Six

I guess you've heard of Glee. If you've ever been around at least one 15-year-old girl, or one 28-year-old guy (yeah, I don't get that, either), then you most certainly have. And if you know about the show, then you probably know that they have the second most obnoxious fanbase out there.

Until last Friday, I considered myself to be sitting on the lowest rung of that scary collective. That is no longer.

What do we blame? We blame "The Power of Madonna."

Background you don't care about: I stinking hate Madonna. Yeah, her songs are "catchy." Yeah, her style was cool. Whatever. I don't care. I don't like her. (And Desperately Seeking Susan was so bad that I couldn't watch more than 45 minutes of it. Sorry.)

For some reason, Ryan Murphy and his gang of gal pal writers thought that people my age and younger/very slightly older idolized Madonna. They also thought a lot of other stupid things that they deserve to be slapped for: they thought they knew what was a satire was. They thought they knew what a capella was. They thought they knew that it's totally cool to leave the toilet seat up in the bathroom. (FYI, it's not. At all. So put that seat down before I jam it up a place it shouldn't go...yeah, no, I won't do that. But please, I appeal to you, put that toilet seat down. Do you know how many animals die from falling into the toilet each day? MILLIONS. Yeah. Think about that.)

In actuality, they knew nothing. I was enticed by Glee at first by the happy-go-lucky musical numbers by some truly good singers and the promise of satire. I was let down, again and again. For thirteen weeks in a row, I was let down. Those musical numbers? Yeah, they weren't even live. They were overproduced and Auto-Tuned so much that even T-Pain would cry from the sheer faux perfection. That satire? Excuse me, what satire? How is this supposed to be the anti-High School Musical, again? Oh, because you have like fifteen pregnant characters? Oh, that's original! Oh, because the obviously gay kid actually comes out of the closet? Oh, that's original! (Even more original is that the fat black girl with the awesome voice, yet another innovation by the Glee creators, fell in love with him because she COULDN'T TELL HE WAS GAY. YEAH. THAT WOULD TOTALLY HAPPEN, RYAN MURPHY. TOTALLY. And when he came out of the closet, he cried and acted as if NO ONE COULD TELL. SERIOUSLY GUYS. ROUND OF APPLAUSE.) Oh, because the high school sophomores are played by some blatantly obvious 28-year-olds? Have you seen Dawson's Creek, Ryan Murphy? How old did you think they were? 16? HA. FUNNY.

 Oh, is this another example of your winning satire, Glee gang? Oh, that's just precious.

The show is not tongue-in-cheek. The show is a teen drama. All of the good reviews it gets are by people who want so badly for it to be good that they read all of this (melo)drama crud into it. I mean, dear god, people. Really? "Glee is one of the darkest shows on television. When Rachel sings 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' to herself with her hairbrush, it really shows how lonely she is inside; in fact, it may even be a metaphor for the suicidal tendencies she will most definitely soon display in an upcoming episode, and it gives her some great characterization and emotional depth." NO. NO. THE GIRL IS SINGING WITH A HAIRBRUSH. SHE IS NOT PROUST. SHUT UP. 

Why the heck do you hire Lea Michele and Matthew Morrison if they're NOT EVEN GOING TO SING LIVE? Oh, because you want those stupid little girls who are going to buy the songs off iTunes later to be able to hear the exact same song? WHO CARES? Obviously Ryan Bleeding Murphy cares more about his brand than his integrity. But then again, WHAT STINKING INTEGRITY? THIS IS THE GUY WHO MADE THE SHOW ABOUT PLASTIC SURGERY GUEST-STARRING ROSIE O'DONALD.

Despite the overproduction, the music is the best part of the show. But is that saying much? Because the writing is horrible, the editing makes me want to punch babies, the acting is sub-par, the smugness, the self-righteousness, the awkwardness, everything ignites a fire in me. A FIRE THAT BUUUURNS. This fire is outta control -- wait, this is not the time to be singing that.

So, what does Madonna have to do with me going from enjoying this show, despite pointing out its very obvious and numerous flaws, to hating it so much that I am forced to write a long and angry post punctuated with obnoxious capitalization? Because last week they showed "the" Madonna episode. Yes, as if every show worth its weight in anything needs a Madonna-centric episode. And the Madonna episode was probably the worst episode I have seen of this show so far. In fact, it's one of the worst episodes I've seen of any show this year. And I watch The Office on a regular basis! (Oh, snap. If you want to hear me rant about that show, then you'll have to give me another good three hours. We'll save that for another day.)

But first, the good. Um. Jonathan Groff was there. I love Jonathan Groff. I mean, he was pretty bad, but just the fact that he was there was nice. Um, the 4 Minutes scene was pretty awesome? Yeah. That's kind of it.

The bad? Um, does "everything else" count? Sue Sylvester just isn't that funny. That "Vogue" scene was sososososososo bad I can't even begin to explain it. The "Like a Virgin" scene? No. No. No. NO ONE DOES THAT. NOT EVEN IN DREAM SEQUENCES. And they tried to make that scene so "powerful," so interesting, but really, it wasn't. It was so painful for me to watch that whatever sad poignance it was supposed to have was totally lost on me.

This show just tries to do too much in too short of a time. It tries so hard. It's like that annoying girl in your tenth grade Earth Science class who is like, "Yeah, I do this, this, and this, and I'm awesome, and I'm so good at everything I do, because I do a lot and that makes me awesome and yeah and stuff and um, crud, do we have a test today, because I totally did not study, like, at all" and then they go and they suck at everything they try to do, and you would applaud them for their effort if they weren't so annoying, and then you have to be fake friends with them because you don't want to be mean and then you go and you take to your little blog and you go and you rant like crazy and everyone has no choice but to agree with you because you are so irritated. Yeah. It's exactly like that.

Glee. It's definitely not as bad as that show I saw once on ABC after Modern Family, The Middle, but what makes it so irritating to me is that people seem to be oblivious to its flaws. People can't watch it with a true unbiased eye because of the sparkly magic power of MUSIC by "HIGH SCHOOLERS" who are SO VERY DIVERSE. I mean, there's even a dude in a WHEELCHAIR SINGING! HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE 'EM?

Well, for me, I find it very easy. Try to watch that Madonna episode because it was really, really bad. I can't talk too much about it because my arm is starting to hurt and I might have to bite it off soon if I keep typing. Maybe the show will pick up, but personally, I doubt it, and I don't even know if I want to stick around to see if it does. I'll probably wait out Jonathan Groff's guest appearance and then just cut ties with this machine. Glee's on tonight (Tuesday) at some time that I can't remember on FOX if you care to check it out for yourself.