Glee – Guest casting rules

In its inaugural season, Glee has done a superb job bringing some top notch guest stars. At this point, they’ve brought in so much talent, it would be easy to argue that the guest stars are overshadowing the regular stars of the show. It is obvious that we’d all benefit from more Artie after tonight’s outstanding “Safety Dance” number, and more Artie could give us more Tina. Also, I do sort of remember these characters named Quinn and Emma, but that could just be the euphoria of tonight’s episode shining through. Because as much as I would love to see more of the regular cast, it is a tough trade off when we get the awesomeness (TM Barney Stinson) that has been the work of guest stars like Idina Menzel, Neil Patrick Harris, and Kristin Chenoweth.

Chenoweth started the trend early on (I’m purposely ignoring the brilliant Victor Garber, because if Ryan Murphy choose to ignore his singing voice, I’m just going hold that episode in a special place while they (hopefully) work to rectify that issue next season). Her turn as April Rhodes was pretty frakking amazing, at least in the first episode. She had great chemistry with Matthew Morrison’s Will Shuester, was hella-funny as the town’s boozy floozy, and, oh, yeah, girl’s got chops. Her second appearance didn’t work out as well, but again, girl’s got pipes. Just invent a reason for her and Menzel to get on screen together already, eh? Oh, and did I mention she can sing?

You can’t even say that Menzel was a brilliant piece of casting, because even my mother could see she was a natural to play Rachel’s birth mom (And yes, I just threw my mother under the bus, but that’s what happens when you go to Keith’s Lost Live-Chat’s instead of her son’s Glee Live-Chat’s). I was actually positing a theory in said chat that Shelby was actually just going to make a play acting like she’s Rachel’s birth mother to get her to defect to Vocal Adrenaline, but after that scene in the car with Jesse, I was sold. The duet of “I Dreamed a Dream” was absolutely beautiful and heartbreaking.

Speaking of amazing duets, how could you not love NPH’s Bryan Ryan and Mr. Shue’s “Dream On?” One might say it was legend … well, you get the drift, no? When Ryan went into the diatribe about former amusement park performers, let’s just say that I hope it didn’t hit a little too close to home to good friends of mine. Dreams don’t die just because you can’t make them happen, as Artie hopefully started to learn tonight. I hope we see more of Ryan because in a lot of ways he is a much better foil to Shue and New Directions than Sue Sylvester (hell, he makes a better foil to Sue, too).

Is there a way to keep this pace up, and better integrate the underutilized regular cast? Well, I’m not sure I can answer that. We plain damn need more Artie, Tina, Quinn, Puck, Mercedes, Emma, and I wouldn’t even argue about more Brittany. But, you can’t walk away from the outstanding work, and I’m sure the ratings bonanza, that the guest casting has brought. And for the love of all things Eli Stone, would someone get Victor Garber in a recording studio?

As far as the regular Notes & Quotes tag at the end, I was too in awe of this week’s episode to get quotes, so look for them in our Quotation Marks post this week. My only note is my utter amazement that director Joss Whedon got through the entire episode without killing anybody.

Clacked by Ivey West
on May 19, 2010 @ 08:35 EST5EDT