While I struggled to find a narrative format to talk about being a supportive husband a father in the three phases of pregnancy (prepartum, partum, and postpartum), I'm gonna go on a small rant about Kayla's "power pumping" show that I so graciously let her put on the TV while milk is sucked out of here boobs for an hour: Glee.

My first encounter with Glee was actually when the show got caught stealing Jonathan Coulton's version of Baby Got Back in an episode without attribution. All I really knew about the show itself was that it fit into the vein of High School Musical-like media happening at the time. Even now, it seems like a really strange and extremely niche genre of entertainment. Schools where you're in danger of getting caught up in a flash mob at any moment? Hard pass.

While this notion is not entirely off the mark, this show is full of so much more fuckery than I ever could've imagined. To set the scene before I add my commentary, the main plot is about a high school glee club trying to win nationals and avoid being dissolved by admin. Honestly, though, calling that the main plot is almost a stretch because there's so much other shit going on.

The Characters

Holy god, where to start. I think it's best to compare the characters in this show to something like Seinfeld or Always Sunny; shows whose core conceits revolve around a cast of characters that are iredeemably bad. But in the case of those shows, that's where the comedy comes from. The characters are comically awful and do comically awful things and are never painted as having the potential to improve. We're laughing at them, never with them.

In Glee, pretty much every character is self-centered and awful, but we're supposed to sympathize with the plights of these people. That's ignoring the fact that these people commit multiple felonies per episode. In the pilot, the teacher in charge of the fledgling glee club, the show's main character blackmails a student into joining his club by planting weed on said student. His wife pretends to be pregnant, going so far as blackmailing her OB/GYN into perpetuating this lie. The other main teacher - who is in a hell-bent war with glee club teacher - racks up a very long rap sheet that (partially) includes: physically assaulting students, tripping another teacher down a flight of stairs, being insanely bigoted right out in the open, and blackmailing the school's principal by roofie-ing him and either banging him or just staging photos of such an event. (THERE'S SO MUCH BLACKMAIL IN THIS SHOW!) But, we're shown she has a soft spot for people with downs syndrome because her sister has downs and she cares for her. Sorry, way too little, way too late.

Keep in mind that these are the ADULTS of the show. There's another dozen students that are also mains that I won't bother to cover. They're bad, but less so? I suppose that any of them are allowed to get away with their shit honestly probably falls back on the shoulders of the adults.

The Story / Music

You can't really separate these two items from each other: the music is really the tail wagging the story dog. Every bit of story is set up so that an episode can cram as many musical sequences in as possible, regardless of their merit to anything that's actually happening. I think what really bothers me the most, though, is how convoluted the story can get, while also being forgetful of its own rules. This is a show trying to operate like a long running serial, but have the amnesiac consequences of something episodic. Things that should have long lasting impact may never be completely resolved and quickly forgotten by the next episode, but there will be a confusing back and forth of the balance of power that persists for most of the show. Honestly, the storylines that revolve around the glee club are the biggest offenders of this. They can't keep their shit straight, they don't follow any kind of real world logic, and it's just a huge mess. The character driven storylines are an improvement, like Mr. Glee's wife and her fake pregnancy, or the teenage actual pregnancy of one of the students. These are fairly well presented, if not totally bonkers in some cases. To the point of pregnancy, I don't believe a single writer on this show has ever been an expectant parent. Having been in that world very right now, it hurt to watch "oh, I just found out I'm pregnant after having sex last week and IT'S A GIRL". No... I understand you're working on a compressed timeline within the confines of a show, but no. It doesn't work that way.

I think the broken logic is what really gets my goat. The glee club is in a constant battle for more funds, which supposedly they have paltry amounts of. AND YET they'll have five costume changes per episode for whatever random number they're throwing in on whatever locale. People seem to move about various locations (including into locations they shouldn't have regular access to, like other schools) with little regard for how that would work in a real-world timeline. It's like watching Star Trek '09 all over again; my brain gets hyper focused on the narrative contradictions and it just hurts after a while.

The Musical Numbers

They're a'ight. The band does a good job of mimicking the sound of the songs being covered, but the vocal performances are just too clean. They're good, just... vanilla and bland.

Conclusion

Do I hate this show? No. Do I enjoy it? Maybe? It's frustrating for all the reasons of logic and shitty character I've mentioned, but it's like watching a well produced draatic train wreck. (Seriously, the budget on this show had to be insane). It's enjoyable enough to watch with my wife as our child sustaining sustenance is sucked from her body. There are worse things I could watch, I guess.

Off-hand I can't think of any, but I'm sure there's something.