“Glee” and me
I wish Glee were a better show than it is.
For those in the dark, Glee is a hit on Fox about a bunch of nerds at an Ohio high school who literally find their voices in the once-moribund glee club. The highlights of the hour are the performances, when the kids sing and dance impossibly (and distractingly) polished versions of current hits.
[UPDATE: Interfaithfamily.com has a piece here about the Jews and half-Jews in the cast.]
In between the songs are arch soap opera bits featuring the kids and the teachers. These tend to be wildly uneven in tone and quality, flipping back and forth between an Election-style satire and Strangers with Candy-like farce. It’s like a high school version of Desperate Housewives — that is, as if Desperate Housewives were written by, not for, high schoolers. And some of the subplots are just queasy: A wife who fakes a pregnancy, a teacher who is reinstated despite having groped a male student and whose swishy pederasty is played for laughs, and an entire, completely irresponsible episode about an unqualified school nurse who hops up students on pseudoephedrine (Download the music! Get a boost from decongestant!)
The bright spot in all this is Jane Lynch as a sadistic cheerleading coach and chief rival to Matthew Morrison as the teacher in charge of the glee club (Morrison, a Broadway star, looks like the love spawn of Jake Gyllenhaal and Lyle Lovett. He has a face made for…Broadway.) Lynch ( a regular in Christopher Guest’s mockumentary repertory company and Julia Child’s sister in Julie and Julia) speaks her preposterous lines quietly and though clenched jaws and always with the hint of a malicious smile: the devil wears track suits.
Again, the bright spots are supposed to be the musical numbers, but even here there’s a problem. The numbers work best when pop songs are put through the glee club mill — that is, “Rehab” sounded truly fresh and exciting when sung by a choral group in the pilot. But too often, as in a flat episode guest-starring a flatter Kristin Chenoweth, the songs sound like cover versions of the latest hits, like those K-Tel compilations they sold in the ’70s. American Idol already does this; Glee is too often a missed opportunity to do something different.
Why do I care? Because I’ve been watching the show with my 13-year-old daughter, and at this point I cherish every opportunity I can get to spend time and share an experience with an adolescent who would much prefer to be in her room. We make an appiontment to watch Glee together. Please don’t make me have to quit. (Also, I was a choir geek in high school, and still sing in an a cappella group — I want choral music given its due, even with a pop sheen.)
The solution? Hire some writers from the late lamented CW series Aliens in America, which nailed the combination of high school soaper and satire. Make the musical bits a little less slick and over-produced, and trust the power of choral music to make pop standards sound new. And lose the yuck factor — you don’t need it.
JustASC is written by Andrew Silow-Carroll, Editor-in-Chief of the 