After my first exposure to the movie Rocky Horror Picture Show, I was hooked. It’s such a fun movie that so many people love and all the callbacks and interactive parts are awesome. When it was announced at SDCC that Glee was going to tackle Rocky Horror in an episode, I was hesitant. The show, while it has its controversy, is on a conservative network and might need to censor the movie’s more risque scenes – which, to me, are what make it so much fun. When details about the episode started to leak, as it unfortunately always does with Glee, I was less than pleased.
I made the mistake of watching a leaked clip of the cast performing “Time Warp”, which was so tragic I almost wasn’t going to watch the episode. Since it would be weird to skip an episode of the show when the plot jumps between moving really fast and not moving at all, I forced myself to sit through it last night. It was not quite as disappointing as I was expecting it to be, but still somewhat horrendous.
The episode started out with the classic Rocky Horror lips and “Science Fiction/Double Feature”, which was promising. While the credits were rolling, I did wonder just how many members of Glee‘s younger viewing brackets would get any of this episode. I know I’m young compared to the movie, but I didn’t get the impression that it was an immensely popular cult movement amongst my generation. I guess the producers felt it was popular enough to tackle in an episode, so I could be very wrong. After the credits, the show moved right into Rachel and Finn singing “Over at the Frankenstein Place”, which featured Lea Michele once again totally over-singing her songs. I love her voice, I do, but there are some songs she should just not sing (like any Britney Spears songs).
From this scene, the show moves to some actual plot development with Sue (arguably the saving grace of the episode), and some interesting tension with Will and Emma. The topic of the musical being too adult for the school was a convenient way to explain away a lot of the editing to lyrics done throughout the episode. After the initial casting of the roles, with Mike as Frank, I saw a small glimmer of hope. This glimmer turned into a shine when Barry Bostwick (the original Brad) and Meatloaf (the original Eddie) made guest appearances as news anchors. Then Sue was cast as the criminologist (despite having a neck!) and I was elated.
Unfortunately things spiraled downhill from here. It was very clear that the network was uncomfortable with the episode and that the writers had to compensate. Putting adult males as Rocky and Eddie after some very questionable body image issues that randomly surfaced from Finn and Sam was shaky at best. Worst occurred when, after it was clear that they were not going to commit to having a male character play Frank, Mercedes announced that she would be taking on the role. This is utterly ridiculous. Here you have a show with many talented male singers and you have Mercedes, a female, play a character that is intentionally transsexual. Absolutely absurd. The performance of “Sweet Transvestite” was abysmal, and also over-sung. To make matters worse, we had to sit through Quinn completely botching Magenta’s solo during “Time Warp”. Her voice was completely unsuited for that role. Santana should have been the one to sing it.
The episode had two moments that I found to be worth dealing with bad parts just to see. Firstly the scene in the lab when Janet is discovered with Rocky was hilarious. Between Will trying to play both Brad and Rocky at the same time (his “Grrrs” killed me) and Sue dishing out her relentless criticism, I was in stitches. The other moment was when Emma sang “Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me” with Will. That was the song that Jayma Mays (Emma) had auditioned with, but honestly I didn’t think her voice was all that suited for it. Either way, watching her rip off Will’s shirt and then all the “creature of the night” lines was great. Probably one of my favorite Glee scenes of the season.
Many of the lyrics were censored, but the censoring was so inconsistent that it was just bizarre. Like “heavy petting” became “heavy sweating” yet the line “But by night I’m one hell of a lover” was kept intact. Additionally the line “I’m just a sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania” became “Sensational, Transylvania”. What happened to the show’s openness about sexuality? So Kurt dealing with being openly gay is okay, but we can’t talk about transsexuals or transvestites? What a double standard. Next time, I think Glee should skip this sort of thing if they’re not going to do it right. Even if it does seem to fit with the “we’re all misfits” theme that they cling to from week to week.