Since the incredible success of Disney’s ‘High School Musical’, show choirs and dance troupes across the world have been stirring up a storm. But it was the Golden-Globe winning series Glee that proved that teenagers breaking into song spontaneously were not just a craze but was something that was going to stay. Stuffed with big show numbers, interlinking storylines, and a great sounding cast, Glee has all the ingredients in it to make it one of the most highly contagious shows to emerge this year.
The show follows a group of school misfits (think Skins but a highly glamorised US version), whose only connections they have with the high-elite sect of school, comprised of cheerleaders and football jocks, is a slushie drink thrown in their faces. The series continues as Mr Schuester (Matthew Morrison), the school Spanish Teacher, attempts to propel the school Glee club into fame. As the power of the club grows, it soon emerges that it is a threat to the social hierarchies within school and there are definitely pupils and teachers who do not like this at all. This, integrated with pregnancy storylines and love triangles/squares/pentagons, simply creates the basis of the show. However, what it makes it different to your usual teen soap drama are the impressive show numbers and the unique lesson that anything is possible, regardless of who you may or may not be.
With a rich cast, there are characters who you will love to hate (Jane Lynch’s Sue Sylvester, whose exaggerated methods of trying to destroy the Glee club, is the gem of the show) and those who you will hate to love. The soundtrack also breaks the mould by mixing the ‘classics’, such as nods to Cabaret and Wicked, with contemporary radio tracks. The Glee-version of these songs have even recently hit the charts; just exemplifying the power this show has had.
The show is not without its faults though. Certain characters that seem to have interesting back-stories, such as Wheelchair Artie or Stuttering Jenna, are sidelined for the ‘conventional’ leads that are actually quite boring in comparison. The plot lines also seem to move too slowly. The people who you cheer to get together or the revelations which you demand to occur don’t seem to take shape until the final few episodes, thus making the majority of the series a bit pointless in the larger scheme of things such as story development and the Club’s pursuit for Sectionals. By half way through the series, you are actually hoping that something will happen, by which in time, the novelty of the show’s music has also worn off. Due to this slow pacing, the show in turn can be quite predictable and clichéd, but on the flip side, I think that if you are watching Glee, you would not exactly be expecting a rich and complex plot. It is also important to note that the series builds to a climax with the final two episodes being pure TV gold.
Overall, this show does exactly what it says on the tin. Yes, the characters may be quite two-dimensional and the series drags as it goes on, but at the same time it does amazingly what it is supposed to do. And that is to provide great escapism and funny laughs along the way, with the great soundtrack not exactly hurting it either. Cheesy, it may be slightly, but it’s great television which looks to be staying for a while. And anyways, we all need a bit of song and cheer in our lives these days.