When Series Break Genre

Article first published as When Series Break Genre on Blogcritics.

Glee shocked many this week, when, in the middle of another goofy choir room scene, shots broke out in the halls of McKinley. For a full 10-minute act, students cowered and cried, terrified for their lives, not sure if they would soon be dead. They made videos to say goodbye to their loved ones, and a teacher even risked his life to save some students.

The fact that it was a false alarm, and no one was hurt, is incidental. For those minutes, viewers sat on the edge of their seats, deeply worried and upset.

This is an excellent hour of television; I am not arguing that. With school shootings and gun violence such a timely issue, Glee spoke to us about a political view that needed to be expressed and heard. It was very well handled, no one had to act out of character, and the resolution was believable.

Yet, as I consider what to write for my forthcoming review of the episode, which will soon be posted on this site, I can't decide whether to congratulate or lambast the show. Glee is a comedy, first and foremost. There is some drama from time to time, a teen pregnancy, a car wreck, but nothing even comes close on the scale to this week's episode. I don't believe it was a stunt done for ratings, not even airing during sweeps. But it does completely break the tone of the series.

Sure, there was a warning at the beginning of the episode, saying there would be disturbing violence. Yet, no hint of any appeared for the first half hour, as the show went on with the light-hearted story lines, and so it was with great surprise that events unfolded.
 
But as good as the installment was on its own, should Glee have broken out of its mold so completely and so startlingly? Parents may let their children watch Glee, and then be surprised when something so dark suddenly happens. Regular viewers may have been looking forward to a bit of fun, only to be shocked into stunned silence. 

Glee is far from the first show to do such a departure from their normal storytelling. I remember watching the beginning of an episode of All in the Family on the morning of September 11th, 2001 in which Archie's wife was raped. I never got to see how it ended, for obvious reasons, but you get the point. This is a long tradition in the television world.

I applaud series that take risks and do something big. Grey's Anatomy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Scrubs are among the shows that have done a musical episode in the past decade or so. Angel had puppets. Community has done both of those and much more.

Yet, sometimes it just doesn't feel right. Felicity may have broken new ground for college dramas when the series made the last five episodes full of magical time travel, being almost completely a typical series before that. But those episodes didn't match the rest of the show, and that can be troubling.

It's one thing for a show like M*A*S*H to go dark, as very early in its run it began dropping in serious subject matter amid the comedy. As the years went by, it naturally grew more dramatic, and became a more serious show. Plus, it was always about war. But it's quite another for Glee to bring gun violence into a series about singing teenagers.

Now, one can argue that school shootings are tragic and horrible and almost always happen with little warning, unexpectedly rocking a world that doesn't deserve or expect to be rocked. That is a valid point, and makes Glee's entry realistic. However, it also shook me to the core and, two days later, I can't stop thinking about it.

Maybe that's a sign of good TV, being memorable and having a true impact. But the fact that I still haven't decided if I liked the occurrence or not is a little unsettling, and not everyone likes to be unsettled by a favorite TV show. So instead, I'm left pondering.

What do you readers think? Are you glad that Glee went there, or do you wish they'd left it alone? Is it ever OK for a series to veer so far off of its normal course, or should it keep pleasing the fans that support it, giving them what they think they want? Does motivation count, with the writers being excused if they do it for the right reasons, to draw attention to an important issue? Feel free to weigh in and discuss in the comments below.

Leverage returns to finish second season

     TNT's hit drama Leverage returns tonight to air the final six episodes of their second season.  When the show first premiered, I likened it to a small screen version of Ocean's Eleven.  Each week a team of ex-crooks pulls off a con against someone that has done wrong and gives it back to the little guy.  High tech Robin Hoods, if you will.  It is one of the most interesting procedurals on television, but because each episode went pretty much the same, per the definition of 'procedural', I gave up watching it midway through season one.

