I had wanted to be in the show choir ever since I saw them perform at my elementary school when I was in the first grade.  It looked glamorous and fun, and I wanted to be one of the pretty girls in the shiny dresses and dangly earrings, singing and dancing like they should be on TV.  When I was a junior in high school, I became one of the pretty girls in the shiny dresses.  It wasn’t always all it was cracked up to be–that year, the shiny dresses were made both too short AND too low-cut by the seamstress, which might sound appealing to a 16-year-old girl until she realizes that when her partner lifts her into the air, her boobs will constantly come perilously close to popping out and saying hello to a room full of first graders.  Even with the dress issues and occasional exasperation with my awesome partner who, despite his best efforts, was just not a natural dancer…I loved it.  I loved show choir so much I was incredibly sad when I hung up the shiny dress for good.

When I heard about the upcoming FOX show Glee, the show title pretty much described how it made me feel.  The previews looked amazing.  I couldn’t wait to see the preview episode that aired in May after American Idol.  I counted down the days until it aired, and even then I wasn’t patient enough and I downloaded a screener that I found on the Internet.  It was slightly different from what aired (because of course I watched it again!) but both versions were just SO good.  The show was even more than I had hoped.

I think what I love about Glee, at least in its first episode, is that it captures that rush of being completely immersed in the music you’re performing.  It’s a feeling that is so hard to explain to people who have never experienced it.  I can remember one A Cappella choir rehearsal right before we went on stage to compete at a contest in St. Louis.  We were singing an amazingly difficult piece and we wanted to win it all.  The rehearsal room had high rafters, and we sang that song better than we ever had before, so that the rafters were ringing with the echoes of it long after we were done.  It sounds dorky to say, but it brought tears to my eyes at the time because I knew we were creating something beautiful.

Even more dorkily, the same tears threatened me when I was watching Glee.  Obviously the filmed performances are contrived and likely dubbed over with vocals recorded in the studio, but something in the way they’re acted, something in the way they’re filmed brings forth that joyful feeling, that rush that always made the hair on my arms stand on end when I was singing and I could hear the entire group just click into place.  Glee makes me remember why I love music, and every time I see a bump for the season premiere come on in between episodes of So You Think You Can Dance I get excited about the show all over again.

The cast is also pretty damn amazing–right off the bat I recognized some of my favorite people from other projects.  There’s Charlie from Heroes (otherwise known as Jayma May), Wendla from Spring Awakening (Lea Michele), and Jane Lynch, who I have loved in all her Christopher Guest and Judd Apatow movies.  She is probably my favorite part of the show so far, with her dry wit and spot-on comedic timing.

I’m ready to become a certified Gleek…I just wish they hadn’t taunted me with a single episode months before the actual show comes on!  Glee premieres on FOX Wednesday, September 16 at 8 PM CST/9 PM EST.  But, you don’t have to wait until September to see the first episode.  You can watch it online now, courtesy of FOX on Demand!

Here’s the extended trailer from this spring:

I didn’t watch Firefly when it aired…it was a Friday night show, and it was before the wonders of DVR (or even downloading shows off the Internet) came into my life.  I watched it a year or so later on DVD and was immediately kicking myself for not watching it sooner, despite its short life span on FOX.

Firefly was the start of my extreme crush on Nathan Fillion, who I usually refer to as my TV boyfriend.  It renewed my love of the space opera.  It was totally different than Buffy but equally enjoyable, and it assured me that Joss was not in fact a one-trick pony.  The fact that it was completely underappreciated still makes me seethe a little inside, and I’m constantly afraid for Dollhouse on FOX as a result.  The fact that Dollhouse got a second season was a welcome miracle.

So, since Dollhouse is on hiatus until the fall, and I’ve all but run through my DVR’ed episodes of Nathan Fillion’s new show Castle, I’ve decided to do a rewatch of Firefly so I can get my fix of both my favorite guys on TV.  Every week I’m going to watch an episode of the show and share my thoughts.  When I’m done, I’m going to watch Serenity and do a big recap of the series as a whole.

If you’d like to join me, I’ll post each week’s episode for your viewing pleasure (in case you don’t own every season of Joss on TV already!).  Share your thoughts on the episode in the comments.

THIS WEEK: Episode 1, “Serenity”

My first encounter with Felicia Day was in the original airing of Season 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where she played one of the potential Slayers (though I wouldn’t remember this until recently when I watched the DVDs). She was awkward and cute, and she survived until the end, which was no mean feat given the enormity of the situation before the Slayers.

