To Glee, or not to Glee?

The pilot of the new Fox show "Glee" aired last spring. I ended up watching it on hulu and actually enjoyed it. It looked like an un-Disney High School Musical for TV. I know that doesn't actually sound cool to most people, but it was. It was fun to see a show that highlighted the arts in high school. And the show choir numbers they did were pretty sweet. Their version of "Don't Stop Believin' " still gets stuck in my head.

So I was looking forward to the fall premiere of the show last night. I wanted to see more cheesy show choir dance moves and get excited over the loner "weird" kids finding their place and being accepted through the unifying power of music.

But the show failed to deliver. There were several musical sequences that were relatively well done, but there was none of the power from the pilot. The fact that all the characters are incredibly stereotypical was longer funny after the second hour. In fact, I no longer feel animosity toward the antagonist cheerleading coach; instead, I pity the actress who is stuck playing her for the duration of the series. Although, if the last teacher show, "Guidance," is any indication, it won't be on the air long.

One of the main problems to my mind was that the writers couldn't decide whether the main characters should be the teachers or the students. The teacher who runs glee club is the narrator, but he shares about equal screen time with the awkward diva. I'm all for making sure everyone gets their turn, but it felt more unfocused than anything else. Manic shifting between scenes and storylines that are all trying to be funny can only be kept up for so long. It's a device better suited to half hour shows than something in an hour long prime time slot. "Scrubs" uses the technique amazingly well; "Glee," unfortunately, did not.

The content also makes me wonder just who the writers perceive their audience to be. Maybe I'm just out of the loop on popular culture trends, but don't most shows try to get a couple episodes into the season before bringing out the sex episode? Or has entertainment and society gone so far downhill that sex is the only thing people want to talk about? I realize it's a big issue, but it's not the only one teenagers face. And after the diva's outburst in the cheerleader-run celibacy club (an ironic twist, which would have been more effective if they hadn't overplayed it), it seems like this is the issue the writers want to stick with. I don't think I can handle an entire season of awkward teenagers talking about things they don't understand.

As a side note, it also seemed that every female character was presented as being insane in one way or another. Actually, most of the characters, but especially the women. I find it terrible that the audience is being set up to root against the main character's wife, but she embodies everything that's wrong with America, specifically the sense of entitlement that has lead to our current economic troubles. I find nothing sympathetic in her.

I may still watch next week's episode to see if it gets better, but I'm not very hopeful. The whole thing feels like the writers are trying too hard to do something big, making everything completely over-the-top, and focusing on gimmicks instead of real, embraceable characters and a story that makes sense.

But really, I didn't need a new show to watch this season anyway, not with House, Castle and Dollhouse all returning and more than enough classics available on hulu to keep me distracted. It just seemed like such a fun concept last spring...

-Kim