I'm A Winner, And You're Fat

WARNING: As always, Glee spoilers ahead. Go watch the season finale before you read.

Well, that's the end of that.

The majority of this episode takes place over one day (specifically, Saturday, April 17), so there's no need to hash out an episode timeline. So, instead, let's talk about the end of the pregnancy plot line, which I (and millions of others, no doubt) called a month ago.

We start with Quinn saying she isn't due... for a month?

This is not so. Terri's whole fake-pregnancy scam operated on the premise that Quinn was due during Spring Break, and thus the switch could happen without a lot of questions. Carmel High, I might remind you, had its Spring Break five weeks ago. There just isn't that big a window for high schools to have a week off. It should have been three weeks ago. It's conceivable that it was last week. It certainly isn't still a month away.

On top of that, no matter when Quinn is due, she got pregnant during the summer, which leads me to the second annoyance about this scene - her uniform. It's one thing for the Cheerios to still be in uniform every single day, even though Nationals were a week ago - I'm sure they're just practicing for next year, and Sue Sylvester isn't the kind to give them time to rest on their laurels - but surely they don't wear those uniforms every single day all summer long. Were the writers afraid that if Quinn was wearing street clothes, we'd forget that she was a cheerleader?

The birth itself actually illustrates pretty well a point I've been making most of the season, about the difference between "suspension of disbelief" and "bad writing." Quinn goes from backstage to the hospital to having the baby in the time it takes for Vocal Adrenaline to perform (Rachel tells Shelby about the baby while the judges are deliberating), and everyone gets back to the auditorium in time for the results to be announced. That's a mighty close hospital, and a mighty short labor, but that's what suspension of disbelief covers. Putting a date on something and then ignoring or changing that date is bad writing.

And that's what you missed on Glee. Season One of the show, much like New Directions' first season, was a good start. Tune in this fall and see if the kids, and the show, can build on it.

Youth League basketball needs replay NOW!

I hereby demand that the following calls be reversed:
1) Don Denkinger calls Jorge Orta safe, Game 6, 1985 World Series.
2) A Dennis Rodman layup called back because the referee claimed that the shot clock should not have been reset after a Kareem miss (this was incorrect, and he admitted this after seeing replay), Game 6, 1988 NBA Finals.
3) Two calls at second base during the 1999 ALCS (games 1 and 3).
4) The "fifth down" game, Colorado vs. Missouri, 1990.
5) The in-the-crease-call against Tim Thomas during the 1998 Bruins-Caps series.
6) Kenny Anderson's "buzzer-beater" against Michigan State, 1990 NCAA tournament.
7) At least three of the fouls that Bryan Gildea called on me in a GLYBA game in 1988.

If the commissioners and directors of the various sports involved do not correct these clear injustices that everyone agrees are wrong, then they are spineless.

Foo-Tweet!

WARNING: Minor Glee spoliers ahead. If you haven't seen this week's episode yet, consider coming back later. Please do come back, though.

Lima, Ohio, has become unstuck in time.

How else can one explain the muddled temporal mess that was this episode? For that matter, how else does one explain Vocal Adrenaline's twenty-something female lead? (Actually, we were shown a while back that VA plays with the eligibility rules, so I suppose that one can pass.)
I guess I'll begin where the show begins, with the gang looking forward to, and I quote, "Regionals next month." People, Regionals were next month last month. Regionals should be next week at the latest. At least we do find that Cheerleading Nationals are on Saturday. Saturday is, based on the last episode, April 4. That's about as late in the year as Spring Break could be, so we seem to have missed that. It couldn't have happened already, because everyone is hanging out in the school. Spring Break is a fairly important plot point for this show, remember?
Anyway, let's move on to Will and Sue's "date." This takes place, per Will, on Wednesday. This is three days before Nationals, but we soon find out that the Cheerios are all upset because Sue won't leave her house and they haven't practiced, and I quote, "in days." By "days," Kurt surely meant, "almost one day," because no way does this take place later than Thursday afternoon, if Will manages to get Sue back to practice in time for the weekend.
And then there are the multiple showdowns with Vocal Adrenaline. Will throws down the gauntlet, and invites VA to the McKinley auditorium on Friday. This invite takes place after Nationals (there's a big ol' trophy in the rehearsal room), so we've actually taken up two weeks, and it is now April 9. Regionals, clearly, have been postponed, as has Spring Break.
I've said this before, but what truly annoys me here is that it doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to write yourself into a corner by putting one event on Wednesday, and another on Saturday, and then forcing us to believe there's an interminable stretch of days between them. You don't have to set a date for anything. You don't have to put everyone in a new outfit every single scene. Because when you do, it looks shoddy, and when the Universe ends and then begins again, it will always be shoddy.

And that's what you missed on Glee. Next week, the whole charade ends.