Glee is my life

Glee Music; Season 3 Episode 1 "The Purple Piano Project" Download

2011-09-18T21:45:00.000-07:00

It's not unusual - Blaine

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We got the beat - New Directions

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Anything Goes / Anything You Can Do - Pendleton

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Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead - Rachel & Kurt

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You Can't Stop the Beat - New Directions

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Glee; The Complete Second Season

2011-09-18T21:06:00.000-07:00

Actors: Cory Monteith, Lea Michele, Matthew Morrison, Jane Lynch
Format: AC-3, Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
Region: Region 1
Number of discs: 6
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Run Time: 1001 minutes
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
- #1 in Movies & TV > DVD > Drama
- #1 in Movies & TV > DVD > Musicals
- #3 in Movies & TV > DVD > Comedy

          There's been quite a bit of truly justified criticism of "Glee"'s second season. I myself had to force myself to wait a few weeks after the airing of the "New York" finale to actually try to write a coherent review on this sophomore season. Bearing that in mind, let's take the route of this season's first episode and recap what was the first season of "Glee":

          "Glee" tells the story of a tiny, bullied glee club (a show choir where the participants sing and dance to either pop or showtunes or both without actually performing a musical) and how both the power of music and a kind mentor who believes in them helps twelve misfits forge a family and strive to share how special they are with the world, no matter how much is stacked against them. Although it sounds like a strangely cheesy premise and an unlikely TV show, "Glee"'s madcap formula, amazing music performances, terrific acting, intriguing characters, and potently quotable one-line zingers launched it into the stratosphere and it quickly became an international sensation and success. Within these plot lines, "Glee" tackled the sensitive issue of teen pregnancy (and how religion can impact that issue) wonderfully, along with showcasing the struggles of teenagers with body issues, the confusing adolescent world of sexuality, popularity, friendship, family, loyalty, bullying and peer pressure. Although there were a few misses in the first season, overall the season itself was one of the brightest and freshest new shows around, and it won several awards for it as well.

          There's the rub, however: "Glee" is handled by three showrunners (Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan), all of whom apparently decided that they could do no wrong. They flatly refused to bring in other writers or directors for season two, and since they were still selling massive amounts of music from the show and getting millions of views from their devoted audience of "gleeks", every single thing that was wrong about season one got blown out of proportion in season two, while everything that was right fairly faded to the background. The result? Season two of "Glee" started off strongly but by the second half meandered into sloppily handled plotlines that were often began and concluded in the space of one episode, characters acting severely out of character just for the sake of an episode's "theme", "theme of the week" episodes that were no longer touching or interesting but instead cheesy PSA-type episodes, bloated importance of guest stars, and a season finale that failed in every way that season one's finale succeeded.

          Where on earth did "Glee" go so wrong? Season two's worst mistake was the characters acting out of character as "Glee" committed the worst mistake that any sophomore effort of a creative work, be it a film, television show or novel, can make: it completely erased any and all character development from the first season and started the characters off fresh. Rachel Berry, the club's star, who learnt the mistakes of her selfishness and made friends and learned how to lead a team in season one? Back to being a self-centered and often downright mean diva who stepped on each of her teammates to get what she wanted. Finn Hudson, the loveable popular dummy with a heart of gold who learned how to be a star and effectively lead the glee club and also learned that popularity was meaningless because he liked the glee club losers better than the popular football jerks? Right back to being a selfish, obsessed-with-being popular jerk to all of his friends.

          However, the two characters this affected the worst? Firstly, Mr. Schuester. Mr. Schue was once the teacher everyone wished they could have: he put his students above everything, he pushed them, he motivated them, he guided them to being the best that they could be. Season two saw our once-beloved Schue essentially hitting a midlife crisis, using his glee club as an excuse to try to get closer to his now-unavailable crush Emma Pillsbury the guidance counselor, acting like a spoiled brat, and continually believing himself better than what he was. The second character was, of course, Quinn Fabray. Quinn began as the pretty and mean popular girl who became pregnant and became part of the heart of season one as she made true friends amongst the glee club, learned the value of family, and overcame her own meanness when the club rallied around her during the pregnancy issue. Season two saw absolutely no mention of her being pregnant anywhere ever. She inexplicably broke up with Puck (no explanation was ever given) and rejoined the Cheerios because she suddenly (like Finn) needed to be popular again. Although some of this damage was repaired by her new boyfriend Sam (newcomer Chord Overstreet), that repair was itself destroyed even worse later on. I won't even mention the destruction of Sue Sylvester, who transformed into a meaningless, cartoonish villain who was rarely even funny by the end and required a brutal character death just to reign her back in.

          Despite all of this, however, season two began on a strong note (with the exception of the hot mess that was the "Britney/Brittany" Britney Spears tribute episode; despite some truly hilarious one-liners courtesy of Brittany (Heather Morris), this was likely one of the worst episodes of "Glee" to ever air) as it took a central theme: bullying and its impacts. Openly gay Kurt (masterfully played by Chris Colfer) took center stage as the school's relentlessly homophobic popular crowd was highlighted, leading to the explosive "Never Been Kissed" episode. Rachel's newfound (or oldfound, as the case may be) selfishness led to other glee club members to fight for their chance to shine and wounded the glee club badly when her bullying led to new student Sunshine Corozon (a criminally underused Charice) defecting to New Directions' mortal enemies Vocal Adrenaline, and Schuester's selfish and out of character behavior led to his kids whole-heartedly choosing hilarious new substitute Holly Holiday (wonderfully played by Gwenyth Paltrow) over him, and Santana's mean insistence on hiding from her feelings by attacking other people blew up spectacularly in her face.

