Friday, November 13, 2009

What I’m Watching: Glee

Glee: Season 1, Episode 9 “Wheels” (C)

This wheelchair stunt is only the latest in a series of very bad ideas from Will Shuster. It’s a stunt that seemed so utterly ridiculous that it won’t do much but waste time, and it’s very likely that scrounging up all of those wheelchairs cost a fair amount of money which could have been put towards the handicap-accessible bus for Artie. The wheelchair number was an even more poorly-conceived idea, and wasn’t anywhere near as interesting or moving as Artie’s solo rendition of “Dancing with Myself,” which still went against the theme of characters performing only in rehearsal or while performing. The fact that Finn got a job as a result of his being in a wheelchair is sure not to pan out well, though the show likely won’t follow it through or dwell on it again in the future. The fact that Rachel helped him to get it certainly shouldn’t help get Quinn on his side, and Puck really does seem like he’s interested in putting forth the effort to help Quinn raise their child. Finn is too dumb to ever pick up on the existence of their relationship, and I’m curious who will be the first to discover it accidentally (probably Rachel). Finn’s enhancement of the baked goods is a bit too reminiscent of the “Vitamin D” episode from a few weeks ago. Singing portions of “Defying Gravity” was fun, but how could it not have been? It might have been better to feature a little bit more of the song since it’s really an incredible song, and the show always thrives when its characters are singing. Seeing a softer side of Sue hasn’t won me over in the past, but it was much more well done in this episode, and probably ranks as the high point.

2 comments:

Greg Boyd said...

I give this episode a slightly higher grade than you, but I agree that it was lousy. I personally found Puck's "enhancement" of the cupcakes to be hysterical. And Jane Lynch continues to be the best thing about this show. Seeing her softer side again was nice, and Lynch has shown some serious range here. Another plus: no Terri. But other than that, I agree that this episode was one of the show's worst. The wheelchair number was cheesy, and the other numbers were almost as bad. Tina's revelation that she doesn't really have a stutter killed a nice little romance that had started to develop between her and Arty. And the Quinn-Finn-Puck love triangle was as stupid as it has ever been. I'm this close to giving up on this show. If it doesn't improve in a hurry, I can't keep wasting my time with it.

On the other hand: did you see the "Avatar" footage that aired during the episode? It looked amazing.

Richter Scale said...

I actually thought it was one of the stronger episodes so far. We got to focus more on Artie, which was a really nice change (we haven't seen a lot of him, and I loved his rendition of "Dancing with Myself") as well as Tina, and Kurt's relationship with his dad. I actually love it when this show is a bit more outlandish and as a lover of musicals, I LOVE it when characters sing their emotions in those surreal ways. It's one of the reasons I love this show, and I feel like it strikes a nice balance between reality and hyper reality, and it was also great that they focused this episode on the school instead of Schuster's personal life.

This is actually an episode that many Glee fans that I've talked to love. I think you're expecting something different from it, Abe. The hyper-reality and more outlandish ideas is what a lot of the fans I've talked to (and whom I've seen on message boards) like most about this show.