A Glee-ful Fall

I've tried out several of the new Fall Offerings and I must say...I've found a few winners.  Loving new half hour comedies: Modern Family, Cougar Town and Community.  Enjoying girly, witchy drama Eastwick.  And absolutely LOVING The Good Wife (Carol Hathaway, Logan Huntzberger AND Dan Rydell?  TV Vets should unite more often!) But, the champion of the fall is by far Glee.  Glee is  my favorite new offering by any network for the past several seasons. 
The music!  The music!  The music!  Where else can you hear great renditions of Kanye's Goldigger, Salt n Pepas Push It, Queen's Somebody to Love, Journey's Don't Stop Believing, Rhianna's Take a Bow, Celine Dion's Taking Chances...and this week a pair of pretty excellent Mash Ups - Its My Life/Confessions and Halo/Walking on Sunshine.  Each week, I look forward to the music...far more so than the actual story...but, the story is genuinely quirky and funny.  Sometimes over-the-top, this band of amazingly talented mis-fits are loveable and weird all at once.
Lea Michele and Matthew Morrison are stand outs as the uber-talented, over achieving diva-dork, Rachel Berry (insert Gold Star here) and the high school Glee champ turned Glee Director Mr. Shuester, respectively.  Lea Michele was in Duncan Shieks Spring Awakening on Broadway, which just gave her mad props in book...so she is obviously a singer, dancer - but - she is truly incredible.  I can't believe I get to hear her sing each week for free.  Matthew Morrison is from Broadway too - Tony nominated for A Light in the Piazza  - he's got a great voice - great moves and somehow makes it plausible that Mr. Shue could be so alarmingly in the dark about his own certifiably insane wife.  They aren't the only ones.  Amber Riley (this girls got pipes!), Kevin McHale and Chris Colfer  pretty regularly impress.  Jane Lynch brings the funny as the arch-nemesis of the Glee Club, the cheerleading coach, Sue Sylvester.  Her dead pan delivery  and the characters generally offensive haughtiness make the storylines and quirkiness both funny and believable. And, hey  - Josh Groban has already done a hilarious cameo and Tony (and now) Emmy winner Kristin Chenoweth has guest starred and performed with the Glee club. 

Its obvious I love it when I'm checking I Tunes to see if I can download the latest performances.  And happily, I can - and the show even releases full versions of the songs featured on the show - which just makes me love the show even more.  I am officially in love with this one. Yes, it has been a Glee-ful Fall and I'm looking forward to a Glee-ful Winter.

Some thoughts on Big Brother

Well, the Big Brother season ended a couple of weeks ago, and what happened was significant enough to warrant a late comment, I think.

One of my major beefs with reality television is that every show and season I've watched has rewarded backstabbing, conniving liars.  I'm sure there are exceptions, but I've never seen one!  And that soured me to reality shows.  Something about the person I find the biggest jerk winning a million dollars wasn't rewarding to me, and certainly wasn't worth the investment of time to see it happen.

Then a friend convinced me to watch Big Brother.  And now I find myself tempted to try another one.

Spoilers ahead, but it's been long enough I don't even think that warning is necessary.

The final two people were Natalie and Jordan.  Natalie, the youngest person there, a member of the Athlete clique.  Jordan, the pretty yet fairly emptyheaded member of the Popular clique.  Natalie latched on to the early games strongest player, Jesse, and rode his coattails for quite a while.  Jordan latched on to the mid games strongest player, Jeff, and managed to stay completely under the radar.

At the end of the show, some of the eliminated contestants had to vote on who won the money.  And this is where I ended up a very happy fellow.  At the very beginning of the show, Natalie had lied about her age, claiming to be 19 when she was really in her early 20s.  She did this as a way to garner sympathy votes.  As the "jury house" of eliminated contestants got to speaking, it came out that Natalie had lied.  And her former allies became rather irritated with her.  In the end, I think that lie more than anything was the deciding factor in Jordan winning.

And that's why I was so happy.  Jordan had been mostly honest and upfront, sweet and easy to get along with.  I had her pegged to get voted out in the first 4 rounds.  Natalie had a plan, she fooled her fellow contestants from the very beginning, and played your standard reality show underhanded, me-first game.  But Jordan won.  And what seemed to be the biggest factor was a lie told on the first day.

Can reality television have a rewarding payoff?  Can the nice guys finish first?  They did this time.  And that means at least one other show will get my viewership this season.  Let's hope it can happen again.

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