Glee

Glee premieres pretty soon, and i think i need to say- and i say this as a fan of the show, i actually watch it- but it is VASTLY overrated, in my opinion. i was glad Jane Lynch was the only person to win an emmy for it- she's deserving, but the show itself did NOT deserve those 18 other nominations it got. it's really not THAT good. in fact, to me it's sort of a guilty pleasure, because what i think is good about it is the singing. that's fun and i like hearing the covers of songs i know and everything, and Jane Lynch IS hilarious.....but the rest of it (meaning the acting and the storylines) kind of sucks. seriously, i have big problems with almost everything ASIDE from the singing. i think the majority of the students are terrible actors (not to mention that they look about 30) and while that could be forgiven on a show where most of the time is spent singing, what is NOT acceptable is for them to also be terrible singers. and they kind of are. the main girl (Lea Michele, who plays Rachel) came from broadway and she's great, along with the coach Mathew Morrison, but everybody else really isn't. and they get a lot of solos. and i have to say this, because it drives me absolutely nuts, more than anything else on this show. EVERY SINGLE EPISODE ends with a moral lesson to be dispatched to the kids and thereby, the audience. something along the lines of "you're beautiful as you are" or "be nice to disabled people" or "don't do drugs." it reminds me of those old "very special episodes" they would do on bad sitcoms in the 80s and 90s, in order to try to teach teens a lesson. i was horrified when i began to realize that's what they're doing, because it's AWFUL. i thought TV was past that kind of preachy phoniness, and this show is corny enough as it is with all the singing! but the singing is a good kind of corny, basically like American Idol-type cheesiness. why in the world do they need to push it even further with these horrible morality pleas without a hint of irony, when the show itself is perfectly capable of ironic jokes in a given episode. it'll spend an episode being funny and savaging pop culture and then turn around and preach this fake "lesson" at the end (and it's sincere i think, which makes it worse). it's so uneven in tone sometimes and the awful phoniness just makes me cringe in anticipation.

so, yeah it's not nearly as good as everyone thinks it is. i couldn't even recommend it to people, it's like my secret guilty pleasure (on the basis of the songs only). but they really need to quit that preachy bullshit and i fear it's only going to get worse because i hear they're cutting down the songs from 8 per episode to 5, in order to "focus on the storylines and characters." wonderful. the storylines and characters SUCK so they really shouldn't do that. unless they're going to completely change the tone of the show and get some better actors, which i doubt. they should get rid of all sincerity whatsoever and keep the whole thing completely ironic. that's when it's the best anyway. sincerity just makes it unbearable. and pair up lea michele with a better singer, the guy (Cory Monteith) who's her main love interest and partner is a triple threat FAIL. he can't sing, he can't act, and he looks 35. they brought in a guest star actor to pair with her for a few episodes (who also happened to be from broadway) and the difference in quality was just painfully obvious. get rid of Monteith, for the love of god.