Original Sing

Glee is one of those shows that, if I'm home and there's nothing else on, I sometimes check out.  I keep thinking I should like it more (I like musicals and I once sold a script set in a high school), but outside the occasional number or joke, it never amounts to much.  It's impossible to take the characters seriously since, even from my occasional viewership, I can see they change on a dime.  In fact, the whole set-up--an amazingly talented glee club that wins awards, and is half-composed of football players and cheerleaders, are the school lepers--is ridiculous.  I know the show requires a certain suspension of disbelief, but they have stories that ask for emotional investment, which becomes impossible under the circumstance.  Even those old musicals, which had the silliest of plots, made more sense.

This week's episode was advertised as a turning point, since Glee usually covers hit songs, while this one introduced originals (in fact, that was the title).  Seemed like a bad idea to me--like how they sing some great tunes on American Idol, but end the competition with some awful number written specifically for the show, in the hopes of creating a hit single.  But all in all, it was surprisingly painless. The songs the Glee club did weren't too bad--even the big anthem (about being a loser, of course) at Regionals.  Still, probably a bad trend.

Kurt was also at Regionals, but not with the regular group.  He left the high school and joined some Stepford boys school.  Does moving him away from the main action make sense?  (Reminds me of taking Hiro in Heroes out of the action and into 17th century Japan.) Actually, I don't particularly like the character (though he's an audience favorite) and it's fine with me that he's gone, but they keep spending so much time with him.  He even got to sing a Beatles song this episode.  Has Glee done that before?  He also got to kiss his boyfriend.  It's a sign of how things have changed that, as far as I can tell, this was met with a collective shrug.

What did get attention was Kathy Griffin as a Tea Party member on the judges' panel.  Maybe Ryan Murphy, who wrote the episode, thought that would be enough, since the jokes were amazingly lame and stale. (Fans seem to agree.) Worse, though, just like last year, the judges weren't judging by any rational standard.  Who cares if the group wins awards when the competition is a joke.