can someone explain what the fuss is about Glee?

[pellucid]

Some weeks ago, I caught about five minutes of the Glee premiere before turning it off when the choir director's wife (I don't know anyone's names) made me want to attack her with a sharp, pointy object. Ah well, I figured, I didn't need another show anyway. But then all manner of my acquaintances, fannish and otherwise, have exploded with love for

Comments

[annerbhp]

I love Glee. I love the characters, I love that every character on the surface is sort of based on a caricature, but that they keep surprising me. I love that a lot of times the adults are the worst behaved and the most confused and the kids are the ones able to climb over barriers and preconceptions, and that this band of misfits and popular kids and marginalized kids all seem to bond in an environment of awesome songs, shared talent, and over the top musical numbers (God, whoever is doing the musical arrangements is a genius). It makes me happy. And every damn time I finish an ep my first thought is "Oh, show!" quickly followed by a rewatch of all the musical numbers.

Sure, I want Terri to go away and never come back, but then I think about Quinn who could so easily be the bitchy cheerleader girlfriend equivalent of Terri, but she's just not. She's sympathetic, even with her lies and confusion. I forgive it in the 16 year old kid and that's interesting, this comparison between bad behavior in the adults and the kids struggling with the same things, but in a much more earnest manner.

Plus, Jane Lynch? I would watch this show just for her delightful evil all on its own. Lol.

[pellucid]

I suspect I have not watched enough for the characters to move beyond caricature to start surprising me. And given the balance I felt between the parts that intrigued me and the parts that kind of turned me off (ie, tipped in favor of the latter), I'm not sure I'm going to give it much more of a chance to win me over, but I can certainly see potential for the characters to be more fleshed out than then initially appeared to me.

Much of what you say about the adults vs. the kids, incidentally, sort of confirms that this may not be the show for me. I find that I'm usually tremendously uninterested in the high school trope, and in the instances where a show about high schoolers does appeal to me (ie, Friday Night Lights), it's the adult characters I'm really most invested in and find most fascinating. Obviously there's a huge cultural appeal of stories about high school, but it's something that's never really worked for me. (Much in the same way that I don't really get the appeal of vampires. The combination of the two is why I never have and quite possibly never will watch Buffy, no matter how much people love it!)

[abyssinia4077]

Much in the same way that I don't really get the appeal of vampires. The combination of the two is why I never have and quite possibly never will watch Buffy, no matter how much people love it!

I am not fond of Vampires and similarly don't get the appeal (and yet seem to keep watching shows with them in spite of the vampires, which is odd) but I really enjoyed Buffy in spite of the vampires. I can't really speak to the high school aspect since I watched the first few seasons while I was in high school and thus was more disposed to being interested in high school stories.

Not saying you should watch it, just that the vampire thing wasn't, for me, a turnoff despite the lack-of-appeal thing.