It's time for new fall TV. Many new shows rolled out last week, or are premiering this week. But in my opinion, the best of the lot has been already been at it for a while now. That's Glee, a musical-drama-comedy on FOX.First, the good news. Despite the fact it's on FOX, it appears it won't be destined to be jerked around by the network like so many of their past great shows. Just this week, they announced they've picked up the series for a complete full season order. If you try and like it, you can do so knowing that there will be at least 22 episodes of it.
And I think you'll like it. The show works on a lot of the levels that the brilliant-but-cancelled Freaks and Geeks operated on. It can be tender one moment and witty the next. So far, it's made me laugh out loud and moved me in every episode.
Plus, to season the mix, there are musical numbers every week. The show centers around a high school glee club struggling to come together, and the teacher trying to encourage them. Many pieces of music appear in that context, as numbers being rehearsed by the club. But the show also sometimes functions in the manner of an actual musical, with a character performing a song in a non-realistic setting to convey an emotional point. The show seems to fire on any level it attempts.
So far, we've had great performances including a rousing, largely a cappella rendition of Journey's Don't Stop Believing (in the pilot episode), a choir version of Kanye West's Gold Digger (that aired about four days before his last ass-hattery put him back in pop culture news), a choreographed dance routine involving an on-field football team, and a take on Salt N' Pepa's Push It that a character described as "the most offensive thing I've seen in 20 years of teaching -- and that includes an elementary school production of Hair."
The cast is great, the writing solid, and the musical interpretations typically as good or better than the originals. They're landing solid guest stars almost every week. And if you like the music, they're releasing multiple soundtrack albums throughout the season, and songs from current episodes on iTunes.
I'll haul out the "if you see one" cliché and say this: if you sample only one new show this fall, make it Glee.
1 comment:
The first episode of Glee was amazing. But I felt the two follow-ups sort of lost the focus. Sure, the musical numbers were still great, but the humor and situations felt more forced. Fortunately, the most recent episode seems to be back in the groove that they originally hit.
So yeah, I'm watching this.
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