They can dream it, but they'll never be it.

So I went against everything I believe in today. I've avoided it for so long and then one little thing enticed me into it and I couldn't avoid it anymore. I finally gave into popular songs sung as showtunes and moral lessons thrown as one two punches until your head is pounding and you start to wonder if you are really being "yourself" or if society molded you. Then all the insecurities of high school come rushing back... but in a catchy tune that you can sing along to. That's right, folks, I watched Glee.

Now, the main reason why I have avoided this show for a year and half is because I feared it would bring back horrifying experiences from Point Park. It was a nightmare. You could hear it from a distance, but hope beyond hope that it was all in your head. Then the sound would get closer and closer as you neared the laundry room or cafe or any large hallway... or small hallway... or some dorm rooms. Then you would find the source of the sound.... a musical theater kid singing and sometimes dancing. It was just as if life were a musical... give me Freddy, Jason, and good ol' Mikey M. any old day if I never have to face that terror again. So needless to say whenever I heard the premise of Glee I was not too excited to relive the 4 most useless years of my life. I stayed away from the Joss Whedon/ Neil Patrick Harris episode... almost. I'm not going to lie, I watched a few clips of it then and was not too impressed and did not feel the need to continue watching the show, especially since it did not have a smoke monster or any sorts of mythology besides the usual problems of high schoolers and who needs to go through that again?

So if I believed that the show would bring about posttraumatic stress disorder, why did I decide to watch it? Well, I did participate in musical-like activities in high school AND I was completely obsessed with Rocky Horror Picture Show... which they performed on Glee this past week. Now, my obsession with Rocky bloomed in between my sophomore and junior year... where my friend and I knew every word to all of the songs, owned t shirts and taught a 10 year old girl the meaning of "transvestite"... well, kinda. She heard the word a lot at our play rehearsals and asked her mom what exactly a transvestite was... oops. But she had to learn sometime. The complete obsession wore away after awhile, but the Time Warp will always hold a place in my heart...

Theeen Glee decided to take that piece of my heart and jump to the left and then stomp on my heart to the right. Maybe it wasn't that bad... it wasn't as bad as I had imagined, but it didn't live up to the hype either. The main character of the sweater vest wearing, mini jew fro teacher creeped me out a bit... no school district would allow that man to get away with everything he did in this episode. I was particularly concerned for "Charlie" (not sure of her name in this show, but that was her character in Heroes) during the "Toucha Toucha Touch Me" scene. Sweater vest (sans sweater vest.... and shirt during this scene) had the creeptastic "I just roofied you because I never touched a woman before in my life" look in his eye.I never thought I would say this in the post-Kokomo era, but I am totally team John Stamos.

The actual performances of the songs were decent, I wasn't expecting them to completely attempt to imitate the original actors, but I approve for the most part... except for the Frank N Furter thing. It's not unusual for a female to play Frank, so I don't understand why they acted like it was equivalent to Neil Armstrong putzing around the moon. Us gals can be pretty sweet transvestites too... from sensational Transylvania? Lame. Stupid censors. (Bad fretting? Heavy sweating? Why did they even try to fit "Toucha Toucha Touch Me" in the episode?) That truly was my biggest qualm about the show- besides it being a musical version of those "The more you know" commercials. I hate it when people try to blatantly teach me lessons in morality. I hate it even more when they sing about it. Rocky Horror is already about being yourself and not caring what other people think. "Don't dream it, be it" is repeated about 50 times. Yet that was not enough for Glee. They decided to include several scenes about characters talking about how insecure they feel about their bodies. I find the spontaneous singing and dancing more believable than these discussions. No one would actually say that, they'd keep it to themselves and develop an eating disorder.

So while they tried, I do wish I could time warp back and just stick with Tim Curry and his sexy legs to rose tint my world and keep me safe from my trouble and pain.

Oh, and totally Team John Stamos...