5) Oversexing the teenagers. In the first season, Glee dealt with matters of sexuality intelligently and appropriately. Notably, Finn's development and Kurt's coming out were both plausible and realistic, and made interesting statements about high school sexuality. Now, the choreography is disgustingly and inappropriately provocative, the characters toss around sex far too lightly, and the writers' respect for the age of their characters has waned greatly.
4) Inconsistency. Glee walks the difficult line of an ensemble cast. There are too many characters to give each a plot line in every episode, but the volume of characters allows for a high variety of plots and developments. But at the end of the first season and the advent of the second, we seem to be faced every two minutes with a character acting differently than they did in the previous episode, or even a mere scene ago. I believe this is due to characters being protagonists in their own plot, and then supporting cast members to others. The result is that the players do not stay the same from moment to moment, so they cannot grow as time goes on.
Along this same vein, we see plot lines disappear quite suddenly and without warning. (What happened to Quinn's baby? Did she ever get let back in the house? Where's Tanaka? Is Mr. Hummel still dating Finn's mom? Etc.) Likewise, the show has stepped outside the bounds of realism for high school. How many times can a guy join and quit the football team?
3) The musical numbers. The writers and the musical directors don't seem to be communicating, because there is no connection between the plot and what music is performed. Each musical number is just dropped in as desired, whether relevant to the plot or not. We don't even get the benefit of having characters sing in context anymore. If I wanted to watch a series of music videos, I'd watch TRL. The arrangements are unimaginative, the ensemble too subservient to the soloist, the choreography is not motivated by character or music, and the whole thing simply washes by in a mess of sound and expensive costumes. All in all, it's exactly what is wrong with most glee clubs.
2) Stereotypes. The reason I was so pleased with Glee to begin with was their intelligent handling of high school stereotypes. They built up an ensemble of characters--the slut, the blonde, the jock, the diva, the cheerleader, the gay, the black, etc--and in subsequent episodes they allowed these characters to grow beyond. All in all, it exposed the prejudices of high school and explored what lay beneath all these stereotypes.
Case in point, Quinn. She was depicted in advertisements and the premiere as the villain, but slowly the writers revealed her to be an intelligent young woman who was no more or less noble than her peers. She was the victim of circumstance and the rejected refuse of high school: the pregnant teen. In my opinion, she was the true protagonist of the season, allowing us to witness her transformation from villain to redeemed mother.
Now, the majority of characters have been reduced back to their original stereotypes, bereft of any development they once had. Rachel is the diva, Santana is the slut, Brittany is the fool, Kurt's homosexuality seems to define every action, and Puck is back to being an asshole jock. Are we expected to just repeat the cycle every season? Or have the characters settled into the worst versions of themselves?
1) The show has lost its heart. Remember the AcaFellas episode? Remember when the show was full of good natured characters who strove to make beautiful music? Remember when it was about a glee club? We met Will Schuster, a man tired of monotony and a lack of creativity, looking to find joy in performing music. The menagerie of misfits he assembled, looking for new directions, reflected the essence of high school: we are all misfits, and we must rise above the illusion of the perceived norm. Then, there was a purpose: to rise above our stereotypes. There was a method: we can make music together. Because we can cease being the villainous cheerleader and emerge as the vindicated hero.
Or...we could get high and dance to an irrelevant Brittany Spears song.
