Comments on: Review: Glee

By: toni

toni — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:52:43 +0000

You soooo called the Puck action.

By: Abby

Abby — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:15:43 +0000

Best Spike line ever–”I may be love’s bitch, but at least I’m man enough to admit it”.

By: Tamara Hogan

Tamara Hogan — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:12:28 +0000

Several weeks after the episode aired, I still go to YouTube and watch the “Push It” musical number. I laugh harder each time I watch it. It’s just SO DIABOLICALLY WRONG, which makes it so damn RIGHT. The dance positions are better suited for a (sanitized) porn flick. The facial expressions are a master class in subtlety: the absolute horror on Finn’s face when he realizes his football homies just saw Kurt slap him on the ass. The ecstasy on the Principal’s face. Absolute subversive genius.

By: Beki

Beki — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:20:31 +0000

I did my own review of this show a week or so back, and I was in the same place you were. Meh, maybe I’ll try it out. Then sucked right in. I love it. I don’t even care if it goes waaay, waaaaaay over the top with the baby plot and the weird wife and the even weirder OCD teacher. I love them all and musicals are supposed to be over the top, so I put up with it. And Sue is so good I cry. (They should be hobbled.) Second episode, during the assembly, when they performed Push It took me right back to high school and I was laughing my ass off imagining the flood of phone calls/emergency teacher conferences, etc that would set off.

I refuse to dissect and try to stick my finger on what I don’t like, but I’ll tell you guys that my husband HATES musicals, gets itchy just thinking about high school drama, and has no interest in sports. But when I pushed him to catch the eps on Hulu (he works on the road) he was all in over the course of one night. If he likes it, there’s something good going on!

By: Kay T

Kay T — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 01:00:26 +0000

I have been waiting for you to get into this. One thing I like about the show is that you can watch the episodes again and again (perhaps skipping the plot for the music). And smile.

By: Gayle, Black Cherry Kisser

Gayle, Black Cherry Kisser — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 20:31:56 +0000

Hey, Jenny…*I* was born in Lima as well. My parents left for California when I was 3 months old, so my memories are kinda dim.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 03:11:42 +0000

We have a state rock song?

Oh, my god, we do:
http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1878

By: toni

toni — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 02:51:58 +0000

Hm. You know, this makes sense. (I hate it when that happens, when points I should see sail right over me.) I kept surfing right past the problems because River kicks ass when everyone thought she was helpless, and I loved the dynamic between her and the brother. But you’re right, the story’s supposed to be Mal’s.

And see, this is why I like these discussions so much. They always force me outside my comfort box to really *see* these things instead of getting complacent or operating on instinct alone. Thanks.

By: mq, cb

mq, cb — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:30:25 +0000

The most interesting Ohio fact I know: you have an official rock song. It’s rather a dull song (unless you’re into sub-Beach Boys, and the Beach Boys from before they were interesting at that), but it did prompt someone to draft House Concurrent Resolution No. 16 of the 116th General Assembly of Ohio, which is far better than the song, and practically a reason to be cheerful in itself.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:07:21 +0000

I did a whole essay on why I hated Serenity for the second Serenity Smart Pop book, and I was so angry about the show they rejected it, very nicely, because it was so over the top. I think what happened–although it’s always dicey to speculate about what happens during somebody else’s process–is that Joss got so distracted by his cool spaceship–which was very cool–and his concept of displaced cowboys in space–which wasn’t so much–and forgot to do things like build character and structure story. There were only three people with goals in the whole thing: the bad guy who wanted River, River who wanted to find out what had happened to her, and River’s brother who wanted to save her. These are all good goals. Unfortunately, the story was about Mal who was a great character, I loved him, but since he didn’t want anything he ended up being a pissy pirate, bitching at everybody, not because he was frustrated in his goals, but because that made him Colorful. I get that he’s angry about the War, but he’s not doing anything about it, he’s just sailing around the universe, bitching, and then doing the right thing when he falls over a problem, of which River is one. He is completely predictible, we don’t have anything to root for because he doesn’t want anything, and he distracts from the one mystery in the story which is River. I might have been able to live with that in the series since it’s episodic, but stretched across feature length, it was just confusing and frustrating. And that’s also when I noticed that all the women were stereotypes that existed only in relation to Mal. Most frustrating was the courtesan which everybody kept telling us was an honorable profession in this world, except any time a guy got mad at her, he called her a whore. None of the women showed any dimension even though the actresses tried hard. The writing defeated them. I was so angry about that after the amazing job Joss had done with Buffy and Willow and even Anya. There’s more, but basically, I was confused as all hell after the first ten minutes of the movie and it never really got better because there was no there there. I watched it the first time with Bob, and we actually stopped it about half an hour in, looked at each other, and said WTF?

