SOUND OFF SPECIAL EDITION: GLEE, The Broadway Bowl

With the biggest budget in the history of the mega-hit GLEE - all-too-befitting of the post-Super Bowl expectation-heavy extravaganza, whatever the network or entity - how did the highly-awaited return of the hottest show on TV fare in its raptly anticipated - making the most vociferous among the gleeks near-rapacious - super-duper Sunday special edition and how did it score across the board? How does it measure up to the massively successful Season One and the best of the best of the rest? What about side-by-side with Season Two? See why "The Sue Sylvester Shuffle" was a Super Bowl stunner or a lamentable loser of a let-down in this play-by-play recap of the biggest (ostensibly) Broadway-related event of 2011 - at least until the Tony Awards in the Spring; not counting SPIDER-MAN (but that isn't a "musical" anyway, right?). See who scored big and see if anyone fumbled - and who, at the end of the game, made the stadium truly rock.

At The Whistle's Sounding

More hits than misses. More fireworks than blanks. More, rather than less. That's the second season of GLEE in a nut shell. While the topmost thrills perhaps haven't yet ascended to the heights of some of Season One's highest highs - such as "Don't Rain On My Parade", "A House Is Not A Home/One Less Bell To Answer" and "Poker Face", to name the top three musical moments from the latter half of the freshman year - there have been more than one show's fair share of remarkable - and, some would say, unforgettable - moments. Surely, "Britney/Brittany" and "The Rocky Horror GLEE Show" are among the Top Ten episodes ever - yet, what about some of the more introspective and emotional episodes that marked the reason many became so attached and invested in the lives of the characters, and the way they express themselves through song on the show, in the first place? The "Duets" episode achieved that heady mix of angst and adulation of the arts - at their essential, most magnetically, addictively attractive, even to an outsider - which is the closest thing to the simply beautiful synergy the show has sporadically achieved in small doses up until now. As with all things - and as far as GLEE in general goes - you just gotta take the good with the bad. Besides, there are always moments of glorious, camp-meets-compassionate drama/comedy that only exist in the world of Ryan Murphy - that risibly moving, thrillingly cliché, ironically sincere universe - that always make the curiosity factor, implicit in "What will he do next?", uniquely high - which is a trait that kept millions tuning in to FX for eight years of NIP/TUCK, by the way. Tonight's "The Sue Sylvester Shuffle" had all of those appealing - and, to coin a new term, applause-able - attributes that have made the highlights of Season Two so far shine so blisteringly bright in the wasteland of TV - and Broadway, for that matter - today. The aforementioned "Duets" episode; the marriage ceremony of Kurt & Finn's parents and the celebration afterwards; anytime Darren Criss and the Warblers appear; and, Lea Michele's "What I Did For Love" - to cite but a few examples of the must-see moments - all have made GLEE 2.0 well worth watching - though that is not to say a few regrettable fumbles and all-too-foreseeable foibles didn't muck it all up momentarily, as has been the case this season much more than it was in the consistently strong 1.0. By any bet, Ryan Murphy and company delivered on at least three out of four quarters with this spectacular and surefire audience-friendly GLEE post-Bowl game-plan, as plotted to please as it may have played out to all of us watching at home. But, really, was it a complete and total, no-holds-barred blaze of glory or a minor glory massacre compared to everything else out there right now? Really more than the rest - or, to be honest, slightly less than the very best?

