O.M.F.Glee

For the UK, the second season of the saccharine and sour combination of pop and sarcasm that is Glee returned to our screens this week. (9pm, Mondays on E4). For the cool kids, however, we're 10 episodes in and awaiting a Superbowl special that if it were to be anymore hyped would only join a coalition with a lesser show, say One Tree Shitting Hill, and just piss us all off.

After a somewhat uneven first five episodes, Glee finally got back into its stride and recently has been delivering pretty decent episodes, good character moments and fun song choices. Still, lest we forget last year Glee's hiatus (Madonna aside) gave way to a fair few sub-par episodes culminating in a truly terrifying version of Quinn singing 'It's a Man's Man's Man's World' accompanied by a pregnant lady dance routine that reminds me to this day of the swimming hippos in the old BBC1 idents. Or the Dance of the Hours in Fantasia. Something mildly sexist and anthropomorphic anyway.

So as Glee gears up for the half of the season that will, in all likelihood, define whether it will genuinely last for a good run or get so absurd its audience loses patience, let's look at some lessons the show needs to keep in mind:

Make Your Fucking Mind Up About Finn and Rachel!

Nobody's that invested in them anyway. In the space of the last 12 episodes of the show they have gone through an innumerable amount of Facebook style relationship statuses from 'single' 'its complicated' 'in a relationship' and 'tonguing the fit Jewish one instead'. Pick a play. Stick with it. Allow them to develop as a couple, cos' sure as hell when solo all they do is pine for each other. To an extent, that's OK, it allows Rachel to belt something awesome out but man angsty Finn is crap. If he isn't using pejorative words for homosexual, he's singing Bruno Mars or murdering The Doors. Enough. Satis.

Ease up on the GaGa

There was a GaGa episode. Hardly any time later 'Telephone' was featured. Now Glee has first dibs on 'Born This Way' to be used a freakishly short time after that single hits. We love GaGa, we do, but her overexposure doesn't need to be reflected in Glee. They have Journey for that.

You can have more than one plot at a time

Season 1. The Glee club aimed for Regionals and there was a teenage pregnancy
Season 2. The Glee club aimed for Nationals and there was homophobic bullying

Not to say these plots aren't done well, just that other by-lines that aren't necessarily relationship driven are perfectly fine to have as well. When you've got such a massive supporting cast, a few short-term B plots couldn't kill and could actually round out talent we don't get to see that much.

Create a new litmus test

This test should be 'Would they do that on the Disney channel?' If the answer is yes, don't do it. This would cut out over 50% of the inspiring speeches and make room for more Brittany and Sue.


More Tina and Mercedes!

Girls have been sidelined this year! Tina had one of the best moments of last season with her Asian vampire schtick and Mercedes could do with an actual plot. Preferably not one to do with her body image or to do with her desire for fried potato. Again.

Fix Mr Schue's multiple personality disorder

I don't get Will. Half the time he's being inspiring, ab-tastic and genuinely marvellous. The rest of it he's swanning around like a randy peacock with an engorged proto-penis. I have never disliked him more than in the Rocky Horror episode where he took advantage of the Glee club to try and get some clunge. It makes him so much harder to take seriously when he tries to teach them actual lessons.

Only one tribute episode per half of a season

Yay Britney. Yay Rocky Horror. Having two such episodes a mere three weeks apart murdered your momentum.

What the Chuck?

Sorry I've not updated in forever. I can't say I'm too bothered however as I'm almost certain only 5 people have ever read this.

Aaaanyway. I want to talk a bit about a show that I desperately tried to avoid. Being as, a lot of my generation are, big fans of Whedon, I have often followed members of his creative team and casts in their other projects. Sometimes the payoff is magnificent: Wonderfalls, Battlestar Galactica, Greg the Bunny, hell even that one episode of Glee where Artie does some pretzel-fuelled dream dance.

Sometimes though, the connection is so tenuous or the show so rubbish (Point Pleasant... most of Tru Calling) one feels to go down that rabbit hole a step too far. So the notion 'Hey Alex! Have you seen that comedy drama where a nerd becomes a spy featuring the guy who was Jayne on Firefly being all surly and right wing?' was not of vast appeal. I was off on holiday to Egypt, needed some entertainment for the flight and decided to treat myself to season one of Chuck.

I should be clear, Chuck is not life changing. I don't feel the need to get a 'WWCD' bracelet or to allow the show's lexicon to infiltrate my idiolect. No-one is going to jump off a tower to save the world, there will be no serial killers in a hospital and (I would be stunned if) the cast running into the battlefields of WWI to turn into a field of poppies. What Chuck is, is soup. Cholent. Stew. Tagine, if you're a bit foreign. Its warm, cosy and well written enough to be 'non-trash' but really doesn't scale the heights of genre and wit that it could if paired with a slightly more creative team. But the constant callbacks to classic Bond films and video games are just delightful. There is, however, a problem.

This woman.
Yes, you might ask 'As a gay Jewish man, what problems might you have with this almost offensively Aryan woman?'. And I would respond by calling you racist. You would say it was just a joke. I would say that was uncool. You would learn something. We would hug. The world would move on a braver and fairer place.

The woman pictured is Chuck's love interest and mentor in the ways of the CIA, 'Sarah Walker'. Or Sam. Or whatever the hell her name turns out to be really. The thing with Sarah is, she is simply too perfect to both men and women at once. She exists on a level of impossible that I find excruciatingly annoying. Let's use 'gender stereotypes' to help us examine this:

Woman: Wow. Although she's tough, clever and independent, she has opened herself up to love. I know she's had issues with her parents so it makes me glad to see her in a healthy relationship and realising that her career choices, although important, don't always need to be the main focus of her life.

Man: She is blonde and has breasts.

Still like Chuck, but four seasons in and I wonder if I will ever like Sarah.