little better. But it was still too little too late. If anything, it reminded me of those final moments of reminiscing in Old Yeller, before Jim needs to pull that trigger. I hope that the producers of Glee take the summer months to rework their show and get it back to the quality product that they originally premiered. If Glee can leave behind the overplayed drama, and present the truly original story lines that the show premiered with, Glee will remain at the top of TV programming instead of fading away once the novelty has worn off.