For UK viewers it's been twelve months since New Directions lost out to Vocal Adrenaline at regionals, sending McKinley High's Glee club back to basics. Audition picks up months after (predictably given American viewers only had to wait that long) with the club looking to audition new acts towards the national competition in New York- leading to an excellent rendition of "Empire State of Mind"- and while the first episode of Season Two employs a whole host of age-old clichés it also manages to be the best story the show had produced in a long while! In fact, the aforementioned "Empire State of Mind" that takes place out in the school lunch area is a definite sign of things getting bigger and better this year, reaching a choreographed high only strained for at the end of the first series- the scale of the piece was suitably impressive even for a casual viewer of American television, and allowed each of the main cast to shine in their performances together and in solos (for once!). The songs easily formed the strongest element of Audition, but even the plot wasn't too hasty, as Will and Sue bullied the new, big-boned football teacher Beiste in a sub-tale that's been done one million times before yet was fuelled by emotion and the show's trademark sense of humour, and Rachel tried to cope with her over-confidence but inevitably it led her to a fall. The only place where Episode 1 faltered was in its inability to move the show forward: brilliant new singers Sam and Sunshine are cast aside as fast as they are introduced, and even the innovative friendship formed between Schuster and Sylvester doesn't make it through 45 minutes before resuming the animosity found throughout Season One. Other than that, this was the strongest start to a season of television I've seen for a while, and bodes well for the quality of future Series Two episodes!
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