glee: Season 1 (2009)

Finally getting around to watching season 1.  I'm conflicted, because some of the musical numbers are great, but the story writing is terrible.  I'd complain that the characters are all shallow caricatures, but that's actually rather low on the list of problems with the storytelling.


*** mild spoilers below (but really, it doesn't matter if you know the story in advance, we're all really here for the musical numbers) ***


The biggest problem is Will.  He's Jekyll and Hyde.  One moment he's smart and sensitive and a great music arranger, the next he's an idiot learning again and again the lesson that he should lean on his students' talents and trust them to help make decisions about the direction of New Directions.  The next biggest problem is his wife and the whole hysterical pregnancy subplot that forces the introduction of the clichaic teen pregnancy subplot, which all detracts from actually developing the kids' characters.  But maybe that's for the best -- even when they try to develop Kurt by exploring his relationship with his father, it's ugly (Kurt's dad has "known" Kurt was gay for years and yet let Kurt grow up completely insecure of his father's love for him, and yet they'll try to present Kurt's dad in a favorable light as a "decent guy who isn't ready to have a gay son" and we're all supposed to be okay with this?).


Can you tell I'm still pissed that Kurt didn't get the lead for "Defying Gravity"?  Rachel has a great all-purpose voice, but Kurt's is perfect for this song.  Even if he actually couldn't hit the high F (instead of the b.s. about him needing to protect his father from getting anonymous phone calls), when someone's voice is otherwise so perfectly suited for a song, you simply CHANGE THE NOTE.  Will was triply an idiot in this episode for (1) simply assigning parts instead of auditioning them, (2) outright ignoring Kurt's request to audition the part (really *all* the parts should be auditioned), and (3) not realizing that Kurt sounds like he's defying gravity singing that high.  It's like April vs. Rachel on "Cabaret".  Rachel sounds great, but April's life experiences made her a better performer of this particular song.  Rachel simply isn't world-weary enough.  And again, it's like when Will tried to give "Tonight" from West Side Story to Tina.  Tina has a funky voice.  Arrange something indie-rockish and watch her go.  (note: they finally get this right at the end of disc 3 when she has the lead on "True Colors"  Tina: She's so Unusual!)


So, I'm still watching because of the musical numbers and the occasional Sue Sylvester scene.  She might be a caricature, but the actress has absolutely nailed the part and sometimes the writing is hilariously worthy of her.  Likewise, Brittany (the dumb blonde cheerleader) is perfectly written.  She might have a single line per episode, but it's always absolutely right for the character (Will: "Can anyone tell me what a ballad is?"  Brittany: "A male duck.").