GLEE 1.4 - "Preggers"

WRITER & DIRECTOR: Brad Falchuk
GUEST CAST: Mike O'Malley, Kurt Fuller, Jennifer Aspen, Naya Rivera, Heather Morris & Harry Shum Jr.

[SPOILERS] If there's one thing we're learning about Glee's belief system, it's that every problem can be solved through the medium of song and dance. This week's episode was a return to form after last week's "Acafellas", but I think the show's mix of high school angst, show tunes and soap opera is beginning to lose its immediate appeal to me. It's still fun, but everything seems to be losing whatever tenuous grasp of reality it seemed to have in the "Pilot"; so, while it's still entertaining me, I get the impression Glee's lack of gravitas is going to frustrate me before too long...

In "Preggers", Kurt (Chris Colfer) is caught by his father Burt (Mike O'Malley) dancing to Beyonce's "Single Ladies" in a unitard with two girls, and manages to limit the embarrassment by claiming he's just joined the football team and this counts as training. Kurt's subsequent try-out for the team ("Hi, I'm Kurt Hummel and I'll be auditioning for the role of kicker") to maintain this cover goes surprisingly well, as Kurt proves to have an aptitude for kicking footballs skyward -- provided he can get in the zone by having "Single Ladies" accompany his run-up to the ball! Later, Will (Matthew Morrison) is drafted into the ailing football team to help them win a big match, by persuading them that learning a few dance routines is a great way for performers to loosen up physically.

Meanwhile, Rachel (Lea Michele) is disappointed that Will is favouring Tina (Jenna Ushkowitz) at the glee club over a West Side Story solo, despite the fact he's insisting it's for the greater good of the group's confidence. Sue (Jane Lynch) sees an opportunity to throw a spanner in the works for Will's club, by blackmailing Principal Figgins (Iqbal Theba) with an embarrassing Indian airline anti-DVT instructional video, and forcing him to rehire Sandy (Stephen Tobolowsky) so he can lure Rachel away from glee by giving her the lead in his next play.

Elsewhere, Terri (Jessalyn Gilsig) confides in her friend Kendra (Jennifer Aspen) about her "hysterical pregnancy", and is given the surprising advice to keep up the pretence to her husband Will. Concurrently, cheerleader Quinn (Dianna Agron) breaks the news to Finn (Cory Monteith) that she's pregnant with his baby, although it's obvious to Puck (Mark Salling) that he's the real father.

And, after hearing about this news from Will sometime later, Terri apparently hatches a plot to use Quinn's pregnancy to her advantage -– although I'm a little confused about what she could be planning. Is it really plausible that Terri could fake her pregnancy for nine months, then secretly adopt Quinn's child? Surely she can't go all that time with fake stomach padding and insisting that Will can't see her stomach. Maybe I've misunderstood what Teri's plan might be, or perhaps Glee really is going to take this ridiculous direction. That actually wouldn't surprise me, if it did. This is a show where a squad of tough footballers eventually win their match by bamboozling their rivals with a group rendition of "Single Ladies" before scoring the winning touchdown and kick.

I guess you just have to go with it, but I find it mildly frustrating that Glee doesn't have a slightly more believable feel to its drama. I'd be overjoyed if we had a musical version of Freaks & Geeks set in modern times, but Glee's pitching things at, frankly, a more extreme and ridiculous level. Still, there are some great lines of dialogue (Sue on Sandy's apartment: "Boy, the only thing missing from this place is a couple dozen bodies limed and rotting in shallow graves under the floorboards"), some interesting characters (great to see Quinn getting some attention here), and at least one song in every episode that you'll be humming the next morning (although I thought it was a shame "Single Ladies" wasn't really Glee'd up, just used in the soundtrack.) In fact, I've been a bit disappointed by the song choices of the past few weeks –- I really prefer it when they take pop songs and give them the group vocal treatment (a la "Gold Digger" or "Rehab")

Overall, I guess "Preggers" was ultimately a fun hour that passed an hour and the show's certainly got plenty of pace to it. Maybe it's too fast, actually. There was a great scene towards the end when Kurt "came out" to his father about his homosexuality, which was both tender and amusingly played by the actors, but I'm a little surprised the writers didn't keep that storyline going for awhile longer. I think it would have landed more punch if we'd really grown to know Kurt's dad and felt the extent of Kurt's nerves. Still, a big part of Glee's appeal is how it's taking various US high school clichés and moving past them without much regard, but at this rate the show may find it's used up too many storyline possibilities and has nowhere very interesting to go. As I've said many times before, Glee still doesn't feel like it has much mileage in the concept, but it certainly doesn't help when they have the pedal to the metal –- does it?

25 JANUARY 2010: E4 / E4 HD, 9PM