The Good, the Bad and Glee

This week’s episode of Glee, “Showmance,” showed a marked improvement over last week, but there’s still a ways for this musical comedy to go.

For one thing, it seems as if the writers have an inconsistent notion of just what that term means, both separately and as a single phrase. Musical comedy. Just because Glee is a comedy doesn’t mean it needs to play everything for laughs. In fact, it seems to me as if its humor would hit home far more often if the jokes weren’t so often highlighted as jokes. There’s a lot of serious material, too, treated with a levity that isn’t appropriate here. It’s possible to make comedy of somber things without losing sight of its humanity — Terri’s non-pregnancy, for one thing, or bulimia.

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Say a little prayer for Glee

Fox’s new series Glee has been talked about as one of the most highly anticipated shows of the season. Of course, this is largely to do with Fox doing its damnedest to make sure you know it’s highly anticipated, although the question really becomes by whom.

Keep an eye on that: that’s going to be the important thing when it comes to Glee. In this post-High School Musical age, it’s safe to say that Fox is trying hard to follow in the footsteps of Disney’s success, catering to an audience they know exists because it didn’t just carry a movie at the box office; it carried the third in a trilogy of films previously shown on the air. Clearly there’s money to be made on high school kids singing and dancing, and Fox wants in.

I’m tempted to say, though, that they’re close to missing the boat on this one.

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