Show Review: GLOW

[author_by_night]

Spoiler factor: Very mild, but if you're especially sensitive to them, you might want to give it a pass.

It took me a while to get into GLOW. It wasn't entirely the fault of the show - when it first premiered, I was having a bit of a rough time, and I wasn't up for it. Also, I'm not a wrestling fan. Allison Brie was a nice surprise, though - especially when in her first scene, she's auditioning for what appears to be a show or movie taking place in the Mad Men era. Still, I had to press pause. But once I was up for it, I jumped right back in.

If you don't know, GLOW takes place in the 1980's, and is based on an actual TV show named GLOW. I'm not sure if this is intentional, but there is definitely also a 1980's/90's "you can do it" movie vibe. You know, someone who doesn't initially get what he or she is getting into, a leader who is a bit of a hot mess, and there's always at least one character whose family/boyfriend/whoever doesn't want him or her to do The Thing. Yup, yup, and yup. But these aren't clichés - if it's intentional, it adds to the flavor, and if it was unintentional, it still worked for the plot.

The characters are still growing into place, just as their in-show characters are. Debbie and Cherry are the most readily sympathetic; especially Debbie. I don't think Ruth is as unsympathetic as it seems some fans feel she is, although the fact that she's played by Allison Brie might help, since it's hard to be too upset with Trudy and Annie. ;) Seriously though, while she did some pretty horrible things in the first episode, I felt the show did a good job of making her face the consequences, as well as try to be the "real" Ruth. Sam, meanwhile, is definitely the hot mess leader who can be pretty horrible, but he will also surprise you.

The more minor characters still need work, and to some extent, the major ones could use a bit of touching up too. However, I think this can be rectified with a second season. 

As someone who was born in the 80's, I felt the show did a good job of balancing between "WE ARE WRITING ABOUT A TIME" and just letting things seem normal. I remember when the first season of Mad Men had in-jokes about smoking and "difficult technology", something that fortunately subsided in later seasons. The show makes references to current events and pop culture (Back to the Future is a minor plot point!), but it doesn't hit you over the head with the fact that this is the 1980's. It just is. 

Overall, I like GLOW. I think it needs some fine tuning, but I'm optimistic about future seasons. 

 

(One warning, though - if miscarriage is a trigger, there's a rather gruesome fake miscarriage scene in the second episode.)


 

Comments

[chocolatepot]

You might want to adjust your end tag - only the first paragraph is being cut.

I love GLOW!!! I also love Ruth - I as concerned at first that they were going to make her a Piper Chapman (always wrong, in-show), but I think they did a good job of tapering that off and portraying her as someone enthusiastic and passionate about acting, and showing the good that she brought to the show-within-a-show.

[author_by_night]

Oh, come on, DW. The one thing I liked about LJ's changes was the cut, and DW did not make the same change. /End rant

Yeah, I thought the exact same thing, that she was going to be Always Dogged Down or whatever, which can get irritating fast. But fortunately, they went a different direction.