You have to have a strong protagonist with a goal or the center does not hold.

By: PG

PG — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:18:12 +0000

LOVED the “Somebody to Love.” I think it’s one of the songs that is the message for everyone on the show (possibly all human beings in general?). And also because Queen’s Greatest Hits is not so bad a thing to have as the only music you’ll get to hear, no matter what Pratchett/Gaiman snarked.

I think this episode actually showed that Finn isn’t as mow-downable as he’d seemed for all the prior episodes where everyone else (Will, Rachel, Quinn) seemed to be twisting him to their own purposes. He has a gathering sense of purpose that’s now giving him the motivation to start doing some manipulation of his own. Which really reminds you that “Glee” is written by the guy who gave us “Nip/Tuck”

By: Lori J.

Lori J. — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 02:42:02 +0000

All this Buffy talk makes me want to have another Buffy weekend marathon. Damn, I miss that show.

(I don’t use it, but yeah, preview isn’t working for me either.)

By: toni

toni — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 01:16:24 +0000

Geez. I actually know how to punctuate and write complete sentences. Damned multi-tasking.

By: toni

toni — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 01:08:12 +0000

Okay, I have to now ask why you loathe Serenity. I loved it, but I saw it long before I ever watched Firefly. Maybe because I saw it out of order.

Also, one of these days, on an entirely different topic, I’d love to see what literary crit books you’ve read that you thought were worthwhile. (I have the anthology one you participated in.)

Preview isn’t working for me, either with Mac/Safari.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:15:13 +0000

You know there’s a lot of way to take that crack, too. I’m sure he meant it as she annoys the hell out of him, but “set myself on fire” has some lovely subliminal meanings. I don’t know the writers on this show well enough yet, but if they’re setting something up, I love this show.

I remember when Willow and Tara held hands for the first time in the snack room when the Hush monsters were attacking and thinking, “Now that would be so cool, if Joss let Willow go bi,” and then thought, “Naw.” And sure enough, he went there. And he’d actually set it up in “Doppelganger” when Bad Willow grabbed Good Willow’s butt. But then Joss is a god. I forgive him Serenity.

Now if only the Glee writers are that off the wall . . .

By: Lindsey

Lindsey — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:13:15 +0000

omg, I’ve wanted Rachel with Puck since the beginning. Also can’t wait until Puck has his first solo.

By: Cherry Honey

Cherry Honey — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:11:53 +0000

I think the animosity between the two (Rachel and Puck) is what would make that pairing great.

Veronica and Logan, Buffy and Spike…

By: Diane (TT)

Diane (TT) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:42:11 +0000

Yeah, there was some real balancing of the scales going on there with Finn. Emma is still hanging on as messed-up but non-evil. I liked the “Somebody to Love” part best, but I’m a sucker for ’80s rock. I think that may be why I like the show a lot. And general junking out on singing and dancing. How nice to have a new addiction.

The Happy Meals with legs line is excellent. It reminds me of Anya’s classic description of Thanksgiving as “ritual sacrifice – with pie”.

Preview is still not working. I wonder if it’s Firefox, but not enough to try another browser.

By: Cherry Honey

Cherry Honey — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:40:52 +0000

I remember all of what’s in the trailer above, I think. Have you watched episodes after the pilot? I think some of that is in episode 2.

By: Becky

Becky — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:36:33 +0000

“The one thing I don’t get is why everybody insists that Rachel is the best singer they have when Mercedes can come out and sing her off the stage.”

Quinn and Tina were pretty good in their solos, too. (Except where Tina was supposed to be bad when she lost her confidence there at the end.) So much of high school is about finding your identity, and Rachel’s is The Best Singer. Even if she’s not actually the best, it’s the place she’s carved out for herself, and the group goes along with it without stopping to consider if it’s really true. It’s kind of a geeky version of the King and Queen of the school- that popular couple or crowd that can do no wrong, until we look back years later and think, “You know, they really weren’t that great.”