Glee, 3x01

Rather than complain about all the things I found same-old same-old stupid in last night's season premiere of Glee, I will instead focus on a few positive things:

1. I liked Kurt's '80s throwback neon-and-pastel plaid suit.
2. Mark Salling mugged it up big time during "We Got the Beat."
3. ...

Two positive things! Two! AH-AH-AH!

I found it awful that Vulture made a pretty sharp list of things the show could do to improve itself, and instead, it stuck to what it has done wrong for ages: focus on an issue to the point of suffocating the audience, e.g., Glee is about supporting arts education! CHOKE ON IT!; introduce new, forgettable characters like Sugar and Mercedes's Boyfriend That Is Not Sam; and make Sue as ridiculous and pointless as ever as she runs for office.

Also, while I appreciate that sometimes, various factions of viewers want something, I'll tell you this from a fairly dispassionate perspective: Harry Shum Jr. and Jenna Ushkowitz should stick to dancing and/or singing. The less "acting" those two do, the better. Not every second-string character is meant to shine. Not everyone is Naya Rivera.

Well, it's not like he's the Crypt Keeper, but even Judd Nelson looked more like he belonged in high school

 

It's pretty funny that this week's Glee ep referenced a John Hughes movie, since from what I recall of movie trivia, a lot of the Hughesian cast members were well clear of their teens when stepping into roles in The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (if I were a little less lazy, I'd look up examples, but screw that noise).

Because Johnathan Groff looks about as much like a teenager as Ian Ziering did in the first season of 90210. In fact...

...with the Charles Nelson Reilly neckerchief, he looks almost as much like a teenager as Charles Nelson Reilly.

But I guess some of the girl and guy theater nerds love him. Even if he is the Crypt Keeper's feisty young nephew.

Prom! I mostly liked "Friday" (the various shots of the cast dancing and enjoying the song cracked me up, particularly Santana and Karofsky) and the weightier Kurt and Karofsky scenes. It's nice to have someone who can keep up with Colfer, acting-wise.

This may seem like hyperbole...

...but sometimes I feel like my relationship with Glee is like that of a superhero(ine, whatever, eat it, Jezebel) and her #1 nemesis. Like, we started out friends and then some horrible accident befell Glee and mutated it and made it crazy and annoying and sometimes poorly written...

And somehow it knows my weakness, my Kryptonite, if you will.

It'll disappoint me by being Sue-centric or robbing a bank using a laser stolen from the government or something next week, probably.

Glee 2x16, "Original Song"

I'm going to try to be positive and say positive things. It's an exercise and a test, and let's see if I can do it.

1. There was some follow-through with the Brittany/Santana subplot, which was very unexpected and, of course, both heart-wrenching and funny. I am trying to set reasonable expectations for this arc, but it's hard not to want more of the two of them.
2. Every goofy f'ing face Mark Salling made throughout the episode. He nearly blew his lip-synching of "Big Ass Heart" in order to do some of the dorkiest shit he's ever committed to film (and I'm including last episode's head-jiggle during "Afternoon Delight"). That plus his emoting during Kurt and Blaine's duet made him the true MVP of the episode.
3. The original songs were decent! I was expecting a noise hemorrhage of cliché and cringe-inducing mediocrity, and that didn't happen. I actually enjoyed "Loser Like Me" and believed talented kids may have put the number together.
4. Mercedes and the whole group clearly had fun singing "Hell to the No."

There. I feel like I accomplished something.

But even if cute boys are making out, and one of those cute boys is Kurt Hummel, I still do not understand the appeal of Blaine. If they would let him be not flawless and perfect and immaculate for one moment, maybe. But his cover boy for Nonthreatening Boys bit is so bland. And if someone can explain to me what he saw in Kurt's performance that hasn't already been present and in front of him this whole time (and cram a sock in the "sometimes you are just like, hey, wow, there you are, soulmate" business), I'll...not relent and continue to complain. So really no one wins. Boo. Boo!!!

They really, really should have let Kathy Griffin write her own lines. That shit was weak-ass. Weak-ass. I could write better political satire/fun-poking, and I barely give a shit.

And I wish after Sue "hilariously" punched the lady announcer, they had done an homage to the greatest tv-to-movie adaptation ever filmed and done a Dragnet coda, followed by a MaMo rap.

Break until April! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I'd rather say fun things about "Raising Hope" than complain about Blaine...

If you had told me, when I was plotting my HBO Drama Series Insane Character Face-off brackets, that Vern Schillinger and Francis Wolcott would have a smackdown in a mattress store largely comprised of bouncing...well, sir, I would have called you a liar.

This episode of Raising Hope had it all: Richard Marx music, a Josh Groban joke, Paul F. Tompkins, caricatures, Mary Lynn Rajskub, and the universal truth that people doing funny Muppet voices like Yoda or Gollum are only entertaining and awesome to the person doing them (or, if you like someone doing those voices, you are in a cult). I love this show and its many shenanigans.

Its lead-in, Glee, was okay, I suppose. Uneven, as always. The tender love story of Brittany and Santana was surprising in both its depth and honesty. I've always loved Naya as Santana, but this is the ep that made me convinced she's one of the best things about the show. I'm confident she will not be Cordelia Chased (that is, impregnated by a demon, stripped of her bitchy vulnerability, unable to ever truly express her love for Angel...because Angel is a girl who believes that a stork nested in a tree outside her window, and Joss Whedon hardly ever does anything bad to lesbians).

Joss Whedon is the creator and lead writer of Glee, right?

Kurt and Burt were great, as always, but I'm sad that the set-up to that fantastic scene was a teenage boy, who we, the audience, are supposed to like and root for, lecturing a grown-up person on how to raise his child. Look, Show, I'm trying here. The Internet has spoken, and at least 80% of them are bonkers mcgee over both Darren Criss and his Dapper Dan'ed creation, so I know he's sticking around. He's cute enough. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe he's not the character for me. He was kind enough to show his pelvis hollows in Out magazine (what I usually call "pudding valleys," but I won't, because gross and cover your shame, Darren Criss). But Show, you don't make it easy for me when Blaine is a know-it-all asshole to Kurt about sexy faces (as though the goony, asinine mugging he does is delicious) and then gets Dawson Leery Condescension Syndrome and swans around dispensing world-weary wisdom to Burt Hummel.

I don't want Kurt's first boyfriend to be a prick. Is what I'm saying, I guess. And I don't want him to be a lame-o. So shape up, Show. Stop making Blaine a lame-o prick.

Oh, and by the way, I think baby penguins and Kurt Hummels/Chris Colfers are sultry in their own adoraaaaaaaaable way.

The storyline with Emma, Carl, and Will is excruciating. And they need to figure out something for Jane Lynch to do that is not what she has been doing lately, which is annoying me. I don't want to be annoyed by Jane Lynch.

"Landslide" was my favorite cover, though bonus points to "Afternoon Delight" for its excellent use of Mark Salling's hilariousness.

Glee, "Blame It On The Alcohol"