‘Glee’ unveils its first spin-off ‘Project’

HIT TV musical-drama series’ spin-off is a reality challenge.

Last Monday, June 13, the hit TV musical-drama series, “Glee,” started telecasting its first spin-off show, simply and succinctly titled, “The Glee Project.” It’s a “reality challenge” talent search that fields 12 young finalists, one of whom will be eliminated each week until the “last singer standing” is proclaimed champion—and is featured in at least seven  episodes in the show’s upcoming third season.

It’s a great, big break for the winner, so all 12 standout finalists are giving the tilt everything they’ve got—and then some. It’s like a speeded-up version of “American Idol”—with the additional requirement for the finalists to show off, not only their singing chops, but also their acting, dancing and “total performer” capabilities.

Instructive

It’s interesting and instructive to note that not all of the finalists are lookers. Since “Glee” is about down-and-outs and also-rans, a number of the “Project” boys and girls have “character” rather than bland “lead” good looks—the better for the show’s writers to get inspired by them and came up with fresh and even idiosyncratic storylines to keep the show from getting comfortably and smugly stale.

In addition to competing, the “Project” finalists are closely mentored by “Glee’s” creative heads, so they’re expected to keep improving from week to week, until the winner is revealed—or, more properly, reveals himself or herself.

As early as the tilt’s very first week, it was already clear that plus points were being given for uniqueness. It was presumed that all of the young talents were really good (they had gotten into the finals, after all), so now it was up to them to show what they had in terms of personality and temperament that would make them stand out.

Indeed, it was interesting to see that, while most of the finalists performed pretty much like young professionals, only a few had the “edge” or character “hook” that stars need to really make it in the biz these days.

Gone are the days when perfection was key. Now, “flaws” can be assets and enormously appealing, as long as they’re interesting, unique and indicative of inner drive, tension and “torque.”

—Hey, are we talking about people, or car engines? Whatever, the requisite drive’s the same if you want your performing career to go on a really long and profitable trip.

Mentors

The young talents’ mentors kept repeating: Show us who you are, rather than what you think we’re looking for. That’s a key requirement, because the reason for the competition in the first place is not to produce a generic star, but to reveal enough personality and temperament for the show to use in its future storylines.

Expectedly, the invitation to “be yourself” left some talents dumbfounded. All of their young lives, they’ve focused on polishing their talents to a dazzling professional shine and glow—but now, they were being told to forget all that and focus on digging deep within themselves, instead of the standard show biz mantra to “project—project!”

Performing skills are relatively easy to learn and polish to perfection, but what if the young singer hasn’t bothered to develop himself as a person? Oops, then he’s in trouble—at least as far as “The Glee Project” is concerned.

Take the first of the 12 singers, who was eliminated last week: Bryce was a good singer with a keen ethnic vibe to his hunky looks—but, he had a hard time working with others, and was obviously focused on himself, even in ensemble musical exercises.

That didn’t cut it as far as the show’s producer-mentors were concerned, so Bryce was—permanently put on ice!