Breaking down the highs and the lows, right off the bat - or, in this case, right at the whistle - "The Sue Sylvester Shuffle" scored a solid, smoldering - literally - starter, in the form of an over-the-top cheer-meets-parkour production number set to Katy Perry and Snoop Dogg's "California Gurls". Fire whips, spark-shooting bikinis and scores of scantily-clad cyanic-coiffed cheerleaders are a definite way to grab the attention of the non-GLEE crowd, crass as it may at-first seem to wallow in such frivolity. But, it's not just for thrills. Sometimes you just have to - quoth Sue S. - "slap yourself with a chicken cutlet." Balk? Bawk Bawk. Yet, the moments of gritty realism - no, no, really: just look at the Colfer/Max Adler bullying story-line this season and how it is handled; or the stormy, final Matt Morrison/Jessalyn Gilsig scenes from last season - amidst the requisite pop songs, theatrical set-pieces, solo moments and laugh-out-loud, refreshingly edgy comedy are what make GLEE really resonate in 2011 like few shows do - if any at all - airing on mainstream, national TV in the US. Chris Colfer and Jane Lynch aren't the first openly gay actor and actress to accept Golden Globes for the same show in the same season by a mere coincidence - which prompts the proffering of perhaps the most invaluable asset of all when it comes to the GLEE universe: the cast. Make that: the cast and the casting. There's a reason to the rhyme of why two years ago none of these actors were on any entertainment radar besides that of Broadway fans. Yet, now, eight names have ensconced themselves on the entertainment landscape entirely through the power of this platform - after all, it‘s so much more than a mere TV show. Indeed, to call it a TV show in this day and age is to undermine the magnitude of the influence of GLEE on pop culture - and culture itself. Who or what else but GLEE could bring an old Journey song or "Vogue" back to the charts on iTunes? And what about its place in the "It Gets Better" campaign legacy? Don't underestimate the power of GLEE.

Since Season One, the wonderful world of GLEE has grown and expanded in many marvelously appreciable ways, the least of which is the addition of two simply stupendous young, up-and-coming talents of the highest order - I am speaking, of course, of the endlessly likeable and golden-haired (and voiced) Chord Overstreet; and the crown jewel of the treasure trove of talent discovered by the Wizard of GLEE himself, Ryan Murphy - the dulcet-toned and astonishingly dazzling and, in a word: riveting, Darren Criss. "Bills, Bills, Bills" is so idiosyncratic and untouchable in its original Destiny's Child, Beyonce-led iteration that the simple fact Darren Criss even pulled it off at all would be applaud-able (there's that new word again, but with talent like this sometimes old terms just don't satisfactorily suffice), but he made it better and more dynamic. Without giving away all of the dramatic implications, the gender-reversal - and, in this case, sexuality-reversal - casts a whole new hue on the bright and bouncy pop allure of the late-nineties ladies' empowerment anthem. Darren Criss just makes anything he does shoot into the stratosphere, all told. Bravado, balderdash or a beacon of truth - it's no false claim to say that Criss's "Bills, Bills, Bills" was "So off the hook it's dangerous - people should wear protective headgear when they watch it." I'm not kidding. Jonathan Groff set a seemingly impossible-to-top standard last season with his multi-episode arc - including a number of duets with Lea Michele that comprise a considerable number of the top-tier tunes on the show so far, particularly "Hello" and "Total Eclipse of the Heart", both exceptionally, impressively sung - which begets the question of the hour, or, since this was the Super Bowl episode, after all, the question of the hours, plural: when will Criss cross Michele? When will we get the duet we have been waiting for with the two VIPs of GLEE meeting head-to-head - chord-for-chord, riff-for-riff? That moment cannot come soon enough - plus, just imagine the possibilities of what song it could be! But, less on what could, would or should be and more on what actually was. After all, what we got was more than we could have asked for - another notch on the championship belt Murphy has deservedly been bestowed between the triple-crown victories he has had in award seasons this decade, most recently winning the Golden Globe for Best Comedy Series. What could have been a ton of turkey was a Coach Beiste lean rotisserie chicken; what was richly over-stuffed was never overdone; blazing, not burned; and, the delicate triptych balance firmly established thus far - part outlandish comedy, part musical theatre, part teen drama - was on full, rich, vivid display. In other words: we got all we could have hoped for and more (even a football game). So: no less, just more - all things evenly considered.

No, "Thriller/Heads Will Roll" did not disappoint in its execution and proved to be the jolt of joyful exuberance only able to be captured to the nth degree of its electrifying essence in song - a tried and true statement if ever there were any, particularly coming in a column essentially analyzing Broadway and its relationship to pop culture and the entertainment industry at large. Broadway has the market cornered on that sort of thing. Or, did. Additionally, Lea Michele and Mark Salling taught the vocalists of Lady Antebellum a thing or two and positively knocked their mega-hit "Need You Know" out of the park (as Michele will do again in another contemporary cover on Tuesday's episode with her barn-burning take on Katy Perry's explosive pop anthem "Firework", rendering the song better than ever, and better than it really even is as a song - but more on all of that in Thursday's SOUND OFF recap of the big Valentine's day show). So successful, too, was "She's Not There", which managed to capture the surrealism and just plain weirdness of the psychedelic Zombies' original, and Cory Monteith and male company certainly rocked it out and rung the riffs to the rafters. George Romero would be oh-so-proud.

