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Chris Lockwood

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Originally Posted by Phil Florian

That was a lovely finale. Pairing of Bohemian Rhapsody and the birth of a child was pretty brilliant. It was funny, during the birthing scene my wife and I thought, " huh...I think all teens should witness a birth up that close..." Nothing like that to keep a kid's mind more on prevention. :) I loved Quinn's "You suck you suck you suck!!" to Puck while she was pushing. Truer words. :)

It would have been much better without hearing all of Quinn's screaming ruining the song.


What next, "Baby Got Back" mixed with the sounds of someone on the toilet?
 

Phil Florian

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Originally Posted by Chris Lockwood




It would have been much better without hearing all of Quinn's screaming ruining the song.


What next, "Baby Got Back" mixed with the sounds of someone on the toilet?
So, just to be sure, you equate one of the most powerful moments in a person's life (if not THE most powerful moment) to going to the bathroom? Just checking because, you know, that's what it sounds like. :)

I think the pairing of the song's "no no no no no no no!" as well as the "mama!!!" to be pretty neatly done. The lyrics, potentially about someone at the start of their life (Quinn? The child?), the song talking about struggling to maybe move forward with mom (who kicked her out but now Quinn really needs her) and so on. It was a great meld between music and story in a way that great musicals should strive to do. If you want to just hear the song uninterrupted, listen to the original or Glee soundtrack if they include it (damn, they better!).

Whatever you do, I hope you don't see the Animal (from the Mupppets) version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" because if you hated Quinn's lines mixing over the song, well... :)
 

DaveF

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Ok, I watched the final three Glee episodes this weekend and caught up on the past five pages of this thread the past few evenings. Great show, and I was dismayed to see all my insightful thoughts already given here in the thread by others.


Quick thoughts on the music: Really liked GaGa's "Mrah rah rah" song, but didn't care for the Poker Face duet -- I don't know the song and the piano-duet style was dull to me. Didn't like the first KISS song; it wasn't hard enough for KISS, almost musakified in comparison. "Beth", a song I didn't know, was really good. Loved Funky Bunch :) Quinn's "Woman Power" song was great -- I forget how great her voice is, and it was a strong performance. "Safety Dance" was marvelous. Loved everything from the finale. "Bohemian Rhapsody" was well cut into the childbirth sequence.


On "Safety Dance" -- my speculation to my wife was it was done live at a mall, with real shoppers genuinely surprised by an unexpected performance. The "YouTube" videos, as someone called them, I believe were video shot on handheld cameras; perhaps even by some of the onlookers (and collected by the showmakers).


I agree that Finn was unfairly caught by Kurt's dad -- the situation wasn't that simple. But it was also "real" and a powerful scene.


Something not commented on: the bullying scenes were also powerful. I saw that in high school, and the closed-mindedness, empty-headed, reactionary simpletons of the typical bully is maddening. And clearly there will this will escalate next season.


And Sue Sylvester. It's amazing they've created a sociopath with a heart of gold.
 

Paul D G

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^^^^


I have to agree with that article. While I enjoy the show and will watch it next week, I felt they maybe hadn't planned out the second half of the season. Perhaps they didn't expect it to catch on like it did, despite FOX's heavy promotion. Too many plots disappeared too quickly - Will's wife (conflict then boom, she's never seen again), Will's relationship with Emma (she too all but disappeared for the last few eps, and then suddenly back in the finale), Quinn's pregnancy (numerous times my wife and I tried to figure out if she was even wearing the pregnancy padding, so much so that when she turned towards Will while in his kitchen I remarked 'Oh, look. Quinn's pregnant again.'). And some episodes, like the Lady Gaga one, seemed little more than a way to perform some songs and I found myself annoyed at the lack of actual story. Filler episodes, really. And while I expect the occasional filler episode from my favorite shows occasionally, I expect a little more from a debut season, especially with so many storylines going on.
 

mattCR

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There comes a point where it becomes cool to just not like something. My response is: compared to 90% of what's on TV, find me shows you can say week in week out are better then Glee. I can name a small number, but it isn't that many.
 

Jonny P

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As I said before, the pilot ep of "Glee" was fantastic.


But in my mind, that largely had to do with the fact that the music was "integrated" into the first ep using "real life" musical moments...as opposed to "fantasy/dream" sequences which have now become standard.


