MarkH

i LOVE stunt casting when its done right.

W&G's problem with it was the entire episode how to revolve around them. That show was fake enough already.

Maybe. I'm worried about the "back 9"...but we'll see. I think a show like this might toil best before the publicity hits. The first 13 episodes were basically filmed in obscurity, with no one knowing if the show would make it. I believe that likely helped to fuel the "striving Loser" dynamic that the show plays so well. Now that they're an international megahit with a hit show, albums, DVD sales, and soon concert....who knows if they'll be able to stay connected to their humility.

Plus, I'm not interested in what Jennifer Lopez or Idina Menzel offer in a particular week...I'm more interested in what Mr. Shue, Sue, and the Glee kids are going to deal with next.

Okay, so this is from Perez:

Glee is certainly getting more than their fair share of celeb guest-stars for the next half of the season.

Let's see, they've got Idina Menzel, Olivia Newton John, Jennifer Lopez, and, oh yeah, Neil Patrick Harris.

Neil Patrick Harris is close to finalizing a deal with the show, which will have him featured on the very special May sweeps episode directed by Joss Whedon.

Oh, what a devilishly horrible sing-along that will be, huh?

The only roadblock is CBS giving the go ahead for one of the their biggest stars to show his mug on another network, FOX - they haven't done it yet. We think they will though.

One of the many reasons I hated Will and Grace was because of all the stunt casting.

I'm very worried their going to damage Glee with this kind of nonsense too. Why do this? The success of the first 13 episodes had mostly to do with a focus on the fresh faces...and a few broadway stars thrown in.

Is Glee the new format for an Ed Sullivan/Carol Burnett style variety show? Is that what this is becoming?

Well, Rachel and Puck are Jewish, so they're not exactly "white". And Ken's on a lot too who's Native American.

I think Puck and Rachel are white, just not WASP, LOL.

I think Puck got a whole new fanbase this week.

This is a show I enjoy, but I was hesitant about watching it due to the token minority characters. This is the type of modern show that loves to tout diversity, but it's so transparent. You have the white lead characters like Quinn, Rachel, Finn, Puck and the adults and the minorities are all on the sidelines supporting them. The minority characters will be given "very special" episode treatment, like Kurt with his two episode coming out. The mainstream teens will have the storylines at the forefront for the entire season. The real romances and issues that are developed. For that reason I can't say I love this show. It's very good and bringing something different to TV, but it has it's big shortcomings just like all of current TV.

Yes, I have thought about this too.

Last week, they tried to make the claim that "we're all minorities"...but the fact remains that Puck-Quinn-Finn-Rachel are front-burner, and among the teachers, Shuster and Sylvester are front burner...and each one of 'em is white.

One of my disappointments about this show is that it is less of an integrated ensemble piece...so that "Wheels and Aretha and Shaft, etc." all get equal emphasis.

For now, though, the show is one that I can just lose myself in...goofy/funny, soapy, interestingly done tunes. I find it is one of the few hours a week where I can shut off my cognitive/analytical brain and just have fun. I sort of hope that after they get done with the current front-burner "launch" story (the quad and Shuster) that we'll see others have a turn at front burner for extended runs. I also realize that is unlikely to happen, but I'm hopeful.

That's one of the few parts I enjoyed about this episode. Most of the rest was boring.

Not the best episode of the season, but such a bright spot on the schedule for me. Even the weaker/less funny shows (or shows with music I care less about) are better (for my mood, anyway) than just about anything else on US primetime. (Except for the ABC Wednesday comedy lineup, which are the first sitcoms I have watched in a decade!)

I'm stuck in some kind of warp, listening to Puck do "Sweet Caroline" on endless loop, lol.

A moment of soapy perfection on Glee.

Puck sings "Sweet Caroline" (which is fun, as we discover the voices of these people). And in wordless reactions, we see that Quinn loves Puck, Finn notices Puck going for Rachel and is jealous, Rachel is blithely ignorant.... Suddenly we have a workable quad...and it was done without a word of dialogue.

I love this show.

Anyone following Melinda Sue Lewis on Twitter? Seems slightly interesting to read the domestic dramas with Leah, etc.

And Mark, I see you already beat me with some of the quotes. LOL Is there a site where you got the quotes because I type them and I rather not have to if there's already a site.

I think Wall Stree Journal (yup) is recording "Sue-isms"...but my quotes this week were typed with my loving hands. I just loved the ep so much.

I gather the show is growing. Slight bumps in the 18-39 demo (per Roger Newcomb). He also links a WSJ blog that lists many of the "Sue-isms" that I do above.

I think this may be the breakout show of the year...not necessarily in ratings, but in buzz!

