My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.
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“The Mob Doctor” sounds like the title of one of those fake TV shows that SCTV used to run ads for.
Followed by “Blind Paramedic”, “Quicksand Lawyer”, and the SCTV Late Night Movie!
The fact that anything is written by the nitwit who created Glee automatically makes it worthless to me.
For a while, I was worried that I was secretly homophobic because I hated all the characters on Glee and wanted terrible things to happen on them because I just found them so unpleasent. Then I realised it was because they were so unpleasent and was pretty okay with myself after that.
It’s also more than a little bit racist.
I tried to like Glee. I really did. But each of the three times I tried the plot hinged on the gay kid being bullied and/or misunderstood by his father. Couple that with the way-too-damn-cute-for-their-own-good musical numbers and I’d rather run my hand through a meat grinder, Fire Marshall Bill style, than sit through an episode.
To clarify, my problem is that the plots were all the same, not that it was about the gay kid. I get it. Equal rights for the LGBT community is a good thing. There are other plots available.
I felt that the time it could be argued as good it was also sexist against everybody.
The first season of Glee was very good. The first half season before it went on hiatus was borderline great, and felt like the beginning of something special.
Then season 2 started out rocky. Then it got worse. Then there was the “faith” episode that is amongst the worst things I’ve ever seen on tv. Then I watched another episode or two, which pretty much sucked. Then I threw my hands up in the air and gave up.
I misread that as ‘After CBC’s success with “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Mario?” in 2008’ and I was first, sad I missed it, then sad when I re-read and realized no Nintendo figure was involved.
@Farwell3d: I had pretty much the exact same trajectory with Glee that you did, it seems.
The end of the pilot episode, with the kids singing “Don’t Stop Believing” and Mr Schuster rediscovering his purpose, I’m all teared up.
Then for a while I’m loving the super snarkiness of Sue Sylvester, and there’s some more good musical numbers, and clever writing, and it seems like we’re off to the races.
First hint something was going wrong might have been the “distractions” episode. Remember that one, where EVERY THIRD LINE OF DIALOGUE had to have the word “distracted” or “distracting” in it??
Then I was just getting more and more annoyed at the whole “hey let’s all learn an entire choreographed showstopper in three minutes” shtick and going over the same plot points OVER AND OVER “I must choose between football and glee, oh now I don’t, no wait yes I do, I have chosen, but now I must choose again” and Matt Morrison making his stupid singface that you just want to punch and special Kurt is super special and never wrong about anything ever and blech.
Plus it got so grating how they never rehearsed anything twice and threw together their big competition program at the last second and VOCAL COMPETITION DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY.
Last straw might have been that episode where Kurt’s Dad was in hospital, and for a full hour we stayed in the choir room while everyone took a turn with “Mr Schu? I have a song I’d like to sing for everyone to express how it’s all about me actually.” And then they did while everyone else Looked Meaningfully at things and BLLARRRRFFFF
Or maybe it was when Mr Schu thought he’d perform in Rocky Horror, as Rocky, WITH HIS OWN STUDENTS, including the sex stuff and everything. Because holy fuck, people.
tl,dr: Glee sucks all the harder because it started awesome.
P.S. Community’s spoof almost made it worthwhile suffering through all that.
The pilot so shamelessly and (to me) and unnoticeably borrowed from the movie “Election” it was a crime. Never gave it a second look after that.
I loved the first season of Glee, but season 2 found me spending most of my time wanting to smack the hell out of every character. After the second episode of season 3, I gave up on the show except for a decision to watch the season end because I wanted to see the kids win at Nationals. So I watched the last two episodes on Hulu and found myself wishing that the characters had been written and played the way they were in those more often.
But that doesn’t mean I have any interest in seeing any more of the show. In the classic words of the great Eric Burns-White, they had me, but then they lost me.