Glee Review: I must confess, I still believe.
September 30, 2010 by Alana D.
Filed under Television
Sometime last year, probably after the Madonna episode, I dared to critique Glee in my Facebook status. It’s not that I am not entertained by the show - Brittany’s lines are great, Lea Michele could sing the phone book, and I’ve been dying to see Jane Lynch on a consistent basis since Best In Show – it’s more that in Glee‘s effort to be so many things (satire, musical, teen drama), it fails to do any of them, well, well.
Judging from the immediate and profuse reaction of my Facebook friends, I was in the minority. And judging how my Newsfeed lights up every Tuesday afternoon, I still am. [Update: the episode got 13.2 million viewers, so I am certainly the cheese here]. I’ve been told repeatedly that I should just go with it. And since I am a sucker for a good, corny dance number, and funky white boys rapping, I do. So I don’t point out that Quinn went from total bitch to total nice person with no discernible motivation for doing so. I ignore that the writers gave Emma obsessive compulsive disorder, and then dropped it, I’m guessing because they realized that it did nothing to either develop her character and wasn’t particularly funny. And I pretend that it doesn’t bother me in the least that every single character on this show is pretty unlikeable — they are either manipulative and scheming (Rachel, Sue) or cloying and smug (Will, Emma).
I ignore it all. Why? Cause I’m a sucker for good song performed well. And sometimes, the show is awesome, like when Artie sang “Dancing With Myself” last season, or when Rachel performed “What I Did For Love” last week. During these times, the show does something amazing — through the medium of a good pop song (or occasional Broadway number) it gives depth to a character or plot line. When Glee does this, I get happy, then sad, because it’s then that I realize all the potential too often wasted on this show when it spends valuable time pretending, for example, that Will and Emma — or Rachel and Finn for that matter — have any kind of a believable romantic connection or that we should think Sue is really a good person because she’s nice to her developmentally disabled sister.
Which brings me to this episode. . .
We begin with Will caught between the moon and New York city. He wants Christopher Cross, because ’80s adult contemporary is da bomb. (Disagree? Tell someone who doesn’t own three Phil Collins CDs.) But Glee’s not having it. They want to perform Britney, cause they grew up with her. Britney’s breakout hit was in 1998, which means these kids would’ve been around 4-5, which seems a bit young to have “grown up” with her, but whatever. But Will is concerned because Britney is not exactly the best role model. That’s funny — with the whole LiLo shitstorm that has been swarming the media lately, Britney Spears’ head-shaving meltdowns seem almost quaint.
The lovely Brittany has another issue with Britney Spears. Brittany’s full name is “Brittany S. Pierce,” and she’s tired of living in Britney’s shadow. So Will decides that they should do Michael Bolton instead, and I swoon, cause it’s seriously like Will’s reading my mind.
Will talks to Emma (who I hate — really, I wish the Emma character would jump off a cliff) while she arranges “I Still Breastfeed. . .but how old is too old?” and “Wow! There’s Hair Down There!” pamphlets. Emma says that Britney is the perfect symbol for rebirth, and Emma’s all about rebirth, cause she’s dating Jesse and he has a convertible, and they are totally going to Kokomo. No, wait, I’m confused. Emma’s about rebirth because she’s dating Carl, who is played by John Stamos, who played drums in that Beach Boys video from the classic 1988 Tom Cruise/Elisabeth Shue movie Cocktail. My bad.
Anyway, Emma is of no help. Poor Will. How is he supposed to live without her?
Now, because we’ve got to find a way to work Britney Spears mash-up videos into the plot line, the Glee members have to hallucinate at the dentist, and since Carl is a dentist, the whole plot makes sense (right?). Brittany goes down first, and under anesthesia, has this totally awesome “Slave 4 U” mash-up dream. It’s awesome because Heather Morris is totally hittin’ it. Like, she can move. And she’s got a killer body. Totally didn’t see that coming.
Brittany loves the anesthesia so much, she drags Santana with her next time, and she and Santana mutually fantasize into that Madonna/Britney song that I remember being totally being excited about at the time, and then instantly forgetting after hearing it once. It’s not as cool as Brittany by herself.
The pointless Finn/Rachel drama this week is that Finn gets a chance to get back on the football team, but Rachel doesn’t want him too. She wants him to stay a loser, like her, because she is a mean, selfish twit. Also, for reasons pretty much unexplained by her storyline, she gets a Britney makeover, complete with a rendition of “. . .Baby One More Time” of her very own. I admit to kinda digging it, not cause I buy Rachel singing this song, cause I don’t. It’s because it taps into something primal about many women who came of age circa 1998. . .secretly, at some point we all did kinda want to be Britney. Or maybe just we all kinda wanted to do Justin Timberlake. Either way.
