Friday, November 20, 2009

Friday Free-for-All: Musical shows

My favorite new show this season is Glee, which is consistently entertaining despite the presence of two utterly, utterly stupid pregnancy plotlines. (I'm coming around on the Quinn/Finn pregnancy, but I still think it was a bad story to do so early in the run. There is NO redeeming value in the Terri pregnancy, or Terri as a character, though.)

Impressively, the show seems to be popular despite the fact that musical shows have rarely caught on. Either you get examples like the Jamie Waters drama The Heights, which managed to produce a Top 10 hit in "How Do You Talk to an Angel" but still tanked in the ratings. Remember it? Sure you do!



Gotta love how quickly that band jam session comes together. And could that long-haired guitar player BE more 90s? Man, everything about this screams "cheesy."

And who could forget Cop Rock? I couldn't decide which of these clips was more cringeworthy so I had to post both.



2 comments:

  1. The difference is in the timing. Feature musicals have been making their way back for the last few years, and then the tweens all went loopy for High School Musical. Add to that the popularity of musical episodes of shows, like the Buffy Musical phenomena... it was just a matter of time, I think.

    When The Heights and Cop Rock came out, I don't remember any resurgence of the musical genre in mainstream culture. A few years ago Hugh Jackman attempted a Las Vegas style semi-musical tv show with Viva Laughlin, but a) that wasn't advertised as a musical so it didn't reach the right audience, b)my assumptions are it wasn't really tween friendly, and c) if it was anything like the show it was based off of, Blackpool, it's an awkward show to begin with.

    Also, shows based around High School are popular regardless. They have a high success rate, I think.

    And I think it's pretty awesome Terri is such an awful woman. I'm getting tired of her baby story though, it needs to progress. Maybe now that the Quinn/Finn/Puck story line moved, so will Terri's.

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  2. Was the TV show Fame considered a musical?

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