TV Blog: The best (and worst) of the week's telly

I’ve always been conflicted when it comes to musicals. The I’m-a-cynical-mediatype-don’t-cha-know in me rails against all things sentimental yet my soppy side still believes that all life’s problems would disappear if only we could give voice to our hopes and fears through spontaneous yet perfectly choreographed song and dance routines. That E4’s latest US import Glee (Monday, E4, 9pm) manages to reconcile these opposing forces goes a long way towards explaining its phenomenal success. By blending the cheesiness of High School Musical with the satire of Saved!, the show manages to hit both demographics by being perky and arch in equal measure. 

Set in a macho, straight-laced mid American high school Glee centres on the misfits (and token conflicted Jock) that make up the school’s choir. The show wins points for putting its outsider teens centre stage and also for subverting the plotting of US teen drama with some neat twists but, so far at least, comes up a little short. It suffers from the curse of many an American show; the casting of too many twenty somethings as teenagers, neutering the appeal of the show being about ‘real’ kids (at times it’s hard to tell the difference between the pupils and the staff.) More seriously it is not nearly as pacey, campy or funny as its trailers suggest and while aiming for the bite of the above mentioned Saved!, it badly misses. Deconstructing the religious right is… well… right, but doing so without drawing its proponents to in anyway resemble real people undermines the drama the situation throws up. 

So Glee still leaves me conflicted. I like the show it could be but I’m colder towards what has actually materialised. It’s not bad, nay in places it’s very good; it's early days yet but so far it’s not quite worth all the song and dance that’s being made about it. 

Glee is available to rewatch on 4od as of Sunday 17 January.