Quick Take: Glory Daze, "Some Like It Hot Tub"
"There is no 'I' in orgasm." - Stankowski
Review: Glory Daze, "Some Like It Hot Tub"
(S0109) Season One of Glory Daze has (mercifully) come to an end. Looking back, what have we learned from these ten episodes about these characters? In a word: nada. I don't know any more about these guys than I did after the pilot. The show's writers appear to be so concerned with capturing the pure zaniness that is college (wait, your college experience wasn't all that zany? No way!), that they forgot one little thing, character development.
Maybe the lack of focus on the "core four" characters is a function of the show spreading itself too thin. Did we really need the Professor Haines divorce subplot stretched over the entire season? Did we need an entire episode devoted to the guy's fathers? Did we need Chang... at all? If I had my druthers, I would have eliminated all of this crap and instead spent that time with Stankowski and his words of wisdom and Reno and his Jazzercise class.
Let's do a quick rundown of the characters and think about their individual arcs this season.
Jason
He begins the season as an uptight, conservative prep with a girlfriend from back home. His father disapproves of his decision to join Omega Sig but Jason stands up for himself and earns his respect. Jason learns to loosen up and live a little.
Brian
He is a star baseball player with a talent for remembering random trivia. He is a ladies man with a heart of gold. Brian learns to balance his responsibilities as a student athlete with the demands of pledging a frat.
Eli
He is on a quest to get laid. As far as I can tell, he's still a virgin.
Joel
He begins the season as an All-American pre-med major with a crush on the Omega Sig president's girlfriend, Christie. His father disapproves of his decision to join Omega Sig but Joel stands up for himself and earns his respect. He constantly worries about flunking classes because of all the time he spends at the frat house. He winds up getting good grades anyway. Joel realizes that he and Christie won't work as a couple and decides to stop pining away for her.
Now tell me, what do all of these progressions have in common? They aren't progressions at all! No one grows or changes, they all end the season the same way they began. It really makes you wonder, "What's the point?"
