GLEE #58: On My Way

[Thunderfoot]

Oh great.. what a cliffhanger. Otherwise there were some touching moments, but Finn and Rach have no chemistry and I cringe whenever they're together.

*Sings*
They go together like Conservative values and Socialist Propaganda.
They go together like an ice cream sundae with anchovies and Limburger.
Bang bang bang, shabba do wop do wop
That's the way it should be -a- eee
Ahhh woooo YEAH!

 

[Umbran]

I still don't think it's a ratings grab, especially since cliffhangers rarely increase viewership unless it's really hyped, and this one really wasn't.

It wasn't just a ratings grab, and it wasn't just poor writing. It was a classic bait-and-switch, with the oddity that the bait was fully developed before the switch.

It feels very Marty Noxon - give you an episode that you *think* is all about cyber-bullying, teen suicide, and such. And have it resolve... if not well, at least not badly, with some positive aspect upon it. Then, just when you're starting to feel good about it (or feeling like it's the typical Hollywood "everything must end happy, tied up in a bow" pattern), slap you in the face with something dark out of left field. Saw it a lot in Buffy.

I think the problem was they telegraphed it a bit too much. Not that this hasn't been a trope for teen media since the 1950s, where every third song was about how Johnny died in a car accident, but directorally, it was one cut back and forth too many, I think, to have the desired shock impact.

 

[Thunderfoot]

It wasn't just a ratings grab, and it wasn't just poor writing. It was a classic bait-and-switch, with the oddity that the bait was fully developed before the switch.

Yep, that's closer to the way I feel about it. It was almost like "how much more can we pack in here to keep people guessing?" and then giving them a copy of the script to read along with... Really odd.