Why I Hate Glee *this season*

Why I Hate Glee *this season*

Well, I think it’s time to get one thing out in the open….I like Glee. I watch it every week. The first season came around and I fell in love with the show (and Lea Michele, but that’s beside the point). Why? I’m not really sure myself. Something about a group of misfits belting out “Don’t Stop Believing” with the heart and soul of Journey with a creative, musical twist pulled at my heartstrings and I was hooked. I watched the rest of the season. I waited through its three month hiatus and rejoiced when it came back. I am, for all intents and purposes, a “Gleek”. You may now take 5 seconds to mock me.

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Ok, time’s up. Now, all you Glee-haters can stop reading because, let’s be honest. You really don’t care. You looked at this because you wanted to see why I hate Glee but you’re already bored so just go ahead and close it down and go back to your Dungeons and Dragons game. Your army of trolls needs their leader back.

As for my fellow Gleeks and cool people, stay with me. I’ve already admitted that I loved Glee’s first season. Heck, I own it on DVD. So, my forthcoming criticism is out of love, not hate (I used hate in the title to make it eye-catching).

Glee is not Glee anymore. The show that comes on every Tuesday night is a ghost of the beauty that we saw last year. Yes, the sets, costumes and characters (to an extent) are all the same. And from the outside, nothing is different. But, when you look closely, there are a lot of changes that happened in the break between season one and two.

Let’s recap; as we all know, Glee kind of came out of nowhere and for the first couple of weeks, its viewing audience consisted only of those fans of American Idol with nothing else to do and those few that FOX managed to snag, due to an unholy amount of money in their advertising budget. Then, suddenly, Glee was everywhere. Magazines, t-shirts, music, posters, Glee, Glee, Glee, Glee. It was the next big thing. Seemingly overnight, Glee was a phenomenon. And it stayed true, cranking out killer covers of classic songs and keeping up the drama and suspense on the show.

And then, the writers realized they had a cash cow in their hands….and it all started going downhill.

It was first noticeable in the season one finale. Quinn has her baby; the illegitimate, drama-inducing love-child of her and Puck, the Mohawk-ed hottie. She gave birth in the middle of sectionals, the high point of the Glee Clubs career (O.M.G. what do we do!?). Conveniently, her water broke just after their last performance and she was only in labor while the final team performed. Amazing. And, by some other miracle of nature, she had a beautiful, healthy baby girl….about two months too early. Yeah, I’m not kidding.

All through the first season, several comments were made about the time frame of sectionals that lead us to believe that Sectionals will take place 6 months from the shows first episode. Now, allow two or three weeks for Quinn to realize she’s pregnant (she makes it public 4 episodes in) and you’re still stuck with her having the baby about a month and a half to two months before the typical ninth month delivery. I can allow for a little continuity errors but, come on people. This just screams “we’re running out of drama!!” And then for her to give birth while To Sir with Love was playing from the competitors….ew. Not ok.

This continuity FAIL was the first step onto what’s quickly becoming a steep, slippery slope into High-School-Musical-esque slop that Glee will have trouble staying on if they don’t lose some of the extra weight that fame has added to their head.

The most obvious of this turn of events was the horrid “Britney Spears episode”. *shudder shudder* Season 1 delivered a Madonna tribute episode that was honoring to the legendary singer while keeping the originality of Glee. Then, their overnight success spawned another hopeful tribute in a Britney Spears themed episode that turned out very disappointing. This is when the writers started to scare me….

First of all, Glee’s music has always been about introducing classic songs to a new generation, while allowing the songs to add to the plot of the episode, musical-style. The current generation all know who Britney is, so there’s really no reason to cover her songs. The redundancy of covering Britney’s songs is made even more apparent when they bring Britney onto the scene in a set of two second cameos. LAME. Finally, the Britney songs did nothing to enhance the plot whatsoever; if anything, they bogged it down. And the “dream sequence” element that was added so they could expand their sets and sluttify the girls outfits was just pathetic. The only redeeming quality of that episode was the finale performance of “Toxic” and even the lead in for that was weak. Glee is a musical, and the Madonna episode proved they can do a tribute and make a decent episode. The Britney episode felt more like made-for-YouTube videos designed to bring in even more viewers. Keep in mind, this was the second episode of season two…the rest of it doesn’t look promising.

The lack of plot this year is also a disappointment. Last year, there was drama, a lot of drama, but not so much that it turned into a soap opera. The even balance of real life situations and comedy, mixed in with some appropriately chosen heartfelt classics, made each episode of season one fun, as well as relevant to the continuing story.This year, we’ve had one semi-dramatic episode that turned into a sacrilegious nightmare and a whole lot of Will being desperate and attempting to win Emma back after he totally screwed that relationship up. Granted, I don’t want another teen pregnancy, but can we at least acknowledge that it happened and try and kick the plot up a little bit?

The music is also a big issue. As I said in my Britney rant, Glee has always been about re-introducing the classics. So why in the world are they covering the top songs on the radio?! Telephone, Empire State of Mind and Billionaire come to mind and that was the music for just one episode.

Then there was the Rocky Horror fiasco. While I am impressed with the creativity of the Halloween episode, it was weak in every area. The musical numbers were a big reach to believable and drama was all about Will and Emma again. And why does John Stamos keep showing up!? Either use him and get rid of him or make him a full time character. Stop having him show up every two episodes to show us how desperate and pathetic Will is. Also, while I’m sure it was pulled off nicely, the Rocky Horror episode only really appealed to the fans of the musical (I was lost most of the time, especially when they kept swapping actors for the characters)

Needless to say, my love of Glee has diminished this season and I find myself watching the episodes each week in a somewhat dutiful manner, hoping each time that the newest episode will regain the spark of ingenuity and creativity of season one that made the show great. So far, I’ve been gravely disappointed.