Glee

Glee (2009) C+

Glee is tough to define. It’s neither a straight comedy nor a musical series, though it contains aspects of both. The show airs on FOX. The lead-in is American Idol (which I give an F-, fyi) but its quirky, sometimes crude sense of humor might alienate some viewers from that set. I was touch-and-go on it to begin with, but it has grown on me.

The show centers around a high school glee club (or “show choir”) that is taken over by a dorky Spanish teacher named Will Scheuster (Matthew Morrison), who is a glee club alum himself. He takes on the club to try to regain his passion for performing. His wife, Terri (Jessalyn Gilsig) is a cold, spoiled woman who treats him like dirt, but he takes it with a smile. The other faculty are strange characters; The Guidance Counselor Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays) has pretty extreme OCD (her character is seen on one episode individually disinfecting grapes before eating them), and is head over heels in love with Will. Principal Figgins (Iqbal Theba) is a money-grubbing bureaucrat who only cares about keeping parents from complaining. Of all the faculty, there is none more out there than the cheer coach, Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch). She is a veritable drill sergeant (apparently she was a part of the strike force who took out Noriega!) who has a vendetta against the glee club for taking away from her budget. In her first appearance in the pilot, she is seen shouting at her cheerleaders; “You think this is hard? Try being water boarded, that’s hard!” This quote perfectly exemplifies the irreverent sense of humor of this show. The kids in the glee club are the best, however. Rachel Berry (Lea Michele) is an overachieving outcast who believes the ultimate goal of anyone in our society is to become a celebrity. She has a crush on the jock member of the group, Finn Hudson (Cory Monteith). Hudson is a football player who joins the club after Mr. Sheuster hears him singing in the gym showers and tells him to join if he wants to pass Spanish class. He realizes that glee club makes him happy and decides to keep his spot on the football team and the glee club, defying the wishes of his stereotypic jock friends. The other spots on the team are filled by Mercedes Jones (Amber Riley), a spunky girl with an incredible voice, Artie Abrams (Kevin McHale), a paraplegic student, Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer), a flaming closet case, and Tina Cohen-Chang (Jenna Ushkowitz), a goth-y teen.

Glee is a fun show, but I have some reservations about where they are taking the series. The plotline between Will Scheuster and his wife has just made me lose respect for his character for not standing up to his shrewish wife, and Mrs. Scheuster is completely not relatable, I just hate the character, and not in a “love to hate” kind of way. The musical numbers are fun, but if they keep moving towards poppier music, they may just lose me. However, I do recommend we give this show a chance, the quirky humor is something not very common on television today.