Glee
The students at McKinley High School are back to school, and for some of the cast, it’s their senior year. Instantly, Sue Sylvester is out to attack McKinley’s arts programs in another attempt to destroy the glee club, this time with the help of Santana (resulting in her being kicked out from the club by Mr. Schuester). Quinn is revealed donning short pink hair, multiple articles of clothing made of leather, a nose piercing, and an “ironic tattoo of Ryan Seacrest,” claiming she’s “found herself”. Good for her… I think?

The Glee club is certainly looking a little thinner, most noticeably of teen heartthrob Chord Overstreet, who refused a recurring role as Sam on the show.

From the first episode, the Gleeks can already expect some new faces to appear later on in the season. Then, the members of New Directions attempt to recruit some new talent at their school without much luck, but it comes as no surprise when fan favorite Blaine (Darren Criss) transfers from Dalton Academy, leaving his former glee club, The Warblers, behind to join New Directions at McKinley. With his number of show stopping performances last season, and his bright performance of, “It’s Not Unusual” on the bleachers (they seem to be his favorite performance spot; remember his performance of “Somewhere Only We Know” last season?) Blaine will definitely fit in perfectly with the rest of the New Directions crew.

Meanwhile, Kurt and Rachel learn what it means to be a small fish in a big pond when they meet prospective competition at a performing arts mixer. A tip-tapping, note-belting mash-up of “Anything Goes” and “Anything You Can Do,” is performed by leading lady, Harmony (played by runner-up from the reality TV show, “The Glee Project,” Lindsay Pearce) and is definitely the best performance of the episode. Hopefully next week there won’t be as many cheesy metaphors involving purple pianos, and Rachel and Kurt will sing songs showcasing their talent a bit more than it did in, “Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead.”
Grade: B

New Girl
The much anticipated, new TV show, New Girl, starring Zooey Deschanel (most recognizable for starring in the indie hit movie, 500 Days of Summer) premiered this week. To sum up the show, it is about recently heartbroken, Jess, who becomes the roommate of three guys, each with their own blatantly obvious, women-related issues.

This may be due to overexposure of the show before the premiere, but after watching the first ten minutes of the episode, it was easy to tell exactly where the story line was going with its extreme predictability. Also, and this is coming from a big fan of the movie, there were way too many references to Dirty Dancing to the point where I was wondering why I was watching this show and not that great movie instead.

The characters appeared one dimensional, and I sometimes questioned this being a comedy show due to Jess’s overly-hysterical crying throughout the episode. Maybe the show will improve in time, but as for right now, it definitely didn’t live up to all of the hype.
Grade: C