Glee might not be back til the new year, but I am here to help fill those seemingly empty Tuesday nights. I am excited to offer TWO Glee Concert DVD Bundles to give away! The bundles include the Glee Concert DVD and a Limited Edition pin. Keep reading to see how you can win a bundle and for all the details on the DVD (and a cool new Shazam feature).
Continue reading “GIVEAWAY: Glee Concert DVD Bundle – CLOSED” »
Last night’s episode of Glee “Extraordinary Merry Christmas” was basically a concert performance of a Christmas CD. There was also a super bizarre Christmas special for the local Lima PBS station. It was cute and involved a lot of singing but I was confused as to whether it was supposed to be some sort of homage to the 50s or just some weird joke thing. Who knows? The songs were pretty entertaining, but a big part of the show was Rachel wanting Christmas presents and she’s Jewish. So that was weird. The entire episode was pretty much all music, though. So for the most part, I liked it just fine.
Continue reading “REVIEW: Glee “Extraordinary Merry Christmas”” »
I am happy to say that last night’s Glee was leagues better than last week. Competition weeks are generally my favorite because we get to see a lot of great performances. But this episode had some nice plot development too. I wasn’t crazy about all the song choices — there were some weird choices for a competition — but there were still some iPod worthy songs in there. I loved the Quinn developments (she needed some redemption), the compromise that New Directions and the Trouble Tones come to and the hilarious Sebastian and Santana moments. And Sam came back! Which I’m oddly kind of excited for and I’m not sure why.
Last night’s episode of Glee titled “I Kissed A Girl” centered around Santana and the campaign video that was about to out her. There’s also the matter of the elections — both for Class President and a Congressional seat. It was a decent episode with a few catchy musical numbers, but overall it felt like a filler episode. Don’t get me wrong, I thought the Santana scenes were moving and fantastic (even if in a slightly emotionally manipulative way). I even liked Finn in this episode for trying to raise Santana’s spirits and make her realize she has a ton of support from those who love her. It just felt like there was a ton of music and very little plot. But I won’t give up Glee. I know a lot of people who have, but I have always said that the music makes me happy and this season has really been pretty great in the plot department.
So, how about we just forget about last week’s episode of Glee, shall we? I had some big issues with “Pot O’ Gold” and I’m happy to say it was just one little blip in the radar of what has been a pretty great Glee season so far. “The First Time” was fantastic. The main focal point is the Glee Club putting on “West Side Story.” But Artie gets in Blaine and Rachel’s head by suggesting that they can’t truly get into the mindset of Tony and Maria if they have never had sex. As slightly ridiculous as that may sound, it drives the plot forward.
Glee was finally back last night after a few weeks off due to the World Series. And I have to say, it wasn’t as triumphant of a return as I had hoped for. The last few episodes (so, really, all of the episodes in season three) have been fantastic. They had a nice balance of story and music and featured some great songs. This episode was very plot-heavy, but not in the best way. There was some good music, and I did enjoy the new leprechaun/foreign exchange student/”Glee Project” winner Rory Flanagan (played by Damian McGinty), but his whole arc felt very forced and I wish he had gotten more of a chance to show what he’s made of. That said, there were some good moments as well. But I think I am more looking forward to next week when two of McKinley’s own are going to lose their v card.
Glee is back! And I don’t mean that it’s simply back on TV, but I firmly believe that the show is back to what I fell in love with. “Asian F” has a fantastic Mike Chang storyline, a Mercedes story that was good (but I think she deserves consistency, more on that later), and some really fantastic musical numbers. Oh, and they cast West Side Story! But I won’t be spoiling that for everyone. Seriously though, even though I think I enjoyed “I Am Unicorn” slightly more than “Asian F” (I’m sorry, nothing can beat Idina Menzel and Lea Michele singing “Somewhere”), Glee very clearly wants to get back to basics and win the doubters back. For the record, I never lost faith in the show, but I am very glad it is showing signs of greatness this season.
