LIGHTS, PLEASE? The AV Club's Todd VanDerWerff did not care for last night's Glee Christmas episode. I liked it more than he did, but I can certainly recognize that it's just icky to belt the line "well, tonight thank God it's them, instead of you!" directly in front of the people you're thankful you're not.
1. I had some serious, serious problems with the narrative logic of the thing, but I thought the style and tone of the black and white segments pretty much nailed it, with "Let It Snow" and "Christmas Wrapping" both being good fun. (Particularly the latter, which was a smart way of dealing with the fact that Heather Morris really can't sing.)
ReplyDelete2. Major plot obstacle--PBS Lima cannot afford the rights to Yule Log, but can clear copyright usage of those songs, most of which are not in the public domain, and Star Wars elements?
3. When you're confronted with a bunch of tabloid rumors that one of your cast members stood up for herself and demanded more to do and a plotline that made her more likable, maybe the best route isn't to simultaneously give her 3 lines and somehow use the episode to retcon her for the 7th or 8th time in three seasons.
Also, since VanDerWerff omitted his "Straight Guys Talkin' About Glee" segment, the obvious shoutout for this week? Heather Morris in the Santa dress.
ReplyDeleteI really disliked the episode, just because I thought it was overly cheesy and not at all thoughtful. Also, when you go to the effort of having two outwardly Jewish characters but then force them into a Christmas special, that shows me that you're really not thinking about those Jewish characters at all.
ReplyDeleteHated it. Hated hated hated.
ReplyDelete1. As Saray notes, two Jewish characters, both of whom as shown nodding and smiling as the Irish piece of furniture reads about Jesus. And Rachel has a Christmas list. Rachel is the kind of Jew who would walk around pointedly telling everyone to say Happy Holidays and to wish her Happy Chanukah, not Merry Christmas.
2. You've gone through all this trouble to make Kurt and Blaine out and proud, but they have to be bachelor best friends for the special. Yeah, yeah, tone of the original that they are parodying and all that, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.
3. Sue Sylvester is pinging around worse than Quinn. Yes, the stuff about her sister made some logical sense, but still, stupid.
4. Rachel Berry did not need to be made any more unlikeable than she already was. The ending does not redeem her - the key was not that she needs to give away more money, it's that she needed to stop being such a bitch to her boyfriend and understand that not everyone is made of money. I wanted to reach through the TV and punch her.
5. So the kids show up at the tail end of the party for the homeless and somehow everything's ok? You blew off a charity gig for fame and glory. Bad behavior, that's it, the end. And somehow, this is ok with Mr. Shue.
6. Do They Know It's Christmas was a tonal disaster - you shouldn't sing that entire song in front of the people you're helping, not just the line Adam notes, and it made me cringe to have them smiling ear to ear as they're singing about "the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears" and "nothing ever grows"...if they wanted to do that song, they needed to do it in the choir room to convince each other to do the homeless gig instead of the TV show. And then sing a much better Christmas song to the homeless people.
7. Seriously - that's how they're going to retcon Artie's magic legs????? Seriously????
Ugh. Just awful all the way around. (I will admit that I mostly enjoyed the black-and-white special, particularly Let It Snow and the Waitresses number. But otherwise, this episode made me seriously consider deleting my season pass.)
I needed to endorse this comment more than just "Like", so this is me, doing that.
ReplyDeleteThough I didn't even like most of the black-and-white special, and in fact during the way-too-long set-up with Kurt and Blaine, they broke me. I finished the episode, but I'm done here.
That was pretty damn terrible.
ReplyDeleteOne random note, though. Until last night, I never knew that they sang "Feed The World" in that song. I always heard it as "We Will, Ohhhhhhh" - although I didn't really think that was the lyrics.
Jews in a Christmas special? Not that big a deal. Happens all the time, of course. Jews in a Christmas special with absolutely no comment from the characters (other than a random Happy Chanukah while bell ringing)? Ridiculous. And Jews nodding along and smiling beatifically while hearing a reading about the baby Jesus? Offensive.
ReplyDeleteYou folks can't say I didn't warn you.
ReplyDeleteExactly. I go to sing the Messiah every year because I love Handel. But I would not sit and nod appreciatively while being read Bible versus about the birth of Jesus. No. Just no.
ReplyDeleteWhich cast member?
ReplyDeleteAllegedly, Dianna Agron suggested some places for her character to go and plots,and Murphy's response was "well, then, I'll give you this batshit insane plotline that makes your character completely unlikable."
ReplyDelete"Irish piece of furniture" - oh, well done, Marsha.
ReplyDeleteI need to thank y'all for this forewarning. I now know that if we watched this episode of Glee, I would be annoyed, and my fiance would be offended. Delete, delete, delete.
ReplyDeleteMan, it's days like this I'm glad I abandoned the show last season.
ReplyDeleteThat actually is the only reasonable explanation I've heard of Quinn's recent plotlines.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I do try to amuse you.
ReplyDeleteI liked the first half of the episode fine - Mercedes doing "All I Want for Christmas is You" was a highlight, and I enjoyed Rachel and Blaine's duet. But I found the black and white section interminable - amusing at first, but then "My Favorite Things" seemed to just go on and on, and Rory doing the Linus Peanuts Christmas special speech wasn't an homage, it was a rip-off.
ReplyDeleteAnd here's what I don't get - why was it such a conflict between doing the tv special and going to the homeless shelter if in the end, they were able to do both with seemingly little problem?
And yes - "Do They Know It's Christmas' was a horrible choice to sing at a homeless shelter.
I didn't hate it as much as you all did-- perhaps because I don't think anything could be worse than the "Britt is a complete moron" plot in last year's Christmas special. I liked the black and white parts. They were super cheesy which I like. I also really liked the two Charlie Brown references -- the Rory/ Linus story and Rachel quoting Sally, "All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share."
ReplyDeleteThere were totally things I hated though. So much focus on Rachel and Finn. So much Blaine and Kurt. I really hate how they are handling Santana's coming out story and I feel so sad that Dianna Agron has this crap storyline. That said, I think both Naya Rivera and Dianna Agron are handling lousy storylines really well.
As I may have said before, this show just frustrates me. The pilot was one of the most original, thoughtful pieces of network television in a long time. The potential was limitless. Instead of making the show great, the writers/producers/runners got lazy and chose not to care about the characters. Seems like for an extra $10k per episode, they could have hired someone who could, y'know, actually write.
ReplyDeleteOf course, this is semi-ironic, since the first two seasons were basically written entirely by Murphy/Falchuk/Brennan. Because of their other committments (most notably American Horror Story), they brought on a staff for the first time--Ali Adler (formerly of Chuck and No Ordinary Family), Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Big Love), Michael Hitchcock (best known for playing opposite Jane Lynch in Mighty Wind), and Marti Noxon (ran Buffy seasons 6 and 7, ran the first season of Private Practice). Perhaps this is why the voice has been a little all over the place, but those folks can write.
ReplyDeleteOf course, American Horror Story has similar problems despite the presence of Tim Minear (Firefly, Terriers) and James Wong (X-Files) on the staff, so god knows.
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