Glee: I ain't feeling it

I may have officially crossed that threshold and entered the realm of not just adulthood, not merely fatherhood, but, yes, that stage known as "fuddy-duddy...uh, hood." I fear this because while TV critics tout Fox's "Glee" as one of the best new TV shows this season, I can't even get through the pilot, and part of the reason is I can't get past what big jerks the teachers are.

OK, not every high school show can be "Room 222," but still--wait, why can't it be? Or why can't it at least try? Well, I'd settle for a show as good as the season one "Room 222" DVDs I watched this year. "I could overlook the nastiness and unpleasantness of "Glee" if it were more entertaining, but I don't see it. It's a bunch of people being creepy--the adults more so than the teens--with what payoff? A glee club arrangement of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'"?

I fast-forwarded through about 20 minutes of the pilot to get to that scene. I didn't feel exhilaration or joy. I felt I kind of wanted to listen to the original version.

(Incidentally, I think the Journey version is a fine song, and I propose an FCC regulation stating that any TV show that wishes to feature it must declare it is doing so non-ironically)

The cast of features a drug-abusing gym teacher, Jane Lynch being the typical abrasive Jane Lynch character as the cheerleading coach, a shrewish wife, and her man and our hero, the new glee club adviser.

He's a nice guy, clearly both the dramatic focus of the show and the moral center. Halfway through the episode, though, desperate to get some popular talent for the club, he plants drugs on a sweet-singing football player to blackmail him into joining. Oh, he does it in a nice way, and he's conflicted about it, but he does it.

At this point, I bailed.

I know I sound like a fuddy-duddy right now. I FEEL like one. But if you're gonna throw a show out at me that features such unlikable pricks, it had better be damned entertaining. Now, a show with likable pricks, like "Rescue Me," I can get into; same with a damned entertaining show with unlikable pricks, like "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." But there are also shows with unlikable pricks that are NOT entertaining, and I can keep it on FX to give you an example: "Nip/Tuck," which it just so happens is the product of Ryan Murphy, the creator of "Glee."

Ryan Murphy may not be an unlikable prick himself--I doubt he is--but he sure has a knack for bringing them to the small screen. He has done it again with "Glee," and while I sort of understand why the critics seem to go for it--it feels different in some ways, and those poor scribes see a LOT of television--it's not different enough in enough good ways for me to give it more of a shot.

Besides, it reminds me of "American Idol," and I already get enough of that just watching football on Fox.