Glee cast promo pic, source: google images.

Last night the first episode of season four of Glee aired on New Zealand television – less than a week after it first aired in the States! Yay!

So, first of all, thanks Four for doing this. This is one of the major issues with TV networks in New Zealand and Four is doing something to rectify it. Because seeing spoilers is quite lame.

However, I was less than impressed with the new episode.

During season three, I started to not like Glee as much as I did when it first started, but I thought it redeemed itself a little by the end of the season. I had hopes that season four would continue with the redeeming, but after seeing the first episode, I am sorely disappointed.

The first thing that really irked me was that the New Directioners had become ‘popular’ and were starting to act like the rest of the ‘popular’ people. As in, they began being mean.

I was actually sitting there thinking, “WHAT?” Especially when Artie joined in in the mocking of the lunch lady. Why wouldn’t he just tell them to shove off? They all know what it is like to be picked on and need to stick up for each other. I was unimpressed.

The next thing that irked me was that they only let one new person into the group. Sure, there were some bad auditions, but Sugar Motta (Vanessa Lengies) is part of the group and she can’t sing or dance. I don’t get it. Especially because I thought Jake (Jacob Artist) was amazing and he wasn’t included in the list! Then, the one person who was added, Marley (Melissa Benoist), was rather so-so.

There was even a quote by Artie about acceptance. This entire episode for me showed they are definitely not accepting anymore. There doesn’t have to be a set number in New Directions and over the last three seasons they have been all about getting more people. They should be ecstatic that so many people want to be part of the group now.

The fight about who would be “The New Rachel”? No, just no. This was an absurd competition and it shouldn’t have been Blaine who won either. Yes, I like Blaine, but gosh, he gets so many songs already. Share it around!

Now, I know a fair few of the characters were seniors and were moving on and you got a taste of where a few of them had headed, but aren’t they still part of the cast? I’m not sure anymore. Santana and Mercedes are by far two of the best singers and they were no where to be seen.

And where was Rory?! The other Glee Project winners were there. In fact Alex Newell, who originally only won a smaller episode arc than Damian McGinty, looks to have become a series regular, which I highly agree with. But was this at the cost of Damian?

After all of this, I was quite disappointed in Glee and it did not leave me feeling good, like it usually does.

I will give it a few concessions. As already mentioned the addition of Alex Newell to be a regular is great. I also quite liked Kate Hudson’s character. That was done right. I enjoyed her. Leading on from this, I also liked the Rachel storyline and the addition of Kurt at the end was great. But I’m thinking, and it was mentioned on Twitter, that it would have been so much better if a Kurt and Rachel spin-off had occurred. That would have been amazing.

So overall, I was not that impressed. I will keep watching, probably, because I’m still invested in it. But I think I would have preferred to see more of the contestants from The Glee Project actually make it on to Glee instead of ‘Marley’, they at least are not blah, which is my initial impressions of Marley, and probably won’t change.