Glee, Fox’s newest television series is aimed at a pretty wide audience, but does it miss the mark? This one-hour comedy-drama is this generation’s first musical to make its way to primetime network television, probably following suit of the success of the Emmy Award winning Disney TV movie, High School Musical, as well as Fox’s own American Idol.
Set in Lima, Ohio, Glee tells the story of the students and teachers at William McKinley High School involved in the school’s glee club, whose failing reputation becomes teacher, Will Schuester’s (Matthew Morrison) task to reinvent. Other main characters include cheerleading coach, Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) with whom Schuester has a rivalry; Rachel (Lea Michele), the talented but geeky star of glee club who has a crush on Finn (Cory Monteith), the star quarterback and glee club member; Quinn (Dianna Agron) is a pregnant head cheerleader, Finn’s girlfriend and an eventual member of glee club. The rest of the characters also follow similarly stereotypical high school roles: the sassy black diva, the flamboyant homosexual, the cocky football player, snotty cheerleaders, an unattractive dork who updates a gossip blog, and a paraplegic – cover’s all the bases, right?
Glee attempts to appeal to adult viewers by focusing equal attention on the adult characters in the show as well as the teens.
The first thing question that popped into my mind when I saw the seventh episode (“Throwdown”) was “what has happened to TV?”
At the time, I spoke without thinking, just as a lament of the days of “Good TV” and less Disney-fied teeny-bopping singing and mindless drama, but... but thinking on it now, I realized the deeper thought behind the question: What’s gone on with TV and my generation?
From an television network point of view, you want the most successful show possible for higher ratings. But once you’ve exhausted the most amount of viewers you can get within one target demographic (like perhaps the super successful Idol) then you branch out to getting multiple demographics within one show! Hence, the new age of Glee.
Sure, there was once a time when everyone could get together as a family and watch a show together (think maybe, American Bandstand or even Brady Bunch) but a lot of television these days is based at targets too narrow for the typical American family to enjoy together. Who else would feel awkward to sit down and watch MTV’s Real World with their parents?
Glee is our generations response to the family friendly, combining humor and drama both teens and adults can relate to as well as the blanket of musicals (which, I might, incorporate both current hits and music from our parents’ youth.)
No comments:
Post a Comment