Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Grading "Glee" -- Season 02, Episode 06

I didn't care for the storyline at all this week, but the music wasn't bad at all!

"One Love". C-. I missed Puck, his antics were by far the best thing about this episode, story-wise. However, I didn't miss his "talent" for doing every song in the style of a mohawked Jason Mraz. Like always, he's not good, not bad, merely average. This could have earned a C but the completely superfluous use of steel drums knocked the grade down a bit.

"Teenage Dream". B+. Easily the whitest performance in the history of "Glee", but call me crazy, I liked this. In contrast to Puck's entirely predictable performance, this one left me gawking at its sheer oddity. The sight of a bunch of prep school boys losing their marbles to a straight-laced glee choir version of Katy Perry is one that I won't soon forget. Everything about this was the polar opposite of badass, they even performed it like it was an innocent 50's doo-wop teenage dream and not a horny 00's one.

"Start Me Up"/"Livin' On a Prayer". B. This could have been so much better if they'd just done the Bon Jovi song, because all those moments were sexy and untamed and fierce, but the mashup did NOT work. The momentum died each time they switched to "Start Me Up" (it certainly didn't help that they didn't give themselves much to sing other than the title of the song).

"Stop! In the Name of Love"/"Free Your Mind". B. This was like the mirror universe version of the girls' performance. The suits were supposed to make them look like smooth operators, I thought they looked ridiculous. It certainly didn't help that their dance moves and hand gestures were as amateurish as anything we've seen on "Glee" in recent memory. But the mashup was great!

2 comments:

Sandra said...

I *loved* Teenage Dream. But I think it was because I was squealing (literally) at the possibility of Kurt finding a cute boyfriend. It was an adorable scene IMHO. And the blazers, they were cool. :)

And, seriously, what are the odds that some kids just happened to be hanging around the school steps...with steel drums?!

Barry said...

Odds? It's Glee -- I'm used to string sections appearing out of nowhere and hearing drums on a song even though there isn't anybody drumming onscreen.

I'm sure you heard that "Teenage Dream" was the #1 most downloaded song on iTunes last week ... which means Kurt's cute bf won't be going anywhere for a while :)