Lip-sunk

Why ‘Glee’ ain’t what it used to be

October 26, 2010|Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff

What’s the story, “Glee’’? Or, more accurately, where is the story? Fox’s Tuesday night musical hit has all but chucked out story line this year, in favor of weekly lessons in tolerance, love, God, and big-time pop-artist promotion. The creators have turned their show from a sweet, twisted teen melodrama honoring the power of music into a slick soapbox-jukebox with one eye on TV ratings and the other on record sales.

Yup, I’m terribly disappointed in “Glee,’’ since it has become such a shrieky sensation. I certainly don’t mind finding a message buried in a TV series; I suppose that every show is bent around some point of view. The “Seinfeld’’ writers were committed to “no learning,’’ but their satirical thinking about urban narcissism shone through nonetheless. And I like much of what “Glee’’ stands for; it was saying “It Gets Better’’ before that became a catchphrase in response to teen-bullying suicides. The show, tonight at 8, has a good heart when it comes to issues of acceptance and diversity.

But “Glee’’ has given up on any semblance of subtlety and storytelling art. At this point, the show is a collection of Big Learning Scenes, written to give the songs some vague narrative sense. I laugh at many of the comic lines — dumb Brittany, for instance, telling wheelchair-bound Artie she’d never made eye contact with him because “for a while I thought you were a robot.’’ But the scripts rarely move anything significant forward. The dialogue doesn’t develop character so much as hammer it home. Almost every line that comes out of Rachel’s mouth is, essentially, “I am a diva — oh, and I am also a diva. I guess I shouldn’t be such a diva.’’ The writing is an afterthought on “Glee,’’ once the big theme and the songs have been chosen.

Indeed, song choice has become king on “Glee’’ as soundtrack sales have begun to break records. A few weeks ago, “Glee’’ became bigger than the Beatles on the Billboard charts, with 75 charting singles beating out the Beatles’ 71. The promotion for the show is now all about which artist’s oeuvre is going to be celebrated — Madonna, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears (whose music inspired one of the series’ most nonsensical episodes so far). Rumors of a post-Super Bowl Springsteen episode have faded, but a Taylor Swift hour may be in the works. In this way, “Glee’’ comes off like a scripted “American Idol,’’ which also has single-artist episodes and has made a mega-industry out of cover tunes.