SOUND OFF: GLEE Goes Back To School

GLEE is back! With a bevy of big Broadway anthems in tow - including HAIRSPRAY'S "You Can't Stop The Beat", ANNIE GET YOUR GUN'S "Anything You Can Do", the Barbra Streisand version of "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead" from THE WIZARD OF OZ by Harold Arlen, and, a song culled from a show currently in a hit revival playing eight times a week on Broadway, Cole Porter's title song from ANYTHING GOES - last night's GLEE was a Broadway baby's perfect first day back to school. If all of that wasn't enough, Darren Criss even got a chance to tear up a jive-talkin' Tom Jones hit, "It's Not Unusual"! The musical quotient was exceedingly satisfying, without a doubt, yet what about the rest of the night's proceedings? Will Season Three and the final season for a handful of New Directions' best assets - and two of the show's finest performers, Lea Michele and Chris Colfer - spell disaster come this time next Fall if they do not return or star in the proposed spin-off? What do Ryan Murphy and co. have up their sleeves to satiate the sticky situation and appease the legions of fans? And, furthermore, will the powers-that-be make right on their promise to bring the main players into even sharper focus this season with revealing storylines and further developed relationships? While we still have more than twenty episodes to find out all of that and a whole lot more, the kick-off episode, "The Purple Piano Project", came through in a resplendent rainbow of colors on its lofty promise. The long-awaited return of Tony-winner Idina Menzel as Rachel Berry's absentee mom next week, launching a season-long arc, will only up the dramatic ante - not to say musical stakes - and make GLEE an even more winning bet than it already is, as was clear to see last night even just judging from the fun and touching premiere ep itself!

Taste The Rainbow, Glee-otch

Shot out of a canon, the first few minutes of the premiere episode of GLEE filled in any and all dramatic blanks in a machine-gun shot succession of scenes re-introducing all of the major characters and setting the stakes for the rest of the third season. For those naysayers who complain about GLEE's story-telling (or lack thereof) and how it seems to be constantly juggling too much at once almost all of the time, the opening minutes of the show offered a well-structured and effective entrée back into the weird, wild, wacky and wonderful world of GLEE acting on all axes. With the instant acknowledgement in the camera verita student-shot footage outwardly stating who is a senior and who is a junior and the graduation topic being broached almost immediately - as well as a seemingly post-coital look at Will and Emma (never Wemma)'s ever-developing romance and, now, relationship; as well as the establishment of Sue Sylvester's nefarious gubernatorial plans - Ryan Murphy and the writers (now an entire staff as opposed to a small group as the endless title credits sequence made clear) have assuredly already gotten themselves a few steps ahead of the game (and the audience) and firmly established a distinct new rhythm and evermore-expediated pace in this premiere episode. If the rest of Season Three follows course and has fewer lapses into every-episode-recreation and a pervasive variety show vibe, as it unquestionably exhibited for many episodes last season whether intentionally or otherwise (in some cases - like the tribute episodes to ROCKY HORROR, RUMOURS and such - such styling is justifiable and, in many respects, necessitated anyway), it should be GLEE at its best. While Ryan Murphy productions are always an ever-moving and ever-changing kaleidoscope - remember when NIP/TUCK completely changed course in Season Five? - this season purports to be the new character-driven and story-derived GLEE we have all been anxiously waiting for, coming complete with a generous helping of the back-stories for all the characters that we have grown to love and want to know more about in the last few years.

GLEE is an ever-changing rainbow with a multitude of hues, yet it is always brought together by the strong performances and musical numbers - last night's episode being a prime example of the GLEE machine firing on all axels, just as a premiere episode should do - especially on an energy-driven enterprise such as this. This rainbows burns as bright and bold as ever - maybe brighter.

While the first musical number did not arrive until more than a quarter of the way into the show (quite a bit after the first commercial break), it was more than well-worth the wait given its delivery. As is often the case with GLEE, the musical number in question has been available to see online for almost a week and it is a respectful recreation of the infectious 80s pop rocker by The Go-Gos, "We Got The Beat". While one wishes there was a way that another musical number could have found its way into the show in the first twenty minutes, somehow, the creators clearly found it necessary to set all of the dramatic wheels in motion and not fall prey to the cluttered-and-colorful format of Season Two, which almost always focused heavily on the music above story.

Yet, above all else - and so very appreciably so - in perhaps more than any episode in recent memory - certainly compared to the modern-sound-heavy second season; if not ever - the musical emphasis of this episode was largely on the great musical theatre songs of the past and present - with a little bit of everything for everyone to sample and enjoy.

