Thanksgiving

Because I went to see some Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes at the movie theater last night, I didn't get to comment on last night's new episode of Glee. Then again, the episode itself was even more behind schedule than I was, since "Thanksgiving" was airing a week after the holiday itself.

There were hits and misses within the hour. On the plus side, I feel like over the years, the show really has improved its approach to the "competition episodes." They used to offer about 15 minutes of plot and 30 minutes of "reality singing show," and always felt lacking to me for that. They've come around to reversing that formula, allowing at least some space to tell a story.

I'm still not quite believing the bulimia storyline for Marley -- not that she'd be so stupid to be duped by Kitty, nor that Kitty would be so evil to continue encouraging the behavior even after they'd supposedly become friends. But I at least appreciate the effort at character continuity between episodes. I guess I'm saying that if the choice is between a completely new story and schizophrenic characters each week (as it was for Glee for a long stretch), and a storyline I'm not crazy about that at least maintains continuity over several episodes? I'll take the latter.

The return of the graduates to help the glee club was a mixed bag for me. Sure, I'm glad to have the old gang back. But it kind of made you wish the old gang had never left. And more to the point, it wasn't really that big a moment, since all of them (save Quinn) had not only been on the show earlier this season, but had actually returned to McKinley for their stories.

The Kurt and Blaine story served up the best moment of the episode in their tearful phone call near the end. It's not that they're necessarily the "best couple" on the show, but I think they probably are the couple on the show featuring two actors of matching ability. They moved me with a two minute scene, more than some of the other couple storylines have done for me in whole episodes.

Usually the true performance numbers are among my least favorite songs on Glee, but I thought this week the weakest numbers were actually the "it's not supposed to be a staged performance, but it totally looks like one" songs. The graduates' opening mash-up, the cheerleaders' Supremes number, and the Thanksgiving dinner "turkey lurkey kiki" all felt too fake to me. But we got not one but two awesome Warblers numbers. And "Gangnam Style" (in all its kitschy glory/stupidity) was a great finale, with loads of great choreography and Tina (yay!) getting the lead vocal.

I suppose I'd grade the episode a B-. Not stellar, but at least a welcome step up from the previous week.