Edgy

Glee is still finding its way, and last night’s episode was a step backwards in some ways, forwards in others. They’re already having problems figuring out how to sustain the tone of the pilot or even the rules that govern the musical numbers; they’re getting close to doing full-fledged musical numbers that go beyond the boundaries of “real-life” performance, and I would not be at all surprised if people are breaking into song in the street by the time the season is over. Though one way or another, they’ll have to improve the lip-synching, an important part of any filmed musical (it’s not usually possible to do an elaborate musical number without singing to playback). I don’t know if it’s the lip-synching or the sound recording, which gives no suggestion of the acoustic of wherever they happen to be performing the number, but they simply don’t give the feeling that they’re doing these numbers in the room. (This is a very common problem on TV shows that do musical numbers. There’s no time to mix the sound of the song to really match the dialogue, so the dialogue and music wind up sounding like they were recorded in completely different rooms — which they were.)