Review: 'Glee' - 01/09/2015

Watching "Glee" has always been a bit like dating a drunken supermodel. There are some spectacular highs, some moments you'd like to forget and more than a few great ideas that went horribly wrong during their execution. Still, as the show enters its sixth and final season on Friday, it premieres with a reminder of everything that is wonderful and yet frustrating about the series.

Even at its most annoying, "Glee" has always been at its best when it concentrates on the music and some of the best moments in the premiere are when the singing takes center stage. From Rachel Berry's (Lea Michele) take on "Let It Go," to a cover of cover of "Suddenly Seymour" from "Little Shop of Horrors," "Glee" continues to show that music can be an integral part of a weekly television show.

Without giving too much of the episode away, the premiere finds Rachel back at McKinley High due to a set of circumstances that seem designed more to provide a way to bring closure at the end of the series than anything else. From her decision to forsake show business to Sue's (Jane Lynch) elevation to principal - every moment seems more an exercise in chair moving than in actual confident show construction. Many of the permutations of the episode seemed forced and grafted onto the series to make some larger point about society. One example of the latter is a the case of a confrontation with the school's Tea Party Patriots club, a scene so awkward that the Glee alumni participants might as well have been wearing t-shirts that read "We're here to make a political point."

Yet for all the frustrating moments, "Glee" is ultimately redeemed by the acting and the chemistry of the cast. They are uniformly a delight to watch and its their talent that makes the occasional clunky plot points worth dealing with each week. In creative terms, it's definitely time for "Glee" to go, but that doesn't mean that it won't be missed. At its best, it's been a confident and entertaining delight. It's those moments I'll remember when the show broadcast its final closing number.