     Recently, Turner sent me a screen of the summer finale from September and the first two episodes of the six about to air.  As it had been awhile since I watched the show, I popped them into the player.  It was as entertaining as I remembered.  Apparently, the first season was sort of like a stand alone miniseries, with an ending, but the team reformed for season two.  However, by the end of the summer episodes, one member of the team, Sophie (Gina Bellman, Coupling), has left.  She is still part of the main cast, and does appear in the premiere, but she is currently being temporarily replaced by her friend Tara, (Jeri Ryan, Star Trek: Voyager, Shark) who was in the summer finale.  Ryan is fantastic, already finding her groove with the rest of the team.  The one problem facing the series, besides coming up with new con ideas each week, is that Ryan is actually quite a bit better than Bellman, and it will be a disappointment when the former concludes her guest run and the latter returns to the show in her previous capacity.

     The rest of the main cast members are fantastic.  Timothy Hutton leads the group as Nate.  He is brilliant at slipping into different characters, and whoever did the original casting did right by the show by putting Hutton in the head seat.  Equally entertaining is Christian Kane (Angel, Close to Home) as Eliot, the muscle of the group.  Nerdy Alec Hardison (Aldis Hodge, Friday Night Lights) and the beautiful, but emotionally stunted Parker (Beth Riesgraf) round out the team.  The end of the season will bring several new escapades, as the group takes on the fashion world, a medium, an Irish loan shark, and in the two part finale, a mayor obsessed with baseball.  Upcoming guest stars, besides Ryan, include Luke Perry and the return of the underrated Mark Sheppard's Sterling, who will help Nate try to get his ex-wife out of a Ukranian prison.

     If you are a fan of procedurals, and haven't discovered the show, it is worth checking out.  Leverage will air the next six Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. on TNT, and a third season, consisting of fifteen episodes, has been ordered.

Bones's Christmas Visitor

     Recently, Fox's Bones went away for 2009, but it ended on a high note.  The biggest story was the guest star appearance of Zooey Deschanel, Emily Deschanel's real life sister, playing Brennan's cousin.  Several characters commented that they "looked like sisters", and this is why.  I make no secret of the fact that of all the celebrities in Hollywood, Zooey is my dream girl, especially after I heard her sing in Elf.  If you aren't familiar with her work, I would recommend checking out her many movies and her album under the band name She & Him, entitled Volume One.  Her appearance as the habitually quoting Benjamin Franklin relative was wonderfully fun, and hopefully she will return to clash with Brennan again.

     The episode, though, was not just about Zooey.  Brennan is finally starting to wake up to reality, and her finding the holiday spirit was certainly a bright spot.  The series started strong and has only gotten better.  Why Emily has not been nominated for anything for playing the brash, blunt Bones remains a mystery.  Her slowly blossoming romance with her partner, Booth (David Boreanaz, Angel) is surely to credit for her softening, and it seems to finally be going somewhere.  This season, Booth has been dealing with his feeling for her, though not actually talking to her about them.  Surely, they feeling is mutual, as Brennan defended him to her cousin, saying she found him "pleasant to look at".  Hopefully, after five season, the wait may almost be over.  Though, I wouldn't hold my breath for it to happen before the end of the season.

     The only complaints I have with the episode deal with two of the supporting characters.  The entire plot where Cam (Tamara Taylor) adopted a daughter has been strained.  It was sort of unrealistic to begin with, and while I applaud the show's writers for giving the character some plot in her personal life, I question the method in which it was done.  Fans were slow to warm up to Cam when she joined the cast in season two, but by this point, she is accepted and deserves a bit more.  Secondly, while Sweets (John Francis Daley, Freaks and Geeks) has been an absolute joy to see added to the cast, his girlfriend Daisy (Carla Gallo, named Daisy as well on Californication), also a welcome addition in the rotating pot of assistants, seemed to loose all character this week.  The abnormally hyperactive woman was kicked out of the program for too much enthusiasm, and this was dealt with in her last appearance, where she earned her way back in.  However, while this episode had much to get to without giving her development, in her sixth appearance she seems totally normal.  This was a mistake, and should it continue, she would no longer be needed or wanted on the show.  Please fix Daisy quickly!