          In fact, despite two truly terrible episodes ("Britney/Brittany" and the wretchedly badly done "Rocky Horror Glee Show"), season two was off to a wonderful note, until the hiatus. When "Glee" returned after its touching Christmas episode, however, to the spectacularly overwrought Superbowl episode, things began going downhill fast, and they stayed that way for the rest of the season with a few notable exceptions. The biggest mistakes?

Glee; The Complete Second Season -- BUY it NOW!!!!!

Review; Glee Season 1: Road to Sectionals

2011-09-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

Glee is one of those shows that shouldn't have worked. Another high school dramedy filled with stereotypical characters. And singing, for God sakes. SINGING. Sure, a lot of people like American Idol, but do they really want to see a bunch of fairly no-name actors (although some veteran Broadway stars) belt out show tunes?

And yet, beyond all rhyme or reason, Glee works. Actually, it doesn't merely work. It excels. Because Glee is a breath of fresh air that is gigglingly funny and causes viewers to bop about on their couches while the show airs and then immediately head over to iTunes to purchase the latest songs. How many other recent television shows have released two soundtracks within a three month period?

The scheduling for this show is enough to drive the fans crazy. It first premiered back in May 2009 with a pilot episode that immediately sent the internet buzzing and caused the casts' cover of "Don't Stop Believin'" to top iTunes charts. And then we were able to enjoy over ten more episodes throughout the fall until the winter finale in early December. And now we have to wait until April 13th to see the second half of season 1.

But fan ferver continues. My own cousin begged me for this DVD box set for Christmas. She didn't even care that it wouldn't arrive until closer to New Years, as long as I bought it for her (and because I'm a good cousin, I did). Word is that we might be exposed to some original content between now and April. FOX even released a video called Slushie Jam in anticipation of the DVD release:

The DVD contains all 13 episodes (in a four disc set) leading up to the Sectionals competition. The director's cut of the pilot is included, along with several other additional features

Introduce to glee

2011-09-18T10:23:00.000-07:00

When a Spanish teacher tries to man the Glee club, little did he know how much his life would change as a result.

I actually have to give FOX their dues. If you’re going to nab a writer to creator a hit show, Ryan Murphy in a lot of ways is a perfect choice. He’s hardly going to give you something you’ve seen before. After all, hits like Popular and Nip/Tuck themselves have actually added something new to the respective genres/target audiences they were aimed for and while both of them were hits, neither of them became as explosive as this one.

Every year, there’s at least one breakout show and for the 2009-2010 season, it had to be Glee. Why, you ask? Musicals are hardly something new but apart from the odd TV show experimenting with the genre and mostly getting it wrong, Glee actually managed to get it so right, which is a good thing considering that the premise of the show is about a Glee club being ran by a hopeful teacher so therefore musical numbers are expected per week.

The songs themselves are largely contemporary numbers with the odd musical added here and there and with episodes dedicated to Journey, Madonna and Lady Gaga as well as funk music and songs that are so bad they’re good, the show definitely does its level best to experiment as best as possible to try and keep everyone entertained.

For the most part though, this works. Some of the music numbers are amazing, some are less so and the same can be said about the characters/actors and their vocal performances, depending on the episode/ditty in question. Rachel herself can excel with something like “I Dreamed A Dream” and then hit a bum note with “Poker Face” the next week but every episode at least has one or two songs you’d happily want to listen to again.

But it’s not just about the songs with this show. Sure, they’re a big asset in setting this show apart from virtually everything else on television and they’re mostly used as part of a theme within Will’s lesson plan (respect women, finding your soul, etc) but its the characters that are also important as well and while they all fall in obvious categories, they’re all for the most part an engaging bunch.

Rachel’s ambition to be the best can be both understandable and annoying in equal measures but sympathy can be generated for her when she’s betrayed by rival club member/ex-boyfriend Jesse or rejected by her own birth mother. Similarly Sue Sylvester embodies the whole meaning of playing a cartoon villain but Jane Lynch’s consistent performances and Sue’s quieter moments with her sister or stopping Figgins from disbanding Glee are nice and surprising moments to counterbalance her unabashed ruthlessness in wanting to take Will.

Will himself is a character who can be very annoying most of the time, even though he’s the good guy wanting to encourage his kids into sticking with the club while popular kids such as Quinn, Puck, Finn, Santana and Brittany have their moments along with Kurt and to a lesser extent, Artie, Tina and Mercedes. No-one’s ever good or bad on this show all the time but unlike Murphy’s last show, at least people aren’t having organs stolen from them either.

The 22 episodes in this first season are a fantastic rollercoaster of madness. The Glee club goes through peaks and troughs, having moments of great support and moments where it seemed destined to be dropped and while the finale went the predictable route of having New Directions lose out at Regionals, it’s certainly not the most disappointing or eventful of things to happen in the first season.

This is a season alone that saw Will’s marriage collapse and his attempts of being with OCD Emma blow up in his face, a season where Rachel found and was spurned by her own birth mom, where Quinn gave birth and gave up a baby, where Kurt being gay and proud had both positive and negative times for him, Artie dealing with the reality of being stuck in a wheelchair and also, it was a season where Sue Sylvester made so many obscene one liners in regards to Will’s hair and unpopular Rachel was bouncing between Finn, Puck and Jesse at different times in the show.

Love it or loathe it, Glee has quickly become a television show that it’s inescapable. Originality can be argued left, right and centre but at the same time, I’d rather have a show like this on television that pull the likes of Kristin Chenowith, Neil Patrick Harris, Olivia Newton-John and Joss Whedon than another bout of boring medical/cop/lawyer dramas on my screens.