What a set-list! With a song from a time-honored and beloved old-school show that is currently in revival on Broadway, we have the eponymous song from ANYTHING GOES, composed by one of the finest musical theatre songwriters of all time (and in American history, in any genre, for that matter), the one and only Cole Porter. While Sutton Foster regretfully did not make an appearance or receive a shout-out, the mash-up of the ANYTHING GOES song with the beloved Irving Berlin duet "Anything You Can Do" from ANNIE GET YOUR GUN resulted in an unexpectedly effective and innovative musical moment, to say the very least - coming from a brand new glee group, no less. Rachel Berry's aggressive aping of Barbra Streisand's material throughout the seasons (and before in Berry's story, for sure) is constantly mentioned on the show, so it seems almost destiny that Lea Michele should take on one of Barbra's classic re-imaginings of a song from the Great American Songbook - and Hollywood history - in the hotly anticipiated return from hiatus that GLEE delivered upon in spades. So, in this instance, we were thankfully treated to a duet version of "Ding, Dong, The Witch Is Dead" from THE WIZARD OF OZ, aided in inimitable fashion by Chris Colfer (and returning to the Kurt/Judy and Lea/Barbra theme of the "Duets" episode in Season Two, one of the many highlights of the show's history and also directed by last night's helmer, 80s star Eric Stoltz). Bringing a taste of modern Broadway into the mix at the tail end, an incredibly impressive version of the heart-stopping final song from HAIRSPRAY was given a new and exciting arrangement led off by a slow solo vocal by Ms. Michele - and an oddly befitting new context, to boot. It was euphoric.  Heck, we even got an out-of-tune iteration of "Hey, Big Spender" from SWEET CHARITY as a Broadway-themed bonus! It was a theatre love's trove and one of the most theatre-heavy episodes of GLEE ever.

Speaking of the show's true treasures, Darren Criss continued to exhibit why he may be the very best of all the many GLEE goldmines ever unearthed, and, at that,  in just a mere handful of scenes - the interaction between Criss and Colfer is always masterfully played and it actually seems to have found an even richer resonance and maturity so far in the glimpses of them together this season - as was amply evident in his simple, delightful take on the groovy Tom Jones come-hither tune, "It's Not Unusual". While it will be a peril of Season Three that the winning members of THE GLEE PROJECT will be making sporadic appearances, tonight's introduction of one such individual was relatively painless, for whatever that's worth. New Directions are the priciple reason we watch GLEE, so the emphasis on those students of McKinley High over everything else is oh-so enjoyable to experience - no offense to Will, Emma, Sue and company. Let's hope that trend continues.

While the visual apotheosis of night unquestionably resides with the purple piano on fire followed Blaine's full-fledged, full-out, knock-out song-and-dance-man take on "It's Not Unusual", there were many other memorable moments that shall linger long after last night. Other highlights of the night included Rachel and Kurt's scenes together relating to the NYADA and that club's unexpectedly awesome and amusing performance of the aforementioned ANYTHING GOES/ANNIE GET YOUR GUN mash-up; Quinn's sea-change and her involvement with "the Skanks" and Rachel's appearance beneath the bleechers; Mercedes and her new boyfriend, LaMarcus; Blaine's red pants, yellow sunglasses and checkerboard bowtie; Santana and Brittany's consistent and constant hilarity; Puck doing push-ups on the lunch table and the ensuing food fight; and, of course, Sue's dismantlement of the donated piano and overall arch, debauched devilry that seems ready to explode in upcoming episodes. The two wraparound scenes of the morning routine of the currently-cohabitating Will and Emma revealed the complexity of their tenuous relationship in and elegant and graceful manner - always about to crossover into camp, as is the case with the vast majority of the characters and plotlines and, frankly, many moments, on the show. Next week's preview revealing Idina Menzel's reappearance surely clues us into the fact that we have not seen the last of Shelby's hot-and-cold relationship with Will, nor the baby she adopted that was parented by Quinn and Puck in Season One. Plus, we can look forward to the school's production of the famous Leonard Bernstein/Arthur Laurents/Stephen Sondheim WEST SIDE STORY, with Sondheim himself getting a mention in last night's episode for those paying close attention to all the golden one-liners.

As Rachel pleadingly related to Quinn in one of the episode's finest scenes when urging her to re-join the Glee club and shorn herself of her pink locks and punk attitude, so apparently goes the third season of GLEE itself - "We're like a family and this is our year to get it right." This was a really fantastic start, for sure. Let us hope that the rest of the season will follow suit and show all the many colors, textures and hues GLEE, at its best, is capable of achieving.

Let's hope we find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow by the end of the season.