Finn gets back on the football team. Well, that Finn-is-a-loser storyline lasted a whole 1.5 episodes.
Artie also makes the team, following a “Stronger” montage. I think the video was supposed to feel empowering, but it just made me kinda uncomfortable.
Will decides that he needs to loosen up, so he buys a convertible and decides to let Glee do Britney at the Homecoming Assembly. He performs with them, and they sing “Toxic,” all Fosse-like. The assembly goes crazy, complete with some simulated sex movements by the kid with the Jewfro. (According to imdb.com, the character’s name is Jacob, but you and I both know that had I said Jacob, you totally would not have known who I was talking about.) Sue is disgruntled, and pulls the fire alarm.
After talking to Emma, who assures Will that he’s fine just the way he is (though clearly not as fine as John Stamos) Will decides to tighten back up, and returns the convertible.
We close the show with Rachel, because Rachel closes the show best. (Seriously, if that awesome Filipino girl isn’t coming back, can we just have Lea Michele sing everything?) She sings Paramore’s “The Only Exception”, one of my favorite songs on the radio right now. And I swoon, because it is a song that has real meaning to the character and it is sung very well. I enjoy it enough to ignore the fact that, for the second episode in a row, Rachel is closing the show in the only number that advances character development in any meaningful way, suggesting to me, again, that for all the show’s gimmicks, Glee really doesn’t have a lot of ideas.
Next week, Glee finds religion. Cool, I’m still open to conversion.
Disagree with Alana D? Read The Power of Britney by Stephanie Jaar.
Season 2, Episode 2: Britney/Brittany (originally aired September 28, 2010)
For more on Glee, click here.
Tuesdays at 8pm on Fox
Photographs courtesy of Fox and IMDbPro
I love Rachel and all her crazy ways. Te best character on the show. But they need to keep her some what likable and they will start to redeem her in the next couples of episode.
This episode was just a music video to highlight Heather. The only songs that did move the thin plot were Lea’s.
I completely agree. I didn’t know what do expect when Glee first aired back in the spring of 2009. But I was surprised to find that I loved it and couldn’t wait for another episode. Glee quickly became one of my favorite shows. I have been wary of this second season for the precise reason that Glee was such a huge hit it’s first year out. It seems to me that successful shows in it’s sophomore season struggle to recapture the magic that made it a success. The producers try too hard and use too many gimmicks instead of doing the same thing it did in its first year.
I see no chemistry b/w Rachael & Finn but I’ll go with it if it helps the story line. I really don’t care about Artie and his girl problems and Kurt is honestly getting on my nerves this year (last year he was my absolute favorite). I have found myself fast-forwarding thru boring monologues and just watching the musical numbers.
Glee needs to be careful in the weeks ahead; stop with all of the gimmicks and fluff and just be the show you started out to be before you reached mega popularity.
I stayed away from even touching Glee just because it was bombarding my senses, since that’s all that people talked about. But at the end of summer, before the start of the new season of shows I was bored and turned it on. What was surprising it, I loved it, it was quite charming and there was some story behind the musical numbers. And it just made me happy to watch.
This season (yes it’s only been 2 episodes) has been much more disappointing. This usually happens when they run out of ideas, or a show gets too big for it’s own good. It’s unfortunate that Ryan Murphy has decided that this is the season for 0 story line, and cameo’s by pointless characters. The Brittany episode was really blah, I wish I never watched it. What I love about season 1 was that there was this feeling of nerdom in the characters, and their break out in song made slightly more sense because they were these charming renditions on a stage or in class etc.
The Brittany episode was the kids, doing a shot for shot rendition of the original musical videos, reasoning? They were being given drugs while going under for dental surgery! (Isn’t one of the Glee club members dad a dentist? Why go to a stranger all of a sudden?) And the praising of Brittany spears’ amazing talent every scene was a little ridiculous, maybe she wouldn’t let them use her music without it???
Anyways, hopefully the show goes back to it’s original charm. It’s getting gimmicky and bland at the moment. Also the actors are no longer acting as though they’re gleeks, but really famous people who are now acting on a show.
You guys please give Emma some slack, Jayma is most adorable. Will and Emma’s romance is interesting in the sense that they both have issues and have to overcome it. Jayma does has a girlie voice in real life and that’s something she can’t help and I found it cute, just like Melanie Griffith. In this case it suits the character perfect.