It has become far too easy to have characters slip into "fantasy" musical sequences. I realize it might be hard to sustain any other way, but it would leave the show feeling more grounded in "realism"...which is what made the pilot brilliant.


Another comment...


I didn't think there was much dramatic tension in the finale. Most folks I know who watch the show didn't think that New Directions performance was on par with Vocal Adrenaline. ND's performance mainly involved smiling and swaying to Journey (recalling the brilliant final scene of the pilot episode a year ago).


The main question is whether they can sustain the show for multiple seasons, or if we'll keep having the same "we're cutting glee" and "I'm leaving glee" and "I don't think we'll qualify for this or that contest" moments.


And in many respects, the characters are starting to become a bit cliche. The aforementioned "after school special" tone to recent episodes is an example of this. Maybe we could start having club members seen in actual classes (just a bit) to give the show a greater sense of authenticity.


A show like "The Wonder Years" was able to capture those quirky teenage moments with a certain amount of charm (and largely avoided "standard pattern angst" moments).


My wife and I look forward to "Glee" each week, so I am not totally "down" on it. I just think they need to be careful and be smarter about the structure for episodes and story lines.

As my wife said, "Glee is best when the music selection is good." Honestly, if the show wants to achieve greatness in the pop culture lexicon, it needs to "transcend" the music selected. Right now, it has some trouble doing that.
 

Josh Dial

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Originally Posted by mattCR

There comes a point where it becomes cool to just not like something. My response is: compared to 90% of what's on TV, find me shows you can say week in week out are better then Glee. I can name a small number, but it isn't that many.

Exactly, Matt. It's reached the point where I can literally predict who will and will not start "hating on a show" (using the term in the modern sense, where 'hate' is loose). Virtually every show that starts off with a bang soon has its throngs of viewers who claim, rose-coloured glasses in hand, that the show isn't as good as it once was, et cetera. LOST, BSG, Heroes (I agree with this one, though), House, The West Wing, The Sopranos, to name just a few.


My honest feeling? I think people like to be in the outlier group: they praise a show when it just starts, so they can be one of the few who is "in on the buzz" and "was a fan from the start." Then, as the wave catches more and more viewers, it is no longer cool to be in that group, so they shift to "negative fan mode," where it's cooler to gaze longingly back at the halcyon days when the show "was good."


The media is perhaps the biggest culprit here, and I wish they would just shut the hell up sometimes. The show is immensely popular, so it's no longer news-worthy to lump praise on it over and over. So, they go the opposite way. "Oh, such and such a song was weak this week, so Glee is going down hill," and "Glee had to resort to showcasing one of the biggest music stars ever, in the history of all music, so Glee is grasping at straws." That gets the editors' collective mouths salivating. It's shameful.


It's wrong, also. Glee is better now that it was at the start of the season. The music is better-put-together (the lip syncing is much improved for many actors, and there is less auto-tune), the writing is funnier, the drama is more real (the Kurt storyline, the Sue stuff, the Will being a man-whore, Britney/Montana), the dancing is better, the acting is better on the parts of the "younger" players--I could go on.


It was the same with The West Wing--it was just as good after Sorkin left. BSG was just as good after New Caprica (better, even). LOST was just as good after the season 3 finale (better, even).


In fact, I have a hard time thinking of shows that were amazing from the start, but actually got worse. Heroes is probably the big one from the last few years. Even in that case, I consider it more a case of spinning its wheels, than actually getting worse.


Since about 1999 (beginning with The West Wing and The Sopranos), we've been in a Golden Age of TV, and Glee just continues the trend.
 

Jonny P

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But Josh, a number of shows that "stayed just as good" or "improved" had producers, writers and actors who "tweaked" things as they went along.


For example, I thought season 3 of "24" was decent, but many fans (and critical media types) thought it spun its wheels during a number of hours in that particular run. So, they did some retooling, and seasons 4 and 5 were (in many ways) superior to the first three.


Many of us are avid TV watchers on here. We've all seen shows that have "burned hot, and burned fast" that didn't last as long as they could have.


There are moments (and little vignettes) that work really well on "Glee." And the show deserves an immense amount of credit for not being another "crime procedural of the week" or "medical soap of the day." :)


I must admit, I find myself at times more interested in whether or not I am going to like the songs (esp. in the latter half of the season). That is a concern, because I should be more concerned about various plot points.


