News: GLEE Season 3 Scoops

So it seems like Ryan Murphy is letting his mouth get the better of him as he talked a lot about Season 3 to reporters, and some of what he's said has not been sitting well with some Gleeks.

Pomp and Circumstance
During an interview with Ryan Seacret, Murphy confirmed that the plans for the show still include graduating off some of the senior characters, which still makes sense to me. Setting your show in high school is always tricky since it's a finite amount of time, thus making it necessary to phase out certain characters to keep in line with reality. Some shows try to juke this problem, but they tend to suffer, but only a handful can turn it into a positive. It seems like Ryan thinks he can do the latter, but I'm not confident in his skills. I've always felt that Glee could copy the Friday Night Lights model of recasting, but now I'm not so sure because Glee fans tend to be more fickle than FNL fans.

Glee: The College Years
Anyone who grew up in the 90's is used to a beloved high school reaching an end, just to be given a half-baked spin-off that focused on post-HS life thrown at them. Of course, I'm talking about Saved by the Bell. Ever since "New York", some Gleeks have worked themselves into a frenzy by thinking about a new show that focuses on Rachel, Kurt, and Blaine living in the big city. Apparently, Murphy is not totally against that idea. If I had to choose between Glee ending after Season 3 or the combination of Glee: The New Class and Glee: The College Years, give me the former.

Return to Form
It's become the in thing to bash Glee's second season because it focused too much on guest stars, over-produced musical numbers, not enough story, or blah blah blah. I for one enjoyed Season 2 despite its flaws, and have not jumped on the "jump off the Glee bandwagon" bandwagon. Sure, I'd like the show to go back to its roots, and so would RM. A season that focused more on story, character growth, and shining a spotlight on current cast members sounds good, but we'll have to wait and see. Hopefully, the new writing staff will make things more manageable to the creators.

Trouty Mouth Gets the Hook
The most recent news to shake up the Glee-verse had to do with casting. Trusty utility infielder, Harry Shum, Jr., was rewarded by being made a series regular, as was breakout heartthrob Darren Criss. Not being offered a permanent spot was Chord Overstreet, and I'm trying to muster some emotion. First off, Sam was the personification of this show: unmet potential and wasted opportunity. He was barely a character, "Samcedes" was too forced, and he didn't add much to the overall product. Sure, I started to warm up to him by season's end, but it was too little too late. Apparently, there's a small army of Trouty Mouth supporters who have vowed to never watch the show again now, but I think they're jumping to conclusions because not being promoted to a regular doesn't mean he's done for good. Calm down people.

Sue vs. The Glee Project
Probably the most disturbing bit of Glee news that's spewing out of Murphy's mouth has been the idea that Sue will hate the winner of The Glee Project more than anyone else in her entire life. First, we all assumed that the winner will be a student character, so that'd be wildly inappropriate and wrong. Even if the winner of TGP could play an older character, that whittles down the pool of possible winners to a small handful, which could include Matheus and if he's the winner, I'm done watching Glee. Either way, this one just seems odd.

So there's your bit of Ryan Murphy Verbal Diarrhea for the summer of 2011. To be fair, he has every right to share his thoughts about his show, and it's up to us to take him seriously or not. Honestly, some fans do listen too closely to what the creators have to say, which has led to some backlash in the past. Personally, I find it interesting to see what they say now versus what ends up on our TV sets, but that's because I'm aware that a television show is a fluid creative process and ideas come and go. Maybe Murphy shouldn't be so willing to dish about Glee, but we also need to cut him some slack every once in a while too.