Writer: Brad Falchuk
Grade: A+
I’m trying to decide whether I would have enjoyed this episode so much if I hadn’t already known it was directed by Joss Whedon. I honestly believe that I would have, because this episode felt significantly less frenetic than most of the others, which is what has been bothering me about the show lately. The story elements in “Dream On” actually had time to breathe between the wacky hijinks and the sparkly musical numbers. It was also sincere and emotional without the heavy-handed After School Special preachiness that’s hindered the second half of the season.
This episode and the Madonna episode are the best of the post-hiatus episodes, for two very different reasons. “The Power of Madonna” had all the show’s biggest flaws—a thin plot that made little sense and had no follow-up continuity, too many musical numbers, too much Auto-Tune—but it overcame those flaws with, well the power of Madonna! And a really well-edited “Like a Virgin” music video.
In “Dream On,” Whedon downplays the flaws and focuses on the show’s strengths—namely the characters and appropriately-used musical numbers—and it’s such a surprising departure for this show that I almost wonder if Whedon had script input. I love the music, but they’ve been seriously overdoing it lately with too many shitty over-produced songs, so I was pleasantly surprised that the first musical number didn’t start until almost 20 minutes in, and it was a quiet duet between two grown men.
The characters and their interactions are more nuanced in “Dream On,” or at least, y’know, there. Tina and Jesse both pushed their significant others to dig deeper and grow a little bit. (Jesse had an ulterior motive, but he did tell Shelby that he cared about Rachel, so surely some of his pushing came from genuine concern.) I was thrilled to see oft-neglected Tina get some decent screentime. I think Jenna’s acting is a little weak at times, but how is she going to improve if they don’t give her any material?
Artie isn’t quite as neglected as Tina, but not by much, so I was just as happy to see a bit more of him. His “Safety Dance” was both fun in its own right and a nice meta tribute to the fan-staged flash mobs. And we finally got to see Kevin McHale dance, after hearing for months that he’s one of the cast’s best dancers!
I also thought Jayma Mays was incredible in her counseling scene with Artie. Emma’s a decent counselor (no, really!), but she’s usually a bit high-strung. Here, though, her voice was softer, and she spoke slowly and carefully, pausing to consider her next words. You could literally see her inner conflict—she knew her rational approach was probably tearing down Artie’s dreams, but she believed tempering those dreams with a little realism was the right thing to do. I think she saw it as a “little hurt now” vs. “big hurt later” scenario.
And now for the bad stuff, most of which is not about this particular episode:
Ultimately, I don’t think every episode needs to be this slow and contemplative, but the show needs to find a more effective balance between the absurd humor, the music, and the drama. They also need to show that they can weave more than one narrative thread through multiple episodes. The only storyline they’ve actually succeeded with is Kurt’s relationship with his father (every other storyline has gaping holes in the narrative flow), and even that is beginning to feel repetitive. And as lovely as this episode was, the “Threat of the Week may shut down the glee club” plot is also getting old. They’ve used it at least four times now, and we’re still only in the first season!
The show’s three showrunners are also its only writers, and with so few cooks in the kitchen, I’d expect the writing to be tighter than it is. These guys don’t seem very effective at maintaining continuity and coherence, or checking each other’s flaws. They need someone else on the team who can check their ADD impulses, curb the story repetition, and tighten the characterization and storytelling, all without stifling creativity. It might be a tall order, but there are plenty of other shows that manage it, or at least seem to make more of an effort. If Glee doesn’t improve significantly next season, some viewers may just watch those other shows instead. I know this is the only show with flashy musical numbers, but when you can put the non-musical portions of the episode on mute and miss nothing but a few (admittedly sometimes very funny) one-liners, something is amiss.
Other Stuff
-I don’t know if it was Whedon’s idea to frame Will and Bryan’s Aerosmith duet as a duel at high noon, or if that was in the script, but either way, it was a cute touch.
-It’s neat that Sue actually knew her stuff regarding the benefits of PE in public schools. It was a small detail, but a great character moment. Or it would be, if characterization actually meant anything on this show…
-Why does Molly Shannon keep popping up? As far as I can tell, her scenes are completely pointless and not particularly funny.
-I disliked Will in the first half of the season, but it’s faded in the second half. With Terri out of the picture, most of the screen time Will used to spend with her is now spent with the Glee kids, so he seems more involved in their lives and less involved with his absurd home life. I wish I could say that not having crazy Terri in his life has made him more stable and less self-absorbed, but I don’t trust the writers enough to believe they managed to create character growth. His “growth” is probably more of an accidental side-effect of his screentime being parceled out differently than it is an example of the writers actually doing something right. (I know, I’m bitter and mean.)
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