Wednesday: Glee Vs. Modern Family

Wednesday nights are tough: Two legitimate television contenders, both starting at 9 PM. This predicament began when FOX aired the pilot for its new musical comedy Glee after an episode of last season’s American Idol. (Gayest sentence ever.) I checked the show out and discovered that it was pretty damn good despite the fact that I felt like kind of a 'mo for enjoying it. (I’ll be the first to admit it. I like gay-ass shows. Actually, it isn’t even that some of the shows I like are really gay per se; it’s just that their target demographic is the teenage female. From Dawson’s Creek to Laguna Beach; I’ve laughed, I’ve cried, I’ve sat through Noxzema commercials with Jennifer Love Hewitt all the way to Hayden Panetierre and every fresh faced teen spokes-model in between.)

I don’t know why every network doesn’t have a prime-time show that takes place in a high school. (How many more shitty crime dramas with acronym titles do we need? I don’t understand how these shows stay on the air. I don’t know anyone who has watched even a second of NCIS and it is painful to see what the CSI franchise has done to the legacies of David Caruso and Gary Sinese. Off the top of my head, here is a list of good recent cop/crime investigation shows: NYPD Blue, Homicide, The Wire, The Shield and that’s pretty much it. Also, I am sick hospital dramas (get it?); the first couple of seasons of E.R. were good and I guess a lot of people like Grey’s Anatomy but the rest suck.) High school shows are almost always entertaining. Here are some of the best: Freaks and Geeks, The O.C., My So Called Life, Strangers With Candy, Friday Night Lights, Saved By The Bell, Boston Public, Boy Meets World (the middle seasons)… I could go on all day.

Which brings us back to Glee. It might be a little too early to tell, but this show seems to have all of the makings of another quality high school show: A group of teens from different social strata who must learn to work together, a teacher tasked with keeping this group together who ends up learning as much from the kids and they learn from him, evil cheerleaders (and an evil cheerleading coach), weighty and topical subject matter (pregnancy, teacher/student sexual relationships, teen homosexuality), and of course plenty of attractive young actors/actresses (Lea Michele, the girl who plays Rachel, is one of those strange kinds of hot. Her nose and mouth are completely out of proportion with the rest of her face but it doesn't even matter.). It doesn't hurt that the writing on the show is down right clever. My favorite line so far: Kurt, the hillariously flaming drama geek, to the head football coach- "My name is Kurt Hummel and I am auditioning for the role of kicker!".

The biggest problem facing Glee right now is it time slot. It begins at the same time as this season's other promising new comedy, Modern Family.

I have begun to forgo the first half of Glee in favor of ABC's Modern Family, the latest effort to make the lives suburban families funny. The "modern" in the title, I assume, refers to the fact that only one of the 3 families in show (we find out late in the pilot episode that these three families are really part of one larger extended family) is a traditional nuclear family. The other two families are a gay couple who have recently adopted an Asian baby named Lily ("Won't that name be hard for her to say?" Cut to me slapping my knee.) and a family consisting of a spicy Latina divorcee, her strangely mature son Manny ("Ugh, kids, you don't have to tell me, my school is full of them"), and a surprisingly old looking Al Bundy. For my money, the two "non-traditional" families are the most interesting. Al Bundy's relationship with his step-son Manny has the potential for some comedy gold. Ditto for the chemistry and dynamic between the two gay dudes. Modern Family is the kind of TV show that I love and (unlike Glee) has the potential for real staying power. This show is character and dialog driven and is not based on sight gags or gimmicks. The pilot episode was absolutely brilliant, but unfortunately the following two were less so. Even so, the show is good enough to make me miss half of another good show each week.

"You think this is hard. I'm living with Hepatitis, that's hard." -Glee
"The only way his dad is like superman is that he landed in this country illegally."-Modern Family