Dear God in Heaven! The bon mots in last night's Glee. Also balanced out with the emotional moments (Will crying at the sight of his child, and his wife feeling remorse; the beautiful finale number where--maybe--Quinn realizes that Glee is more on her side than Sue).

===

FIGGINS: Let’s hug it out. … This meeting won’t end until I see bodies touching. It’s a technique I learned in my leadership seminar last week.

WILL: I will destroy you.

SUE: I am about to vomit down your back.

===

JACOB (what is his name?): The independent polling company in my Dockers has determined you’re the hottest girl in this school.

===

SUE: Alright everybody, listen up. When you hear your name called, cross over to my side of this bright shiny thing….Santana,Wheels, Gay Kid, Asian, other Asian, Aretha, and Shaft.

KENDRA: I wanted to remind you to tell that <inaudible> not to vaccinate in the hospital. I’m pretty sure those shots made my kids stupid.

===

SUE: Sometimes people ask me ‘Sue, how come you are so sensitive to minorities?’ I’ll tell you why: Because I know first hand how hard it is to struggle as a minority in America today. I’m 1/16th Comanche Indian. In fact, I like minorities so much, I’m thinkin’ about moving to California to become one!

===

WILL: Sue. Hey Sylvester, I’m talkin’ to you!

SUE: Oh hey buddy. I thought I smelled failure!

WILL: You are deliberately undermining me in front of these kids

SUE: Your delusions of persecution are a sure sign of early-stage paranoid schizophrenia.

===

WILL: That is it! It ends right here!

SUE: A cockfight! Fantastic!

===

SUE: You want to get real? You’re right Will. I have been trying to destroy your club with a conviction I can only call religious. And you want to know why? Because I don’t trust a man with curly hair. I can’t help but picture small birds laying sulphurous eggs in there, and I find it disgusting!

===

SUE (to reporter): Okay. Listen up. This is all your readers need to know. I’m all about empowerment. I empower my Cheerios to live in a constant state of fear by creating an environment of irrational, random terror.

===

SUE: (after Cheerios flunked in Spanish). This is a disaster of international proportions…You can’t stand to see a woman in power. Your psychosexual derangement would be fascinating, Will, if it weren’t TERRIFYING!

FIGGINS: According to our test records, most of your Cheeerios are functionally illiterate.

SUE: Oh, so what.

FIGGINS: Only last Friday, at the football game, they tried to spell out “Go Team” and they finally spelled out “To Game”.

WILL: Since 1992, 95% of your Cheerios should have flunked Spanish. And I for one am not going to be a part of it anymore.

SUE: Oh, Will, we all know about your devotion to that dying language. Let me break this down for you. I empower my Cheerios to be champions. Do they go on to College? I don’t know, and I don’t care. Should they learn Spanish? Sure, if they want to become dishwashers and gardeners. But if they want to be bankers and lawyers and captains of industry, the most important lesson they could possibly learn is how to do a round-off.

===

KURT: She even told me if I talked to one of Mr. Shue’s kids she would shave my head. And I just can’t rock that look. Even Justin Timberlake is growing his ‘fro back.

===

SUE: (to Puck and the dutch cheerleader, after they realize Mr. Shue ‘just doesn’t like minorities’): Can you imagine, in this day and age, being discriminated against? My goodness, the pain you must be feeling. So your last name is Puckerman, eh?

PUCK: Shalom! (raises fist)

SUE: Who knew? And poor, sweet Brittany! Oh, I know the Dutch are famous for being a cold people, but that’s no excuse for treating you like some half-price hooker in Amsterdam’s famous red-light district! Well, all I can say is if you’re serious about leaving Will Shuster, Sue Sylvester’s rainbow tent will gladly protect you from his storm of racism.

===

SUE: Look, I’m prepared to cut you a deal. You pass my Cheerios, and I’ll give you back your team of losers and snot faucets.

WILL: Sue Sylvester, you’re going to have to pry those “F”s from my cold, dead hands!

SUE: Can’t wait, pal!

===

KENDRA: Well, Wu, you delivered all three of my kids. Each one is dumber than the last. Plus they all have ADD. And, although neither my husband nor I have red hair, they are all creepy ginger kids.

DR. WU: It’s caused by a recessive gene.

KENDRA: That’s one theory. Do you want to hear mine? You gave me too much Pitocin when I was in labor, and it screwed up their DNA!

DR. WU: That’s not a theory. You just made that up. Mrs. Shue, is your sister on some type of new psychometric medication.

MRS SHUE: Not that I know of.

KENDRA: That’s offensive! Here’s the deal, Wu. My husband does the taxes for some very powerful mid-sized law firms in this town. And I’m sure somebody would be more than happy to take on my lawsuit.

