And with that, I’m done with Glee

From the moment that I clicked on the first promo trailer, I was in love. I sat and watched it a dozen times over, in total awe of how this little show called Glee looked more spectacular than almost any other show on TV.

After giving us a sneak preview of the pilot episode, I was indeed hooked. It delivered big time, and then some. In the wake of the less-than-stellar High School Musical phenomena, it was able to create its own identity.

Instead of succumbing to the preconception that musicals were lame and unrealistic, the shows creators embraced that notion to help develop their cast of misfits and establish the glow-in-the-dark humour that almost always carries the show.

Between the song choices, the element of reality vs. fantasy and the mixed, but totally cohesive, hopping character narration, I would argue that the pilot episode of Glee is the best thing to air on any of the four major networks in the past five years.

It’s so unfortunate then that we are not even halfway through the second season, and I am at the point where I cannot watch the show any longer. I am, in fact, done with Glee.

You see, despite that first episode being so utterly fantastic, the show has not yet hit that same high since. Yes, there have been good, even great, attempts to reach those levels over the first season and half, but more often than not, Glee has devolved into what any sane human being would have feared: another brand for the Fox network to bank off of.

The show no longer revolves around any specific characters. Hell, the show barely revolves around any specific storylines.

Without a clear focus on one or both of those factors, you start to lose your credibility as a top-rate television show.

What the show’s creators have begun to count on is the after-school-special storylines, and the glamorization of popular culture.

I realize that it is rather convenient to use a television show to raise the issues you want and sell the music on your show, but to have an entire episode that is nothing more than an elongated recreation of Britney Spears’s music videos is taking it too far. I have given up on a TV series for a lot less than that.

The show’s creators Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan have mistakenly mishandled the running of the show. What started out as a smart, hilarious breath of fresh air on television has now become a series that feels legitimately different episode to episode, and not in a good way. I’m not the only one who thinks this either. Blogger Myles McNutt, over on his site Cultural Learnings, has a theory which he deems, “The 3 Glees”. He surmises that having three consistent, yet totally individual writers with three separate visions of what the show should be about has caused “Glee” to become a disjointed effort. We no longer have one consistent show. We have three different ones.

I couldn’t have theorized it better myself.

Think about it. Have you ever sat there and wondered, “How exactly is this furthering the storyline?” or “Why is that character saying those things? They haven’t before.” I, for one, am tired of needing to ask these questions.
So, after the airing of the “Rocky Horror Glee Show”, I decided that they had used up my final bit of patience.

They took a musical property that I treasure and used it to sell music and bring up high-school body issues, nothing more. You could almost see the massive amounts of cooks in the kitchen throughout the episode. I mean, Mercedes as Frank-N-Furter? Mr. Shue as Rocky? Please. I’m glad they gave John Stamos “Hot Patootie” to sing before they finished totally ruining that storyline too.

I have given “Glee” a year and a half of my television watching and it has failed more times than it has delivered. I mean, there are some fantastic episodes interspersed here and there, but overall, the show has lost sight of what is important.

It is now about selling music, big name cameos and playing on hot-button issues. I am done with it. Because no matter what goes on within each episode, all I can focus on at the end is how much better it could have been.