The TV Chick

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.

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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!

I was so impressed with last week’s episode of Glee that I was hoping “Comeback” would represent just that, a comeback of sorts. Not that it was ever bad — because even at its lowest lows, I still find joy in Glee. But I was loving the direction they were going in. I didn’t love “Comeback” as much as “Silly Love Songs,” but I thought it was pretty good. I was glad to see the Glee kids get a starring role while also sharing the spotlight with hilarious Sue. And seriously, Chord Overstreet made me kind of like a Justin Bieber song, and that’s truly saying a lot.

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Glee is finally back! It’s been a rather long hiatus (although nothing tops last year’s wait) and I’m so glad it’s back on TV. Despite the fact that it has been a bit of an up and down season, my love for Glee has never disappeared. The lack of Glee had really left a hole in my TV schedule. Historically, Super Bowl episodes are rather grandiose and generally involve some crazy ad campaign or interactive game (remember the Friends episode?) However, contrary to the past, the details of the Glee Super Bowl episode had been kept generally under wraps, besides a few leaks of musical numbers and some tid-bits from some of the actors. But everyone knew it would be a big, huge, over the top episode…and that it was. And in my opinion, it was in the best of possible ways.

Continue reading “REVIEW: Glee “The Sue Sylvester Shuffle”” »

It’s “A Very Glee Christmas” and as far as Christmas episodes go, I enjoyed this one. There was a good message, a sweet story (Brittany still believes in Santa!) and a lot of the amazing Dot Marie Jones (Coach Beiste). This Jew enjoyed most of the Christmas songs and the overall plot. There was more music than the past few episodes but I feel like they went back to what makes them successful in terms of musical numbers: Rachel belting it out, maybe a Finn/Rachel duet and a couple of numbers with the whole Glee club. I think we all agree going back to what made us fall in love with the show is necessary and I thought this episode was a good start. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy every episode, and that I think that Darren Criss is a gift sent from Moses above, but I just like when they focus in on the tangible instead of the visceral.

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Last night’s episode of “Glee” was the big sectionals episode, and I can tell you I was very eagerly awaiting this one. Last year’s sectionals episode was one of the best of the series (um, hello, Will kissed Emma in spectacular fashion!) so I had high hopes for this episode. The creative team continued to cut down the music — there was only one song 30 minutes into the episode — and there was a lot plot wise, but a key couple broke up and someone got married and broke my heart just a little. But I’ll have a lot more to say on that later. As the Glee kids prepare for sectionals, Emma tells Will to use the other members of the Glee Club for their set list and change it up a bit. She points out Quinn’s beautiful voice and I was so happy to hear this somewhere other than my own reviews. Schue decides to heed her advice, and of course this doesn’t please many Glee club members.

Continue reading “REVIEW: Glee “Special Education”” »

There has been a lot of criticism of last night’s episode of Glee. “Never Been Kissed” was one of a several episode arc about bullying, which I think is a very important issue to address in these times. It might have been handled differently than other shows, but I find no fault with the way it was handled. I have also read criticism pointing out that it seemed like it was put together really quickly just to address the issue. Now, it’s possible that Glee shot the episodes out of order and quickly wrote this up, but I doubt that. Shows like this take a ton of planning and if I had to guess, I would say it was filmed months ago before the recent issues with gay suicide. In fact, Ryan Murphy pointed out in a New York Times interview that a part of the story was based on someone he knew in high school. This episode may not change the climate of bullying, but it starts a discussion among millions of people who watch the show week after week, which is incredibly significant to do. And before I get into the plot and the music and say more about the episode, I will say that I think Chris Colfer continues to earn another Emmy nomination every single week. His performance last night was phenomenal.

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I am not alone in saying I was not entirely thrilled with last week’s episode of Glee. I didn’t write it off as the worst hour of television ever, but I felt it was mostly a series of (albeit awesome) music videos as opposed to any plot advancement. This week’s episode, titled “Grilled Cheesus” is the exact opposite. It is one of the best, most emotionally resonant episodes of the series to date. Despite it’s somewhat goofy title, “Grilled Cheesus” is anything but, as it takes on the super sensitive topic of religion. Whenever a show decides to tackle a subject this big and touchy, there’s always the worry that not every point of view will get expressed or someone will be put down for their particular views. I can tell you from my perspective, every religion that’s represented in the McKinley High School Glee Club was given a fair shake, including no religion at all. Non-believers deserve their time too. However, the non believers (for those wondering, Kurt and Sue) explain why they don’t believe in God and what God means to them. Some people heartily disagree with them, but the point is, no one is put down for what they believe in. In times like these, with gay suicides running rampant throughout the country, it’s important for everyone to know their viewpoint is respected and most importantly, no matter what you believe in (or what your sexual preference is), you are supported and welcomed. But I digress.

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We all knew the Britney Spears episode of Glee was coming. I expected epic, and epic is what I got. Perhaps not epic plot-wise but we all watch Glee for the music right? So in that sense, I was blown away. The Glee kids (mostly Kurt) is advocating for New Directions to perform Britney Spears, but Schue won’t have it. Brittany, the character, not the pop star was the real star of this episode that centered around Spears music. She had the best dance moves (seriously AMAZING), the best songs and the best one-liners. One of those was that her name is really Brittany Spears because her name is Brittany Susan Pierce and she has constantly been tormented by living in the shadows of the musician. Oh man, amazing!

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Glee is back. No seriously, I kind of can’t believe it’s back myself. There were a lot of complaints about the back 9, the use of guest stars, the HUGE onslaught of music vs. stories, the list goes on and on. I was not as disappointed in the back 9 as my fellow critics and bloggers alike, but I see their point. Ryan Murphy had promised he wants to focus on the main characters and then announced a ton of guest stars. So what’s the story? Here’s what I say: Glee is amazing. You may be cautious about the number of guest stars but we only really have a few ultimately confirmed and remember how amazing Kristen Chenoweth, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff and Neil Patrick Harris were? Have faith, Gleeks!

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