WU: You’ll never win.

KENDRA: I don’t have to win. There’s only two OBs in this town. You get even the slightest stink on you, and you can bet that a bunch of your patients will close on up their legs and walk on over to Dr. Chin!

===

QUINN (to Rachel): Listen here, treasure trail! We’re about to have a smackdown….Don’t play stupid with me, stubbles!

===

SUE: You know, it’s sad enough that my ‘Sue’s kids’ are living in squalor, and probably on food stamps!

STUDENT: My dad’s a dentist!

===

WILL: Hey Sue.

SUE: William, close the door.

WILL: I wanted to talk to you about what happened in the auditorium.

SUE: Good. I would have come to you too, but I have no idea where your office is.

===

SUE: I’ve decided to step down as co-head of Glee…Yes, it’s not for me. Too fruity. I can’t stand the sight of kids getting emotional, unless it’s from physical exhaustion….I’d still like to stay on as consigliere…I was a veejay for a couple of years…I know I’m not like the rest of you hippies, caring about the kids’ feelings as if they were real. But I do care about teaching.

===

WILL: Who’s to say everything I do is 100% on the ball?

SUE: No one would say that.

===

WILL: You’re all minorities.. .So it doesn’t matter that Rachel is Jewish or that Quinn..

QUINN: Can’t tell my right from my left!

===

SUE (to Jacob, holding up Rachel's panties with a pencil): This was a particularly interesting find from today’s round of locker checks. Are these your droopy white granny panties, Jacob? Are you an ‘Eve’ who was born a ‘Steve’? Because if you are, I think there is a school that would better address your needs. And I think that school is in Thailand.

I FOUND IT! I've been looking for so long for a clip with the slow version of the "Genoa City Theme" in it, always LOVED the slow version... and I finally found one! I wish this piece had made it onto the soundtack album in 1974. I want to know who I'd have to fu@k to find copies of the original background score pieces (clean copies) that weren't included on that soundtrack album. I felt the original Y&R score was the best ever done on any soap, daytime or nighttime. This is the clip, I wish we had scenes like this TODAY! The piece I'm referring to is in the first part of the scene.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=WWecNu3_nF0

Awesome music and scene. All those episodes surrounding TGVN's first wedding to Nikki were one of the creative high points of the show...and true passing of the torch between the first and second generations of the characters.

Some of the cast of Glee was in the audience for Australian Idol last night

Next week's looks amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sNive0y3FE

No comments for the second episode? I loved it. So much fun.

It was fun. For me, the songs in Ep 2 had no meaning...therefore, I wasn't as into the ep. I doubt I've ever listened to a single Kanye, Rihanna or Salt N Pepa song...so it all went flat.

Journey, on the other hand...

I hope they continue to feature a broad diversity of styles, decades, genres....

I'm digging the classic/camp soap conventions (golddigger/fake pregnancy; villain who sends spies; love triangles).

I can add two more shows to that list: "90210" and "Gossip Girl" have been cancelled due to extremely low ratings. Since April, both shows have run back to back on Saturday afternoons on ProSieben. When "Gossip Girl" ends its first season on August 15th, 2009, "90210" will also be gone for good. Originally, the second season of "Gossip Girl" was due to start on August 22nd. The remaining six episodes of "90210" will probably remain unaired. I just wish another network, e.g. the RTL group, had aquired the rights to these shows *sigh*.

By the way, I updated the cast lists on the first page of this topic.

I am loving the German soap clips that I see on youtube, elsewhere. I wish [ a ] Germany would stop importing this US crap and make more shows (although I understand why this is economically not feasible] and [ b ] I really wish these shows would be legally available internationally with subtitles. I wish it would be economically viable to have a "Germany's Greatest Hits" channel (kind of like a commercial version of Deutsche Welle) that airs everywhere. I wish the same for each country. I wish these walls would come down.

Some shows have also failed miserably, for example "One Tree Hill", which has already been cancelled twice after only a handful of episodes, or "Brothers & Sisters".

Why do you think these latter programs failed?

It was OK, I wasn't blown away by it. The singing was nice, but the members of the Glee club itself were so cliche and stereotypical in the pilot, which I guess was the intention anyway. I also have a feeling they're going to have some trouble balancing the comedy and more serious stuff too. I love abstract humour, but a lot of it fell flat to me in the pilot.

And is it me, or are Mr. Schuester's wife and that red head germaphobe teacher that has a crush on him essentially the same personality? The only difference is one is a germaphobe that encourages Schuester to flow his passions and the other is a compulsive shopper that wants him to find a better paying job. They're both really quirky and animated. They should've made them a little more different and unique in characterization, since it's obvious both of these women are going to play a big part in Mr. Schuester's life.

