TITLE: “Audition”
WRITTEN BY: Ian Brennan
AIR DATE: September 21st 2010

Last season I watched the first 20 or so episodes of Glee over a period of a couple of days.  I’d got caught up watching other stuff and somehow or other I kept pushing back watching Glee.  But when I watched the first episode it opened the floodgates and I couldn’t stop watching until I’d devoured every single second.  I’ve watched the first season three or four times through now and was anticipating its return more than anything else on TV.

Well, it’s back.  My favourite show from last season returns with everyone looking slightly more attractive, a new football coach, and a couple of new kids showing their singing talents.  A couple of people were noticeably absent, namely Emma (Jayma Mays) and Terri (Jessalyn Gilsig) but they weren’t really missed.  In fact, I’m not even sure if Gilsig is on the show this season, and to be honest I would be happy if Terri never appeared again.

A few things were noticeable almost from the outset.  First is that the songs that will be used this season seem like they’re gonna be a lot more current than they ever were last season, and second is that the background characters from last season will get a bit of a push.  So that means more screen time, lines, and hopefully stories for Santana, Brittany and Mike.  None of this is news if you were keeping track of Glee developments over the last couple of months, but it’s a little surprising that the shift occurred in the very first episode of the new season.  As long as they don’t completely forget about the awesome 80′s and early 90′s songs that were featured so heavily last season I’m happy with whatever music they choose.

“Audition” also introduced a bunch of new characters that will be around this season, first was Coach Beiste the new female coach of the football team, Cheyenne Jackson showed up right at the end of the episode as the new Vocal Adrenaline coach to poach another newbie Sunshine Corazon (Charice Pempengco).  Also new this season is Sam Evans (played by the impossibly named Chord Overstreet).  The two new students have really good voices so I hope that they’re featured enough without taking anything away from Lea Michele but also allowing for more performances from Mark Salling, Naya Rivera and Heather Morris.  I’m hopeful that Jackson will be able to appear on both Glee and 30 Rock this season but I guess it all depends on how fleshed out his stories are on both shows.  Time will tell.

Aside from that, there were some decent songs, I particularly liked how New York State of Mind was shot because it was kind of liberating seeing a performance outside of the auditorium or music room.  So often last season the performances were limited to indoors and it really took away from what they could be.  I wasn’t always a fan of the outright fantasy singing where the performer was imagining their surroundings, but I didn’t like everything being indoors either.  Hopefully there’ll be more performances in different locations to change things up a bit.

As always Jane Lynch was sublime as Sue, and it looks like she may have found a worthy competitor in Coach Beiste.  I think Coach Beiste is going to act as a magnet for Sue’s rage this season which will leave Will to take his Glee kids to NYC for Nationals.  And finally, I loved the opening interview montage by Jacob which basically put all the real world complaints Glee faced last season to the characters.  Very clever and very funny.  Oh, and Becky Jackson returned as an assistant to Sue during tryouts.

RATING: 8/10

CONCLUSION:
It wasn’t the knockout punch of a season opener that I like to get from the first episode in a new season, but it was a very solid effort that ranks up their with the best that Glee has put forward so far.  It also didn’t hurt that the comedy was supplied from a number of characters this week rather than the usual lone source of Sue.