Thanks to Ryan Murphy and company with GLEE tonight, the principles - and principal glory - of the establishment (McKinley High or otherwise), among them the best, brightest talent the Great White Way has to offer - Lea Michele and Matt Morrison chief among them - reached a bigger audience than perhaps all of the Tony Awards broadcasts of the last twenty years combined, and for that and that alone - if nothing else - Murphy and company are Broadway superstars and, now, a part of keeping the theatre and the arts relevant to culture at large. It really is that historical of a moment. Of course, while it would have been grand had a musical theatre song been included in tonight's broadcast, theatre fans can content themselves with the fact that on Tuesday we will get a Rodgers & Hart tune in the form of "My Funny Valentine" from BABES IN ARMS sung by Jenna Ushkowitz. After all, we can't honestly ask that there be a Broadway number every week given the lack of theatre visibility in the pop-culture landscape in the last twenty-five years or so (Barbra Streisand's "Memory" and "Somewhere", as well as Michael Crawford's Grammy-winning "Music of the Night" notwithstanding) - although, in the case of tonight's episode, the overwhelmingly contemporary song-stack could have certainly used a little more diversity - perhaps a bit of history to go with destiny(‘s Child). Yet, encompassing The Zombies, Michael Jackson, Snoop Dogg, Katy Perry and the just-mentioned Destiny's Child (so, so brilliantly performed, might I add, again) in one hour-long (or so) episode is quite a master pop culture achievement in and of itself. Golf claps - ball claps, at any rate. As a shout-out to sports fans, the final sequence of the show was some excellent sports storytelling if I've ever seen it - good enough to wake the dead. Also, special mention also must be made to the Busby Berkley-esque, big-budget Chevrolet commercial starring the whole cast, which was a white-hot hit and more entertaining than any of the other adverts appearing during the actual highly-sought advertising opportunity that is the broadcast of the game itself (which was truly riveting entertainment, even for non-sports fans).

Those aforementioned ads - $3 million per 30 seconds each during the Big Game telecast itself, with the entire super-sized near-seventy-minute GLEE show costing $4 million to produce alone, almost double the budget of the most expensive episode of the show so far ("Britney/Brittany") in any season - claimed it would be the "best and most thrilling GLEE of all time." Hyperbole? Sure - but, what can you expect from a Super Bowl ad, anyway? More or less true, though? That, too - which begs the follow-up question: how high of a standard can you hold a post-Super Bowl episode of the hottest show on TV to when the standard has been set so high thus far in the one and a half seasons the show has had, and, furthermore, the bar for entertainment in a world of TWILIGHT and TRANSFORMERS set so pitiably low? No matter what the standard - that of Broadway snobs or neophytes - GLEE delivered on its lofty promise and Murphy, Brennan and Falchuk (after all, the latter two are credited for writing and directing this episode, respectively) scored many, many touchdowns - for old and new fans alike. A few new fans would be the biggest score of all.

For those keeping final count: Darren Criss was the undisputed MVP and Lea Michele was the lady of the night. "Thriller" turned heads and the mash-up with "Heads Will Roll" compelled one to say, well, "Yeah Yeah Yeah". They pulled it all off quite flawlessly - moving the story along and setting the wheels of S2B in motion with finesse and also providing a perfect entry episode for those not yet indoctrinated in gleekdom. Final mention must be made to Jane Lynch, who was in rare form in tonight‘s Sylvester-heavy affair - a term which is apt praise indeed for Lynch's across-the-board overall excellence if there ever were any - and the off-the-wall scenes with Heather Morris and Naya Rivera were, in a phrase: the bomb. Also, it is as clear as the sound of a cannon ball blast and the sight of fireworks above the field that GLEE has come roaring back in fine, fine form - the furthest thing from a zombie, or a barely-breathing ghost or ghoul of its former self. It is perfectly poised to hit its series stride in big, big ways in the next few weeks. Potentially - predicting, as one should, given the circumstances - the rest of the season: bigger and better and brighter than the biggest of big, Big Games.