I guess the Glee Club is about half the size it needs to be. Therefore, my understanding is that the first half of the next season will be about searching for additional members and rounding out the troupe. I think the pilot was just meant to throw a lot of interesting stuff at us and get us invested in the journey. I'd be disappointed if this "fleshing out" didn't occur in the weeks to come.

My template for this (in my head) is Fame. And that show slowly developed the characters over time, with each character getting "their" episodes each season.

Glee did okay in the ratings. It wasn't the "boffo" I'd hoped for...but I didn't know about the fact that there were TWO huge competitors on at the same time.

The Dancing with the Stars finale tangoed with 20.12 million viewers, on par with the show's year-ago disco ball hand-out. The Mentalist concluded its freshman run with 16.84 mil, up 720K. Fox's Glee debuted to 10.75 mil 1 and needs to resume its first season, like, yesterday! Fox notes that Glee was Tuesday night's No. 1 Twitter topic, while New Directions' version of "Don't Stop Believin" emerged as the No. 2 most downloaded song on iTunes.

Glee needs to be promoted like heck all summer, and they need to make rebroadcasts of that preview widely available...online...and at strategic moments during the Fox summer lineup.

I'm utterly confused are you replying to one of my confusing rambles above? Cuz yeah I think he married the "main" Dinah Lee (the one who was on... Dirty Sexy Money? Some show recently) in real life and never ever meant to imply he was gay.

Jessica Collins, right?

Yeah, I can't recall now...but I think someone upfront said Trucker (the actor) either was or looked gay.

I don't think Trucker was gay. I'm 99% sure he married one of the Dinah Lees in real life.

AHEM *Victoria* native (raised here, born in Canada).

...

Very strangely the jock character is played a by a guy I went to school with her ein Victoria, BC--he was a grade under me and always really nice but shy and a bit chubby--he was in the chorus of a musical I was in but never really hung out with any of the theatre people and I think he went to private school the following year. I didn't even know he persued acting (his bio says he was a cabbie in Victoria when he wa 19-20) but apparantly he was first discovered in Van by Don DeCoteau the homoerotic direct to DVD horror movie director (he's in all three Brotherhood movies, Beastly Boyz, etc). Anyway I hope this is a hit for him.

Isn't Victoria still Canada? LOL

Wow. Any out-of-school stories you can tell?

I really enjoyed this show. A lot. Enough that I was humming Journey and Amy Winehouse this morning. I did not know that the show creator was gay.

That is my one concern about this show. "Glee" clubs still are seen as pretty gay. And with two gay characters on the show (the male singer and, I am assuming, the "Cheerios" coach)...I am worried that this show might NOT hit the mainstream because people will be put off by how gay it is.

Does that make sense?

I didn't care about any of that. I just felt it was an hour of feel-good TV.

I loved it as well. Ryan Murphy has yet to truly disappoint with his shows. He is a true genius in my book. And of course I have a crush on the jock guy, who, and this may be wishful thinking, has major gay face LOL

Gayface? Definitely cute. Vancouver native, sings and dances and is a jock who plays Guitar Hero. Cory Monteith.

I loved it as well. Ryan Murphy has yet to truly disappoint with his shows. He is a true genius in my book. And of course I have a crush on the jock guy, who, and this may be wishful thinking, has major gay face LOL

Wishful thinking . I may have a new favorite, actually. This show!

So, I was a Fame junkie in the 80s. I'll even cop to loving the first High School Musical. And teacher movies do it for me too...Goodbye, Mr. Chips...Dead Poets Society, Up The Down Staircase...oodles of 'em.

What a wonderful show. I enjoyed it thoroughly....humor...withering depiction of adolescent cruelty...and some great toe-tapping singing and dancing.

I've been taping Ryan's Hope and in today's episode, Maeve and Johnny were reading a letter about Jack and Mary's honeymoon in Ireland and Claire Labine was in the Ireland scenes. I very vaguely remember hearing that she was in them, and had long forgotten about it until I saw her. I'm not sure what Paul Avila Mayer looks like - maybe he was in the scenes as well.

I saw a GREAT episode today where Frank (Daniel Hugh-Kelly) LIT INTO Seneca for concealing the fact that Jill's son, Edmund, was really Frank's.

The funny thing is, I can't remember what happened to Edmund in the later years, when they SORASd the kids. Does this mean Edmund died at some point?

In any event, the scene was quite powerful. The lower production values of the time really aren't a major issue, and those scenes had classic soapy music and pregnant pauses. These are important parts of the soap formula.

Some pictures of upcoming episodes... (November/early December 2008)

Vielen Dank!