Don’t wanna sound like a total freak who writes fan fiction, but…
As much as I have loved the Madonna/Britney episode, I think they could make them work a bit more with what is actually happening in the show (if there is an actual plot that lasts more than 1.5 episodes, as you mentioned).
I would have loved to see the girls singing Womanizer to Puck, after
all, it totally fits, since he’s dated Santana, Mercedes, Quinn (!!!) and Rachel.
It would have been a great opportunity to see the girls singing together again, and Tina could have sang “say it, play it how you want it, but no way
I’m never gonna fall for you, never you, baby”, AND the small lines of “you say I’m crazy, I got you crazy, you are nothing but a womanizer” could have been done by Kurt, giving a WTF moment, like when Brittany said she had sex with Santana.
I just pictured the scene of Finn making a WTF face when Kurt sings that line and Puck being like:WTFx2
I would have loved to hear Quinn singing the first part of it, and it was, after all, the song that brought Britney back after her crazy period…
I just think it would have been hilarious to see the girls singing MAYBE IF WE LIVED IN A DIFFERENT WORLD, and Kurt dancing around saying
“womanizer, womanizer”, ahh, just a thought…
The whole Britney S Pears was hilarious. I loved it when she said “it’s Britney. Bitch”. There were so many things I loved of this episode.
It’s weird, I loved Me against the Music and I’m a slave 4 u, but both songs by Lea are on the top five of the iTunes charts, as well as Toxic, so people seem to like Baby One More Time, but I think her voice is completely Broadway and not so popish, they should have given it to someone with another voice… Like Quinn. That’s the thing that I don’t get, why don’t they give more lines/songs to other ppl? I mean, Lea already sang in Toxic AND the last song, did she need a third one? However, I did love the combination of voices between Shu/Brit/Lea.
Was it me or it was totally inappropriate for the teacher to sing AND dance with the students like that? Especially because last year they had issues because they sang another sexy song… it’s weird.
I loved Brit’s body, and her lines were hilarious “I’d look like an adult baby with boobs” or something. I LOVED that Santana said “Leave Britney alone”, for those who don’t know, there was a pretty famous video where a guy begged (while crying) to “leave Britney alone”, for further reference: http://www.youtube.com — Search: Leave Britney alone.
There was also Lea’s phrase: Is this real life? – It’s a reference to the video “David after the dentist”, where he says: Is this real life?
Santana and Britney were totally hot together, and the dance they did was impossible. Did you notice Puck and Finn during “Me against the music”? I read Tina and Kurt were also hiding, but I didn’t spot them. Did you see that they let go off the cane and had twist over and grab it again? Yes, I’m obsessed and it’s not even funny.
I loved the whole:
Britney – Finn can fly?
Kurt – Seriously?
I liked the song she sang to Finn, but I think they could have done more Britney. I think Quinn will get big and leave the show as soon as she starts making movies, I mean… 2 lines? for real?
However, what I do like is the way they include people we would rarely see on TV, like “the Jewish cloud” and that fat girl, the Beast and the girl with down syndrome. I think they should be more recognized about that.
My main issue is that they could have added the songs without making it so fake, and keep the plot going. Shu could have said “pick a song by Britney that shows how you feel” or some shit like that, then Artie could have sang Stronger, Tina could have sang Crazy to the other Asian, and Finn could have sang “sometimes” to Lea, but well… I liked what they did with Toxic.
Love that you are writing GLEE reviews; because we usually look at the show so differently. I LOVE to HATE Rachel; thats the whole point. Because as a theatre major back in college, I knew someone EXACTLY like Rachel, and I mean exactly. Matter of fact, me and a bunch of my Alumni friends are all convinced the character is somehow based on this woman we went to college with. Conceited, overdramatic all the time, self-centered to the point of ridiculous…with the voice of an Angel. I think most of us that have been through some kind of theatre/acting school or music school/program … have known people who resemble some of the characters on GLEE. Its the cheese and the drama and the irony and the wonderful way that the show mocks itself – that makes me keep coming back for more. And of course, the musical numbers.
I completely agree about Emma. She is perhaps the most annoying character on television. Her whiny, childlike voice alone makes me want to slap her silly; and its hard to see WHY Will would even take any interest in her at all. But then again, Wills ex-wife is just as lame and annoying.
I havent seen the Britney episode yet, so I cant really comment specifically – but Ill be back soon as I hit the DVR lol. Great writeup.