glee

Spoilers for last night’s Glee coming up:

There is something about the prospect of a singing competition that concentrates the often-distractable mind of Glee. Where the episodes in between can lurch from brilliance to incoherence, the series’ first two climactic competition episodes, “Sectionals” and “Journey,” worked because they …

Spoilers for last night’s Glee coming up:

It was at around the 23 minute mark of Glee last night that Mrs. Tuned In pointed out that there had not yet been a single song in the episode. She was right; and the fact that the show had restrained itself from cramming in more soundtrack numbers early, and that the storylines were absorbing …

Spoilers for last night’s Glee coming up:

In the world of Glee, having Gwyneth Paltrow come on as a guest star and dance on a flooded stage to a mash-up of “Singing in the Rain” and “Umbrella” is actually how the show steps back and takes a breather. “The Substitute” was relatively a more subdued episode of the show, without the …

Spoilers for last night’s Glee coming up:

One of the many tightropes that Glee walks is that it makes a dramatic argument against stereotyping while employing many characters who are in some ways stereotypes themselves. This is not necessarily a criticism. At best, it can be a way of further complicating the show’s stories about …

Spoilers for last night’s Glee coming up:

In one sense, “The Rocky Horror Glee Show” was exactly what I expected: an episode in which the cast of Glee performs songs from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, with the thinnest of plot justifications for doing it and characters behaving inexplicably in order to fulfill the episode’s music …

Spoilers for last night’s Glee following:

One criticism I’ve heard from non-fans of Glee is that the show is essentially American Idol with a script. And I could see how an episode with the title and theme “Duets” could reinforce this view. On its face, the episode’s structure was little more than an Idol challenge, “OK, …

Spoilers for last night’s Glee coming up:

There’s been a lot of talk lately among critics, including ones I respect and admire, about how terrible Glee is. And I can totally understand it. Glee is not consistent; at times it is not even coherent. It can be an awful show or a great one, often at the same time. It doesn’t follow the …

Spoilers for last night’s Britney Spears-themed Glee coming up:

After last season’s polarizing Madonna episode of Glee—I was firmly on the “couldn’t stand it” pole—I’ll admit I was looking ahead to the Britney Spears episode with dread. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. If “Britney/Brittany” wasn’t the best episode of …

Spoilers for the second-season premiere of Glee coming up:

If there was one thing season one of Glee trained us for, it was never to know what was coming next. The show could go from scattershot and goofy to assured and transcendent within a week, from wacky fantasy to heartfelt realism between commercial breaks, in a heady rush as if …

SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for the season finale of Glee coming up.

The first season finale of Glee was called “Journey” for a reason. At regionals, New Directions retraced their steps back to their roots, performing “Don’t Stop Believin'” as they did in the show’s pilot, as part of a Journey medley. Likewise, the show Glee itself …