The season premiere of Glee was very solid. I wasn’t crazy about the song choices but I like what was set up for the season. Tonight’s episode, “I Am Unicorn” is amazing — brought me to tears, must watch numerous times amazing. The musical numbers were fantastic, although all were from the Broadway realm. I was blown away. The episode centers around Kurt running for Senior Class President and Brittany’s hilarious and grandiose campaign ideas. She wants to run his campaign based on the fact that he is a unicorn, which means he’s special. But it’s not exactly what Kurt had in mind. Also, Shelby (Idina Menzel) comes back into town as a part time Show Choir director. Don’t worry, she’s not going to try to take down New Directions (there’s been plenty of that already). She was hired by Sugar’s (played by the amazing Vanessa Lengies) wealthy father to make her the star of a show choir. Shelby’s presence obviously has a huge impact on Rachel, Quinn and Puck. There’s a big part with Quinn and Puck wanting to see their baby, Beth. I don’t want to spoil too much, but it sets up a very interesting arc.
Glee is back! And I am so so glad it is! The producers promised they would be getting back to basics and I think the premiere was a great showcase of that. I wasn’t crazy about the song choices in the premiere (which is a bit unusual for a review from me) but just having this cast back and singing instantly made me happy. Will and Emma are living together (!!), Vanessa Lengies is new-girl Sugar (she was hilarious and amazing) and a lot of the McKinley kids are gearing up for their senior year.
Continue reading “REVIEW: Glee “The Purple Piano Project”” »
Glee returns tomorrow night and despite what many may have thought of as a very up and down second season (I agree to an extent with this sentiment), I am very excited for it to be back. I am happy the show has gotten a full writing staff and I look forward to seeing what is next for the New Directions crew. And I am definitely needing some new Glee covers on my iPod! I recently had the chance to talk to Brad Falchuk (Executive Producer) at Comic Con, about what his goals are for this coming season, the new writing staff and what’s going to happen with the characters that are graduating.
What are your goals this season?
Big picture, my goal is really to make it the best season we’ve ever done. And I think we’re doing that through really focusing on the stories in a very specific way which is really building these story engines to drive us through three or four episodes at a time. So the goal is to really use those, to really get deeper into the characters, to really figure out a little more about them. Give it the urgency of what happens when a bunch of people graduate.
How carefully do you want to use guest stars and doing occasional theme episodes?
The idea is that this year, we came up with some amazing engines, so many of them. Frankly, the first nine or ten episodes, there’s no room for any big guest stars. Maybe a guest star, I shouldn’t say never. But there’s no real room for theme episodes because there’s so much story going on. So I don’t think there’s as much of as a balance as when do we need that in terms of storytelling — to find the time when that’s appropriate.
How has the dynamic changed now that you have a writing staff? Are we going to see more story-focused episodes?
It’s our job to drive what the show is and decide what is the tone of the show and what the stories are the show are. So what a writing staff provides is fresh, new ideas to help what determine what we think is a good idea. So when we’re stuck with something, they come in and they help us solve the problem. What it’s allowing us to do is more of what we want to do because you have all these great brains out there to really help us.
Do you have a favorite episode?
I love Sectionals in Season One. I think it’s really a lot of what the show is about. I love the pilot. I love them all in different ways. There are ones that I’m prouder of than others, but that’s what it is.
Can you talk about the characters who are graduating?
People are graduating. Those three characters are certainly graduating. But we’re not getting rid of them. We’re going to have to get creative about it. And we have a lot of ideas about it. Like we did with Darren last year. If I came and said Darren’s not back next year, they would have [thrown a fit] at us — Darren has been in fifteen episodes, not even, of Glee. It’s our job to find people like Darren who are really talented and bring them and to make them characters who people really love.
Be sure to tune in tomorrow night at 8 PM to FOX for the big third season premiere of Glee!
