I actually saw “Keep Holding On” quite differently, Stokes. In MY most humble opinion (ahemhemhem), it’s no coincidence that Quinn sang “Keep Me Hanging On” earlier and then they all sang “Keep Holding On” together at the end. “Keep Holding On” was a response. There were moments where Finn was singing to QUINN, and even more where Rachel was. Quinn definitely looked like she was crying most of the time, and even seemed to stop mid-sentence a bit because she was choked up, but the feel I got from the song was that Rachel and Finn made a pact to help Quinn through and then made it with her. Especially because of that moment in the end where Finn grabs hands with both girls- he’s staring at Quinn for most of it. Yeah, there were a few moments where Finn and Rachel were walking, windswept, through the halls, but they were contrasted with parts on the stage where the two of them were facing Quinn and singing the song’s title line to her. To be totally forthcoming, I actually started to get watery-eyed watching it (and I’ve watched it a few extra times, still a little choked up…), but that’s beside the point. What I’m getting at is I’m really intrigued at where this triangle is going, because the way Rachel was singing to Quinn suggests she isn’t going to be nice just because she wants to impress Finn more, but because it’s the right thing to do. I’d love to see the two girls ally themselves and turn on him over something as a way of demonstrating some solidarity between them. I wouldn’t want the anti-Finn aspect to stay the rest of the series, but the introduction and then continuation of a bond between Quinn and Rachel would be a nice touch and show development in both girls: Quinn because she would have to become a better person in order to accept Rachel, and Rachel because she would be seeing Quinn as her own individual and not as a means of impressing Finn. And I suppose it wouldn’t even necessarily have to be an anti-Finn thing between them, too. An alliance against Sylvester would be pretty nice, since she threw Quinn under the bus and Rachel totally called her on it TO QUINN before it happened. I can see a great scene with Quinn admitting Rachel was right and Rachel getting that cute look of inspiration on her face and saying she knows exactly what they can do, etc.

@Matt: while you and I will probably end up killing eachother in a duel over this show some day, I do agree with you about point one. I want to hear the other people sing more. Well, Mercedes has had a couple of really nice moments now, especially the one from last night. But what about the rest of them?

@Lewis, in re whether the musical numbers are performances infected by the characters’ moods, or simply expressions of their moods like in a normal musical: for the most part, I agree with you, although my favorite favorites are the ones that kind of tread (or play hopscotch with) the boundary. I did really like Quinn’s “Keep Me Hanging On” number last night though. Not necessarily sure why.

So I still stand by my theory for the meantime. There are certainly other ways for them to do an excellent episode, but I’m hoping tell-don’t-show will be their bread and butter.

That is, the show actually is following the “show, don’t tell” precept.

This would not be the case, I don’t think, if there were a single, 3rd person (uninvolved) narrative voice. However, through the narration as done in Glee – different characters, different perspectives – we gain the illusion of intimacy. We connect with the characters; we are “shown” the inner workings of their mind.

In this medium and genre, very particularly, the filmmaking is “telling” the story. The camera angles, scene set-ups, and even dialogue are all in the writers/directors’ voices. When that is all we have, we feel as though we’re being “told” a story. When the characters’ narration kicks in, we are being “shown” their point of view, whereas their actions and expressions in the context of the plot are merely the creators “telling” us.

This would not be true in a more realistic genre. Realism, in television, hinges on the audience feeling as though they are involved in the action. If, during an episode of Lost, we suddenly were treated to Jack’s internal monologue, it would feel artificial, inorganic. It would take us out of the moment. Television drama is all about exploiting the moment.
In the surreal world of Glee, however, there is never any doubt that we are external to the events shown.

On Lost, the audience is drawn in by the question of “what if it were me?” and “what would I do in that situation?” The characters resonate because they have understandable motivations, and are like us. That’s how we are drawn in. On Glee, the characters exist, as was mentioned elsewhere, to lampoon very specific caricatures. Not only are the caricatures themselves not particularly easy to relate to (which is why they’re worth lampooning) but, in an effort to subvert specific personality elements, the resulting characters are even less so. Their choices are already often inorganic, often stilted and awkward. The only way to make us understand them, instead of just being *told* a story about them, is by *showing* us what they are truly like by exposing the inner workings of their minds.

If you were to write something that was all showing and no telling, the characters would have to act in obvious, cliched ways. For example, character X is angry, so he punches someone. That’s an simple, easy way to show a simple emotion: violent anger. The audience sees violence and thinks, “Aha, he’s angry.” No telling required.

But if you want to show that character Y is angry because he remembers something embarrassing that happened to him as a child and now he’s reacting by retreating into himself, it requires a lengthy flashback, a subtler actor who can show anger without violence, and probably a scene of expository dialogue (which is also a form of “telling,” by the way) in which someone explains that he’s the kind of guy who retreats into himself rather than punching others when he’s angry. This type of nuanced character building takes a lot longer to achieve if you want to show it rather than just tell it. But when a writer takes the time to build a more complex character in this way, it can work incredibly well. Which is probably why I like Lost so much, by the way :)

1. Amen on the Tina thing. I am getting a little annoyed at how Finn and Rachel get ALL the solos. The Glee Club is really the two of them, and a bunch of backup singers. I understand they’re the stars of the show, and they’ll always to the lion’s share of the singing. But people, does anyone NOT want to see Kurt have his moment in the spotlight?

One of the big themes of Glee is supposedly the need to put aside egos and work together. And yet, that doesn’t come out in the performances. Rachel quit because she wanted to always be the star. Has anything changed since she came back? I want to see Rachel HELPING Tina on her big West Side Story number. Trying to make her friends better singers.

Look, I was in a bunch of musicals and choirs. There’s always someone who’s head and shoulders a better singer than everybody else. But that doesn’t mean that no one else should get their chance to shine.

2. So, um, did Kurt quit the football team? Because last time we heard about it, he was the star kicker. Now when we see football practice, he’s definitely not there. Are they just never going to mention that again, like that episode never happened?

3. Look people, I really want to suspend disbelief. But I just can’t buy that Terri can fake this pregnancy for nine months, and her husband never figures it out. He never once sees her without a shirt on, or even touches the middle of her body, in nine MONTHS of sharing the same bed? Even if they’re on the outs and not having sex, I still say it’s very very hard to buy.

My feeling is this “show don’t tell” stuff came about because readers these days expect books to be like movies and TV. The fact is, they’re different media. They can (and I’d argue, should) do different things. To me, one of the best parts of a book is that you can get into a character’s head through the power of narration. It’s like reading someone’s diary, which I personally find awesome. That’s different from watching a TV show or movie, which is more like real life in that you, the audience member, are not privy to any inner thoughts and feelings and must figure them out based on (usually rather obvious) physical clues.

Telling rather than showing is also good for shortening the length of your book/movie/TV show/whatever. Again, I can’t speak about Glee, but I can speak about Arrested Development. If the show didn’t have a narrator, it would have been much more difficult to fit so many plot points into every single episode. The “telling” narrator was able to condense the plot, removing the need for boring expository dialogue, thus leaving time for moar funnies.

But it’s also true that all rules are made to be broken :)