Glee (9/28/10): "Brittany/Britney"

It's almost here.

Glee's second pure homage episode pays tribute to one of the biggest pop stars of the last decade: Britney Spears.

More important than paying tribute to one of pop culture's most influential figures, however, is the moment that we've all wanted since a certain lady once explained that dolphins were just gay sharks...

This will be the first episode to feature Brittany as a lead character.

I'm sure this is going to have the sharpest (dullest?) dialogue in the show's history. Enjoy!

Edit: The Glee cover of Toxic has been leaked. Have a listen?

"Britney/Brittany" Song List:

1. Rachel, '...Baby One More Time' (Britney Spears)
2. Artie, 'Stronger' (Britney Spears)
3. Cast of Glee, 'Oops!...I Did It Again.' (Britney Spears)
4. Will and New Directions, 'Toxic' (Britney Spears)
5. Brittany, 'Me Against the Music' (Britney Spears and Madonna)
6. Brittany, 'I'm a Slave 4 U' (Britney Spears)
7. Cast of Glee, 'The Only Exception' (Paramore)

I just heard the iTunes preview of Toxic. Absolutely hilarious. Incidentally, that's one of the only Britney Spears songs I like, and I absolutely adore it. Great to see what they did with it.

Edit: Confirmed Rocky Horror Glee Show list:

• Science Fiction Double Feature
• Damn it, Janet
• Whatever Happened to Saturday Night?
• Sweet Transvestite
• Touch a Touch a Touch a Touch Me
• There's a Light (Over at the Frankenstein Place)
• Time Warp

No, but do you have it?

See, Mod 12? I hit "Reply" instead of report this time!

Actually, Brittany did a very good Spears, both in voice and appearance.

I loved the episode, I had to stop playing CoH to pay full attention.

Wow, I really, really did not enjoy this episode. About 20 minutes through, I was floating on auto-pilot "Watch it so that I can say I watched every episode" mode.

As noted, all of the numbers were music video recreations (except for Toxic and the not Britney Spears song). This completely robbed them of any meaning. The episode had absolutely nothing to do with Brittany after the first five minutes. Those five minutes in, I was absolutely exuberant. After I realized that she had nothing real to do with the episode, I felt like it was a bait and switch.

Jacob's increasing perversion walked the line between "hilariously too much" and "uncomfortably over the top", but I'll put that one on personal taste.

In the Madonna episode, they went all out and made a lot of cases as to why Madonna needed to be honored. They failed that connection here. People just mumbled that Britney was hot before they dressed like her and Karaoke Revolution'd their way into one of her music videos.

The only moment I actually liked was Quinn's invitation to Finn at the end. It showed how far the characters have come and how dynamic the writers are now letting them be. It made me smile.

Looking forward to next week's, but I was greatly disappointed by this one.

Edit: They could have made "Not a girl, not yet a woman" work for Rachel's closing song. Surprised they broke the Britney homage in order to wrap up the episode.

Just finished watching it...

I liked their rendition of Toxic.

But the episode often times started to feel downright creepy, particularly any scene involving the Jewish boy (forgot his name) and the "sex riot" that occurred. It completely broke immersion for a show with a high school setting.

And yes it did sound like Brittany threatened Ke$ha.

I won't call myself a Gleek, simply because I think any musical-themed show has only a set lifetime, and I'm a good generation removed from relating to high school drama, but I agree with most assessments of the episode.

But I guess this is the next hurdle a show with a lot of hype and awards has to work against; its own success. And in this case, giving Lea Michelle (who's clearly suited to Broadway singing and 'big' songs) One More Time was a big mistake. You can tell she wants to sing big, and the song doesn't allow for it. If anything, I wanted to see more Brittany time, as she was stealing every scene she was in.

As for the teen 'sex riot' stuff, that just struck me as a bit of sensationalism for its own sake. What'd concern me is if that starts happening regularly and you're tuning in to see what 'outrageous' stuff was happening next week.

Doing a Rocky Horror show will be a make or break move for me, simply because it's been very hard to touch in a lot of forms, be it on stage or homage.


S.

The only thing the episode was really meant for was to showcase Heather's dancing skilz. Heather is fairly hot, brittany not so much.

Bah - did have a big long post written out but my browser crashed and I lost it all

My main points were:
* Very happy with the Britney episode, generally don't like her songs but they were quite fun and well performed this time
* Very happy with the Brittany character, don't think she needs to be developed to much otherwise her one liners and mad monologues would lose impact
* Rachel's voice and character are getting annoying. At first first her voice was immense but as they have started it high it doesn't have anywhere to go and has become boring, unless she does something more interesting than a showtune/depressing ballard such as Telephone. Her character should have grown up a bit more since the end of season 1 and her whinging is getting on my nerves.
* In fact her two ballards at the end of the two new episodes have annoyed me a bit
* I think there should be greater effort at mixing things up with other cast. They started doing it well during the second half of season 2 with Mercedes/Santana duet, Kirk/Mercedes duet, Mr Schu/Neil Patric Howard duet, the Lady Gaga track, Toxic track, Like a Prayer etc. I would love see more mixed duets or cast stuff which doesn't just have one lead singer.
* Also to develop the characters more. As I said I think the Rachel character isn't going anywhere so time can be taken away from her and given to develop the relationships that started to grow in season one. E.g. Mercedes/Kirk, Kirk/Finn, Mercedes/Quinn, Quinn/Santana, Tina/Artie/Mike, Noah/Finn, Noah/Quinn
* Please please please please please bring back Sunshine (Charice!)
* They're lip syncing has kind of gotten a bit sloppy ever since towards the end of the 1st series so I would like to see that get better.

I know we are only two new episodes in but I have loved this series and would love it to get better!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger Quote: 16. Has Paragon Studios redefined "player" to require your mouse to subscribe separately from your keyboard? If your mouse has greater processing power than your gfx card, the answer is yes.

Finally saw this episode today at the library (they have broadband). The over reliance on reproducing the original Music Videos detracted from the episode. NO induced fantasies are fine just try something original. The Madonna and Lady Gaga episodes were 10x better just by touching upon their videos without duping them exactly. Plus those episodes included other cast members and not MV extras.

Rachel's song at the end worked because it wasn't trying to be a music video but more of a scene from a musical.

Weak episode.

Watched it on Sunday, jetlagged, and with my sister and her boyfriend. Her bf had already seen it so he warned us that the songs weren't really new interpretations, just recreations, so that tempered our disappointments. But the basic scene to scene reenactments of the music videos were boring and the minor variations musically didn't help things. The plot was thin and I feared Brittany overload (not that she wasn't hilarious, but sometimes a charcter works better in small doses. Heather morris is hot though).

I did laugh at the memes they threw around, "Leave Britney Alone" and "Is this real life?" but no Kurt or Mercedes singing brings down the episode for me. Also, felt bad for
Kurt, just because in his fantasy sequence, he didn't even get to walk, like he did for "Safety Dance."

Highlight of the episode for me was Rachel's evil plotting and Will's storyline, just because my sister kept on saying "Oh, she/she is such a loser." Sometimes Glee is best enjoyed while mocking it