Cut to a few years later (What? I’m not sure how many. If you really care, you too have the webternet on which to look such things up; I can’t be arsed) when a little mini-musical called Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog was taking the internet by storm. Two of its leads, Nathan Fillion and Neil Patrick Harris, were well known within the nerd community: Fillion from Firefly and Serenity, and Harris from How I Met Your Mother and nostalgia. The musical was funny and dark, and the songs had that solid-but-fun feel that Joss Whedon first introduced in the special Buffy musical episode, Once More With Feeling. But songs about an also-ran villian and his smarmy nemesis, while clever, would not be enough to carry this little phenomenon through three episodes and into countless portable devices. No, what it needed was a center, a beating heart on which to hinge all the silliness. And that beating heart was Felicia Day.

Ms. Day is no opera singer. Her voice is a little thin and wispy, but it’s true. There’s no bombast or overkill to her singing, just sweet simplicity. Penny drove Dr. Horrible more than his need to be in the Evil League of Evil, more than his quest for power, even if he didn’t acknowledge it. And it’s not until the end, when she dies as a result of one of his malfunctioning contraptions (SPOILER ALERT), that Dr. Horrible truly becomes evil. He no longer can feel anything, because his heart has been ripped out.

I ached with Dr. Horrible when Penny died. It’s a tribute to Felicia Day’s presence and skill that her death in this silly little musical could be so affecting. Nerd tears fell the world over the day Act 3 was released, and Ms. Day became the new girl every unloved boy (and some unloved girls) would give their Macs to meet.

I recently watched Ms. Day’s ode to gamer nerds everwhere, The Guild, in its entirety. It’s a funny, and kindly mocking, slice-of-life examination of a World of Warcraft-esque guild and its members. Her character, Codex, is awkward, shy and unsure of herself…in other words, just like every nerd in the history of ever. But she’s also smart and dryly funny, and pretty darn cute to boot (anybody want a peanut?). Zaboo (Sandeep Parikh) represents all of us when he becomes smitten with her. Codex also represents another part of all nerds, the one that always longs just a little to be one of the cool kids (illustrated by her lust for the douche-y stuntman), but will keep plugging along when it doesn’t work out.

I hope Ms. Day continues to get work and be prolific. She is talented, and smart, and witty, and she’s one of us (gooble gobble gooble gobble). And we could do a lot worse than her as a representative.

You can find all episodes of The Guild at www.watchtheguild.com, or you can buy the DVDs on Amazon. Seriously, check that business out!

The very premise of this show (which I have not yet watched, and may not watch at all) touches on my main problem with Weeds.  I realize these are television shows and therefore require some degree of suspension of disbelief, but these are not exactly people so hard on their luck that they have to stoop so low as to sell drugs or resort to prostitution.  Things are hard, things look bad…but come on.  I feel like these people could figure out some way, ANY other way.  I know I am missing the point of both Weeds and Hung, but it infuriates me to the point that I just don’t enjoy the show because I can’t get past it.

The main character in Hung is a gym teacher, for God’s sake.  While I’m sure that he’s not the only one who has managed to supplement his paltry teacher’s salary in the sex industry (the stereotypical hot teacher/stripper is a stereotype because it’s probably true, after all), I just find the whole premise to be annoying and not in the least bit endearing.  Perhaps HBO is going for a non-redeemable character, but I highly doubt it.  It sounds like a good excuse to get people naked, I will give them that.  Thomas Jane is hot, but I’m not tuning in just to see him strip it all off.  Might I suggest creating reasons for Alex Skarsgard on True Blood to get naked instead?  I prefer to save my suspension of disbelief for things like vampires, anyway.

Hung airs on HBO every Sunday night at 9 PM CST/10 PM EST.

Each look is categorized into an outfit that supposedly falls under a character’s style–either Blair, Jenny, Vanessa or Serena. Apparently if you’re a Vanessa (possibly the only semi-realistic character on the show), you’re mostly a fan of loud prints in the orange and brown color palette. Is that the best you can do to represent hippies on the UES, Anna?

The dresses are scandalously short, at least on the colt-legged models, but actually look wearable and cute for the most part–unless you’re more of a Vanessa than a Blair. If you’re more of a Van der Woodsen, then prepare yourself for the twee, not-very-Serena cropped suit. For the Humphreys in the house, there are some surprisingly cute little numbers and one very ill-advised pair of what appears to be “artfully” ripped leggings.

The Anna Sui for Target collection hits the stores and online September 13, running through October 17. Be prepared to purchase your favorite pieces early–like all the previous Target designer collections, this one is expected to move fast. Just don’t tell any of your friends at Constance that you shop at Target.

(via NY Mag)