On Glee

Okay, so I'm going to take us a little lighter on this one, because it's been a day, and sometimes we need to be taken a little lighter, and besides I can't resists an opportunity to sing the praises of Glee.

Glee is, of course, for people who love bubblegum dramedy with plenty of random-ass bursting into song. I've really enjoyed watching the character progressions--becoming increasingly annoyed with (and unsympathetic to) Rachel, getting kind of tired of the way every song Finn sings starts to sound the same, enjoying the real growth and depth of storyline for Puck and Quinn--and although I know [SPOILER!] Puck declared his love for Quinn during the season finale,[/SPOILER] I'm still kind of hoping he and Mercedes get back together.

But when I heard recently that Glee was considering an all-Britney Spears episode, I sighed and rolled my eyes. Did I love their all-Madonna episode? Did I ever. Life is meaningless until you've seen Jane Lynch do Sue Sylvester do Madonna. Did I raise an eyebrow a bit at their all-Lady Gaga episode? Yeah, kind of, since they'd done the Madonna episode so recently and it was in danger of getting gimmicky. But I did like their rendition of "Bad Romance" (although "Poker Face" sucked enthusiastically. Sit down, Rachel Berry).

And now another single-artist episode? I've made no secret of my recent unexplainable advocacy for Britney Spears, and her music can be really peppy and energizing for cleaning house. But an entire episode of Britney Spears, show-choir style, is going to get old. And cheap--when your episode is about emotional honesty or openmindedness, you're hunting through the entire catalog of popular music to assemble the perfect show. When your episode is about Britney Spears, you're hunting through... six, and only three and a half of them are any good. It's the challenge of putting together a mix CD that's just the Rolling Stones.

So here we go, Glee: I'm looking past the fact that Rachel is getting really annoying and I don't care about her relationship with her [SPOILER!]birth mother[/SPOILER]. I'm looking past the fact that Finn makes a really dumb face when he sings that he probably thinks is just earnest. I'm looking past the fact that over time, you've started squishing the Very Special Message of the episode into the last anvilicious five minutes, easing down the slippery slope into a Saturday-morning-cartoon "knowing is half the battle" recap. And I'm looking past the fact that of late, you're saying you're doing mashups when what you're really doing is medleys.

But despite all of that, I love you, and it's because of that love that I say this:

Leave Britney alone.