Perhaps that is a flaw in my perception.
 

mattCR

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I think the problem is Glee is a throwback show. In some ways, it reminds me of "The Cosby Show". Laugh all you want, but a show that week to week is good entertainment value, light fun with a basic story every week. Is there some overall plot? Sure, of sorts, but mostly it's about sitting down and being entertained. And week to week, Glee entertains. I'm not going to quibble about whether i'm entertained by the songs or the plot. If I walk out of an episode and say "that was fun" then that's all I ask.


And week to week, Glee has been more entertaining then most procedurals or anything else out there. I make no bones about the fact that I DVR'd LOST and watched Glee live when they were head to head. Because I enjoyed Glee. I loved LOST, but LOST didn't really have that week to week feel good bit. Sometimes, I just enjoy that ;) The moment Glee gets too plot driven or goes into some big deep dark secret moment or something like that it is toast. I need lighthearted fun. That's it.
 

Jeff Gatie

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Sheesh, are we really discussing whether a show has "jumped the shark" in its very first season simply because some episodes didn't click with all viewers? Cripes, even Buffy the Vampire Slayer (a show I compare to Glee in terms of suspension of disbelief; not to mention quality writing) fans waited until the WB years before the "cool" kids didn't find it "cool" anymore.


Can anyone say "decrease in attention span?"
 

DaveF

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I don't get all the hubbub. It's a good show. It's had one season. It entertained every week and ended strongly. And yes, it's about the music. The better the music, the better its integration, the better the episode. There is no Glee without the music; that's the whole point. Let's hope it's not Heroes or Veronica Mars and comes back as good or better next season. :)
 

Adam Lenhardt

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The problem is that there was a long gap between the first half of the season and the second half of the season, enough time for people to build up the first half of the season in their memory.
 

pitchman

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Originally Posted by Adam Lenhardt

The problem is that there was a long gap between the first half of the season and the second half of the season, enough time for people to build up the first half of the season in their memory.

Exactly! The other day my wife suggested to me that we re-watch the first season of Glee. I explained to her there has only been one season so far, to which she replied, "No... I mean the first season when they go to sectionals."


Part of the issue with the first season is that Fox "previewed" the pilot way back in May 2009. The program "officially" premiered in early September with repeat airings of the pilot (followed by the first new episode [#2] on September 9th). Then, there was that long hiatus from January to mid-April. As a result, the first season never ended until early June (some THIRTEEN months after the pilot initially aired). I know the production cycle on Glee is longer than many programs, but perhaps scheduling episodes more closely together would result in a more satisfying season perception. Since the final 2 or 3 episodes aired outside of May sweeps anyway, why not schedule the program in a way that makes it work best for the continuity of the show?
 

Matt Hough

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I don't think Glee will have that long a hiatus for the second season. Ryan Murphy has explained several times that the entire first thirteen episodes were filmed and in the can before the series aired its second episode in the fall, and he actually didn't expect the network would even show all thirteen of those episodes (remembering what had happened to Firefly and other notably "different" shows on Fox.) When the show became a hit, there was a scramble to get working on the back nine episodes necessitating the long break between the season's two halves.


Now that the show has a two season pick-up, I think we'll have a much more regular output of episodes next year. I had read somewhere that season two was going to be 25 episodes, but the network may not air them all next season and let the leftovers be a part of season three since when the 25-episode number was announced, the show hadn't yet been signed for a third season.
 

Jonny P

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As one who watches a myriad of shows on cable channels like USA and TNT, I am used to "mini-seasons" in the winter and summer, so the break between the fall and spring for "Glee" didn't throw me off, or effect my perception.


But since Ryan Murphy suggested that the first 13 were already in the can, you can definitely see "changes" that occurred between the two halves.


I like the fact that Will's wife was written out (didn't care for the whole "faking pregnancy" subplot). In fact, I prefer that the show focus on the kids more than the adults (keeping Sue Silverman's material and presence "fresh" for as long as possible).


It is an entertaining show, and I never let episodes "build up" on my DVR like some shows that I don't watch for a while. In that regard, it illustrates that it is holding my interest.


I've simply watched TV too long to know that "super hot" shows can burn out quickly...especially if they aren't handled properly. It is my hope that they are able to expand on the patter they've developed, and find ways to create "dramatic tension" while avoiding the "we're cutting glee club" and "there is no way we can win at this or that contest."
 

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