Monday, April 5, 2010

Glee cast at the White House

I'll admit, I'm pretty sick of the Glee stuff. The show was inconsistent and sometimes poorly written, and yet everyone's acting like it's the best and most innovative TV show to ever exist. The cast is EVERYWHERE, obnoxiously everywhere. It was nominated for awards it isn't even remotely deserving of (the acting ones especially). It's just too much too soon.

However, when it comes down to it, I do like the show enough to keep up with what's going on with it, and I'm optimistic about its return next week. My (hopefully correct) theory is that Ryan Murphy and co. didn't know whether they'd get that back nine pick up from Fox (and why would they be optimistic when Fox is notorious for not sticking with shows?) so they crammed every idea they had into those 13 guaranteed eps. It would explain the ridiculous fake pregnancy; Quinn's back and forth with Finn and Puck; the terribly inconsistent and often out of character things they had Mr. Schuster, Kurt and Mercedes doing; the horribly over-the-top-ness of Sue Sylvester mixed with here and there moments of humanity; the hiring of Terri as the school nurse, which directly led to the entire Glee Club being on over the counter speed; the absolutely retarded idea that having a former student - former as in graduated in the early 90's - sign up as a student and rejoin the Glee Club in order to win...something, just so they could have Kristen Chenoweth on the show; Emma's absolutely stupid engagement to someone she's clearly disgusted by; Rachel and Puck's one-episode romance; all of these things, and more, crammed into 13 episodes would under normal circumstances turn me away very, very quickly. What saved the show, for me, was the music, despite the horrible over-production of it. If they can get the storylines on a more even and believable keel, if the actors - especially Lea Michele - stop over acting like theater actors, and the song production starts to be more organic, I think the show could be as good as it thinks it is.

Really sounds like I hate it, huh? I know. I have issues with it. But I swear, I do like the show. Enough to keep tuning in. It's not my favorite, and I'm not rushing out to buy the soundtracks or getting tickets to the live shows, but I like it. And in defense of it, I'd heard that their performance at the White House today was absolutely terrible. That Cory Monteith especially sounded awful, and that Lea Michele should be better live than she was. So I was expecting exactly that when I watched this video, only to find that they weren't that bad at all, but that the sound quality from the stage was absolutely horrible. Mics going in and out, etc. It was better when I clicked on the live link this morning and watched part of the Yo Gabba Gabba performance.

2 comments:

danielletbd said...

Do you know how to pull mp3s out of YouTube videos? I really want an mp3 of Mark/Matt's duet!!

Also, Cory is not a good singer. He has admitted it. He works with a vocal coach, and he is improving, but when compared with everyone else, he's just not on par as a professional. He gets by on the fact that everyone finds him adorable, but technically he still needs a lot of work.

I suspect that's why they only had him perform in the big numbers. I think they're still finessing things before they start to tour. I was super happy to hear Amber Riley's solo. She is the best singer on the show, in my opinion. And who doesn't love cute boys with guitars!??

Jaime said...

I don't know how to pull MP3's from videos. I wish I did!

Oh, I know Cory's not the strongest singer, which actually works really well with his character sometimes, since Finn is supposed to be such a novice (though, he's also supposed to be a natural supertalent too, which, again, I have issues with this show!). I just didn't think he was as bad as I'd read he was in that particular performance. I didn't see any others until I just watched the one you posted on your blog, so I don't know how good/bad he was in the other songs.

Amber's a great singer. I hate her character though, and she's kinda annoying on Twitter. (I think I stopped following her).