How Awesome is Glee?!
How Awesome Is Glee?
Very awesome. That’s the answer to that. I’ve been hooked on Glee this season. It’s one of only two new shows (the other being Modern Family) that I watch on TV. I was first turned on to Glee through my summer TV Pilot writing class at UCLA. The pilot episode was available on Hulu and I just so happened to be writing my own pilot that takes place in a high school. I watched and thought it was just okay. It had some potential and closed strong after a shaky middle. I wasn’t sure it had staying power. I’m glad it proved me wrong.
Glee follows a high school glee club as they prepare for sectionals with the goal being to move up the ranks and be glee club champions. The situations are over the top and outrageous, but the characters feel real. It’s this strange sense of far-fetched reality that I think can only exist in a world where a football team breaks out into a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ornIWg0VG7g performance of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” to win the game.
I love Glee because it roots for the social outcast underdogs. Diversity and acceptance are primary themes of the show, but it never feels like an after school special or movie of the week. There are minorities in the club, football players and cheerleaders mocked for being a part of the team, a singer in a wheelchair, and a girl with a stutter (but not a real stutter. But she still had a reason for it.). It’s a group of misfits who are more genuine and caring than any of the popular kids teens so often aspire towards. It’s been said multiple times by different character that they’d, “rather be part of a group of glee club nerds that accept me for who I am, than part of some popular group that doesn’t care.” The lead cheerleader discovers who her real friends are when she’s pregnant, and the star quarterback realizes what he really loves doing when he chooses glee club over football.
Glee deals with multiple social issues in touching ways: teen pregnancy, homosexuality, disabilities. And the best part is, they do it all in song! There are classic musical numbers, modern songs, and of course, mashups http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMD4Te_SoZM. I never thought I’d see a show with different musical numbers each week, but I love it and get excited for what songs will be on each new episode. The songs are always entertaining and have yet to disappoint.
The show provides such a full range of emotions. It reminds me of the first few seasons of Scrubs. It’ll have situations that make me laugh out loud, and then serious or heartfelt moments where you can hear a pin drop in our apartment as Violet and I watch. The episodes are arranged so you can’t help but root for the team and all its members on their path towards Regionals. You cheer for them every step of the way through the twists and turns.
Glee is on break right now, and won’t return with new episodes until April. That means there’s plenty of time to http://www.hulu.com/glee catch up on old episodes if you haven’t been watching. Do it!