Where Glee Went Wrong

"Why are you reviewing Glee, IGN?!"

"This show stinks! Stop reviewing this crap."

"What?! You review Glee but not 30 Rock? What is wrong with you people?!"

"I hate you all. Except Fowler."

You may have noticed… We're not reviewing Glee anymore. If you want, you can go ahead and assume it's because of your constant complaints that the series was even being covered in the first place. It's true. We stopped because of you. You can stop reading now.

- FOX

More to the point, we stopped reviewing Glee because you actually (mostly) stopped complaining about it. And those of you that actually liked the show, you stopped watching it. You stopped reading about it. It's no coincidence that readership of Glee articles on IGN has dropped along with the viewer ratings of the show itself. Less people are watching it, less people are reading about it and now… less people are writing about it. 

Blame Glee. 

What's important to note is that reviews of Glee on IGN used to actually do very well. We didn't expect to review the show after the first episode or two, but surprise, surprise, the interest was there after all. It was clear many of you were watching the show… and liked it! And so did we. 

Yet here's a series that rocketed to popularity and now wallows in the "Meh" category of weekly viewing. It was a one-of-a-kind choice in primetime: a series that successfully integrated song and dance into an hour of scripted television. Fame did it for six seasons, but that was more than 20 years ago. Glee was easy to love, at first. It was funny. It was dramatic. They sang songs we liked. And it was fresh and new. And then it became popular. Perhaps too popular. Album collections were produced at what seemed like a weekly pace. The cast went on a concert tour. That tour became a 3-D movie spectacular. A spin-off reality series gave contestants a chance to guest star on the series. Glee was everywhere! And we were on Glee overload. 

Of course, this wouldn't have been a problem (or at least not a problem we couldn't have overcome) if the series at the heart of the hype remained strong and/or got better. But it didn't. What was once fresh and new became old and stale… and it's only three seasons in. So what happened? What has pushed the viewers away? How did the series go from appointment television to a months worth of unviewed listings on my DVR? Well, it turned out that Glee didn't really have a story to tell. 

- FOX

"Is this thing on?"

How often can we get wrapped up in whether or not New Directions places at Regionals and gets to Nationals? It's a fine season long goal, but it's not something you can really keep coming back for. Certainly, the writers know this, which is why there's plenty more going on at McKinley. There's on-again/off-again relationships and… off-again/on-again relationships. Who's dating who? Who's marrying who? Who's having whose baby? Over and over and over. Again, this could be fine material. There's plenty of great television that thrived on dating, sex and scandal. But Glee just seems to be rehashing and stumbling over their own stories and characters. 

You either have characters that never change or grow (Rachel,Finn, Schuester) or characters that change week to week (Quinn, Santana, Sue Sylvester). It's hard to stick with a series when characters you're invested in never evolve. Season after season Rachel has been a selfish pain in the ass. And not in a fun, evil kind of way. Just a stupid, selfish character. And we've gotten no payoff. No comeuppance. No change of direction. She doesn't even change her pained facial expression when she sings. 

It's also hard to stick with a series when characters you're invested in are a different person every week. In the past year or so, Quinn has covered being a chain-smoking punk, a vindictive birth mother, a born again Christian, a judgmental best friend, a future Harvard-attending goodie-goodie and a struggling paraplegic. She changes her personality nearly every episode, so that she can (awkwardly) fit into any conflict the writers want to put her into, even if it doesn't match what came before. 

And the music hasn't helped anything. You could say the song choices are the problem, or the obvious theme episodes hinder creativity. But my biggest problem was the presentation. They were either on a stage or in the choir room. It was either a song battle or a heartfelt confession. And that's about it. And more often than not, the songs had only the vaguest tie to the story happening in that episode. 

Simply put, Glee became a struggle to watch. The song performances became trying, the characters remained annoying, the repetitive plots kept repeating. The viewers left the series, the readers left the reviews and IGN stopped covering the episodes week to week. So, for some of you Glee haters out there, you're welcome. You got your wish. We're not reviewing Glee. And for the rest of you that watched the series at first, but have stopped keeping up with it week to week, well… you're probably not even reading this anyway.