Glee has become one of the most immensely charming shows in recent memory. It has, however, also become one of the most schizophrenic.
What started as an exciting story of teenage angst, underdogs and lots of ill-timed singing and dancing has now transformed into a much larger multimedia beast.
It would be interesting to see how someone who only watched the clever pilot episode over a year ago would react to the recent Britney Spears episode. Aside from Will Schuester, Sue Sylvester and Rachel Berry (minus 20 or so pounds and 5 or so inches of hair), I'd imagine he or she would recognize very little of it.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Not all shows are required to honor the themes and tones of their pilots, and many fare better by deviating anyway.
Glee has changed even while maintaining some of its underdog swagger. But the change of tone on Glee is so fast and so furious that it's hard to orient one's self before each episode.
In a recent review of the show, The A.V. Club's Todd VanDerWerff coined the term the 3 Glees. This refers to the fact that Glee is run by three head writers, all with equal narrative power: Ryan Murphy (the show's actual creator), Ian Brennan and Brad Falchuk. Instead of operating in unison, each writer seems to have a different idea of exactly what the show is.
Brennan's Glee is the quieter, more introspective dark comedy about broken dreams in small-town Ohio. Murphy's Glee is the stylized musical behemoth and Falchuk's Glee is a combination of
the two.
The effect is rather dizzying, and because of it, Glee has become television's version of Russian Roulette, with two chambers holding bullets, two holding nothing and two containing glitter. There really is no consistency to Glee from week-to-week. Even this season has seen a three-week span of episodes about drug-induced Britney Spears hallucinations, religious tension in small-town America and typical high school self-esteem issues.
Despite the inconsistencies, Glee remains an entirely watchable show, if not necessarily a great one. And even if Glee weren't entertaining it would still probably be critic-proof.
Something that can generate so much money through iTunes and other ancillary means just has to be a hit. Also, it's not like fans of musicals on television have any other show to turn to.
For full enjoyment, however, viewers can't expect a life-changing experience every Tuesday night. Or expect anything else at all, for
that matter.
3 Culture
Alec Bojalad
