Night 3: One Down, Six to Go

Greetings Zaynanites!  You know like Canaanites….never mind.  I’m still trying here and you people aren’t helping!  Welcome to the final post of the first week.  I’m sorry it didn’t go up last night but it was late by the time I finished Glee and I decided to go to bed instead of staying up to write the post.  So last night, here’s how the shows shook out:

The X-Factor Night 2:  Ugh, Night 2.

Glee:  A very pleasant surprise. 

Wipeout:  I’m kind of over it this year.  I didn’t even make it past the qualifier before just stopping and deleting it.

The Great Food Truck Race:  My U-Verse died Sunday afternoon so I missed last week’s episode and this was the first chance for a repeat.  I’m not going to review this, just keeping you informed.  J  It’s a fun show but I don’t think I’ll be watching another season.

So first off, The X-Factor was more of the same.  I can thankfully say that I was not paying full attention to it.  I was playing a game on my computer at the same time.  The only thing that made me look up and pay attention was the guy that was setting up to be just another attention whore who couldn’t sing.  Then something strange happened.  He opened his mouth and pleasant sounds came out.  That is honestly the only contestant I remember.  The only other thing that still registers this morning was the montage of “hot” people who couldn’t sing.  Congratulations X-Factor, I watched the whole hour and came away with about 4 minutes of content that left an impression.  Sorry folks.  I really hope you weren’t looking forward to continued reviews of this show because it’s just not going to happen.  I have too many other things to watch to use 3 hours a week on this. 

Now we come to Glee.  So when this show started 3 years ago, I was really excited about it.  I watched the preview after American Idol in the spring and couldn’t wait to get to the fall to see this show that was so different and refreshing from the other shows I watched at the time.  The first part of the first season was a hit and was a fun quirky comedy/drama about high school kids that would burst into song.  Initially, the songs were only supposed to take place in the context of real life and no “musical moments” when characters would just burst into song wherever they went.  That stayed partially true but even by the end of the second episode, they’d stretched their rule and if I remember right, broke it outright a few episodes later.  I stayed a fan of the show for the whole first season.  I even got so attached that the finale even choked me up a little bit a couple times. 

Season 2 rolled in the next fall and despite a decent start, the show slowly began to devolve into something that felt like an obligation.  Kurt became the focus of almost every episode in the first half of the season and his character became the soapbox for Ryan Murphy’s personal agenda.  Remember how I discussed is lack of subtlety in The New Normal?  This was the first place I was exposed to a bludgeoning with the hammer of his ideals and agendas.  I got tired of being taught a lesson every week like I was still a high school student and I ended up having to just turn off every bit of caring I had for the characters because they were acting so horrible.  Relationships shifted like the wind and any growth a character may have previously attained was reversed at the drop of hat if that week’s storyline needed it to be.  Now, don’t get me wrong, the show still had a couple of highlights, particularly the Fleetwood Mac episode and first two competition episodes (the finale was really weak).  The main reason I kept watching was because the majority of the musical performances stayed entertaining and a couple storylines began to be solid, ironically Kurt. 

So, Season 3 starts up last fall and I had completely surrendered to just watching for amusing musical numbers and the occasional well-acted scene.  However, the show began focusing on musical numbers from West Side Story, of which all but a couple I found boring.  I couldn’t figure out why they were forgoing more modern songs for so many musical numbers and then I started noticing something.  The writing wasn’t as bad.  Character arcs were beginning to form and not fly all over the road like a drunk coming home from a bender.  I found myself caring even less than I had last year.  I realized, they were focusing on characters and not as much on music and fun.  Then I realized that season 2 had done so much damage that I had completely lost the ability to care about these characters so even though the writing was better and the characters were behaving slightly more realistically (Finn and Rachel’s terri-bad engagement storyline notwithstanding), I couldn’t connect to them.  I was like Charlie Brown who finally decided to stop trying to kick the football realizing Lucy would just pull the stupid thing up at the last second.  I started to soften a little in the later part of the season and a guest spot from White Collar’s Matt Bomer as Blaine’s brother elevated the show to a point where I had to at least try and open back up again.  Then, despite a couple of solid episodes in the back half of the season including a shockingly solid Michael Jackson tribute and fun songs at Nationals, the finale left me cold.  I was happy that some of these characters were finally leaving and we might get some new blood that was desperately needed (the leprechaun does not count, he was awful).  To my dismay, I found out the show was keeping every single cast member signed for the next season….wut?  You made this whole big stink about graduation and here we are, one small step away from Saved By the Bell: The College Years. 

So a couple weeks ago, I started seeing promos for the new season and I was shocked to find that I was intrigued and even laughed pretty hard at one of the jokes.  It didn’t hurt that the song on the preview has been on repeat on my iTunes for the past month or so and it was being sung by my favorite voice on the show, Blaine.  I decided to give the new season a shot and try to go in with a fresh perspective.  I’m really glad I did because I thoroughly enjoyed last night episode.  It felt more like season 1 Glee than anything since.  The switches back and forth between New York and Ohio actually helped keep the pace of the episode up and both storylines were interesting enough that when we went to one, I was anxious to get back to the other.  The music was really solid with several fun choices.  Kate Hudson didn’t feel like a “special guest star” and she will provide a solid foil for Rachel.  The other new characters I thought got solid introductions.  Glee’s biggest problem has been balancing their characters out.  Not everyone has to be included every episode but you need to rotate who get the focus a little better.  I realize you have Emmy-winning actors on the show and you want to play to them but you’ve got some really solid background talent that was severely underused.  I hope now that all of them have graduated into their own storyline that will only pop up every few episodes, some of the former background characters get a chance to shine.  Puck’s little half-brother is a little annoying at the moment but I don’t think that’s a product of the acting, they just need to write him better, plus his voice is really solid.  The “new Rachel”, Marley, was a surprise to me.  It took me a little bit to warm up to her but she has a really quiet confidence to her that I liked and it’s hard to deny her talent.  Rachel’s new boy-toy had a good voice and I always like when we get to hear their voices sans all the over-production.  I kind of already like him more than I ever liked Finn so hopefully Finn can show up in a couple episodes and catch them making out or something and then just go off into a hole and cry quietly for the rest of the season.  I have to say I think this episode was the most I’ve ever liked Rachel.  She really needed to get taken down a peg and not for stupid reasons.  Her vulnerability at the end of the episode really went a long way towards making me want to sympathize with her. 

Overall, it felt a little like a return to form for the show and I hope they can continue the momentum. 

That’s all for today and the first week of premieres folks.  We've got 6 more weeks of premieres to go so don't go anywhere. 

Again sorry for the slight delay.  I figure most of you aren’t looking at my posts at 11:30 at night anyway so no harm, no foul.  We’ll be picking this up again on Monday with a triple premiere night.  We’ve got the return of Bones along with the series premieres of The Mob Doctor and my most anticipated new show Revolution. 

See you all Monday and Sic ‘Em Bears.