For an hour-long musical dramedy that was signed for a third season before the first one was even over, “Glee” has been doing pretty, preeeetty good. Over 21 million digital singles from the show have been sold; album sales have reached 9 million. In 2009, the kids of “Glee” broke the Beatles’ 1964 record with 31 songs on the Billboard Hot 100. The show has only been on television for a year and a half. Pretty nuts, right?
While I wouldn’t call myself a “Gleek,” I do watch the show. Not usually on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m., but sometime Wednesday or Thursday when I can squeeze in 43 minutes on Hulu. I’m not a fanatic, but I do enjoy Quinn/Finn, Brittany’s one-liners and Santana’s sexcapades. Who doesn’t? But since last night’s episode, the second-to-last before the season finale, I’m starting to wonder how long creator/writer/producer Ryan Murphy can keep this up without beating a dead singing horse.
The premise of “Funeral” didn’t include any Arcade Fire songs, like I had anticipated. Instead, the episode revolved around the death of villain and general hater Sue Sylvester’s sweet older sister, Jean. Jean was well into her 50s with Down syndrome and was quite possibly the only person that Sue ever loved. Sue has the Glee club sing at the funeral, and now they’re all friends forever.
Huh?
While I applaud “Glee” for keeping their episode themes interesting (the final five episodes of this season will cover a Gaga tribute, a Fleetwood Mac tribute, prom, a funeral and a trip to New York), there’s no doubt that the show has dropped from a campy meta-musical where everyone can make fun of themselves to a decidedly more comical version of Disney’s “High School Musical.” We started out with a pregnant Quinn and a stupid Finn who thought he got her knocked up in a hot tub. Come on, that was funny. This week, Sue Sylvester tried to rig the Glee club’s flight to New York so that they got dropped off in Libya, and Quinn/Finn broke up again.
Like every high school drama on television, there’s only so long before those 28-year-olds playing teenagers (we’re looking at you, Cory Monteith) start looking for other projects to further their careers. After the kids inevitably start graduating, Murphy’s going to have to round up a new set of singing outcasts — shouldn’t be too hard. “The Glee Project” is slated to premiere on Oxygen June 11. Remember those silly “Glee” MySpace thingys about a year and a half ago? Yeah, I had people force me to vote for them, too. Turns out the contest was pretty legit, and the final winner will go on to act/sing/dance in a seven episode arc during season three. My advice to Murphy? Hang on to Lea Michele as long as you can. She’s the star, and both she and her character know it.
My Facebook newsfeed used to drop one-liners from the show here and there, but now all I see are complaints like “Glee was hard to get through this week” and “When will Glee stop being The Kurt Show?” The people have spoken, Murphy. The songs are overproduced, over-auto-tuned. The romances overplayed. No amount of kitschy pop music can save this one, mister. I think we might be over it.
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Allison Berger is a Philadelphia-based writer and a Pop music columnist for Reverb. Check out more of her writing here.
