Singing Good-bye to "Glee"

So... Tonight the series finale of the TV show "Glee" aired. Parts of it were amazing. Parts of it were fine. But overall it was in keeping with the show's mythos, which made me happy.

I'm kind of a stickler for that kind of thing. I get really annoyed when shows kind of break from their usual way of doing things to get in that one last great show - or that one "very special episode." I kind of felt like "Glee" spent much of last season doing that. They had lost one of their main characters due to the actor's death, and the show kind of felt like it didn't know what to do.

But the final season has felt like what it was "supposed to" feel like. And the finale - two episodes back to back, actually - gave me the same warm fuzzies that I got in the first couple of seasons. They flashed back. They flashed forward. But - through it all - they flashed smiles and sang some good songs.

For a few weeks, there's been this whole "hashtag campaign" asking people to post "what Glee meant to me" and I thought it was all kind of silly. A "Hallmark holiday" for a TV show, of all things. But as I watched it, tonight, and thought about how people I know have really reacted to the show in incredibly emotional ways (for better or worse), and I realized that I'm going to miss some of the characters.

This was the first show I've watched where we got to see gay and lesbian characters experience crushes and fall in love - and get their hearts broken and get married - without immediately jumping into bed. But - unlike a show like "Will & Grace" these characters did, eventually, have sex (I'm pretty sure Will never had sex in the entire run of "Will & Grace"). And the gay and lesbian characters came in different shapes and sizes, too (this season one was even a star football player - who fell for an artsy hipster), which made it even better. In some strange way, I got to think about what it would have been like to have a gay high school relationship. That was cool. 

And there has been a lot of hope (for lack of a better word) on TV while "Glee" has been on. Underdogs getting the chance to shine. Emotions being worked out in song. All the stuff that makes me a very happy TV watcher.

I know that in the realm of 24-hour cable stations the show will never truly go away, and if I wanted I could own the entire box set of all of the seasons in a couple of months, but I have to admit that I'm going to miss watching it every week. So tonight I'll watch a few of the production numbers one last time to let them sink in before saying goodbye.