There has been much complaint after much initial acclaim about the cascade of half hour television programs that masquerade as comedies (some more than others, some merely because they’re 30 minutes, a length that traditional denotes comedy) aren’t really comedies; and more than merely not making you laugh, these are usually pretty dramatic, lacking even the patina of comedy. Transparent, one of my favorite current shows, holds the banner for that movement; it’s by no means somber or humorless, like AMC’s The Walking Dead, but a classically designated “comedy” it is not either. The natural antecedent of these half-hours wrapping themselves in comedy’s clothing is the comedy that is designed to do what comedies were originally designed to do: elicit laughs. New Girl, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Veep all fit well into this class, levels of storyline and feels and seriality aside.
There’s a third type of half hour program, though, that lives in between these two poles. There’s the half hour program that isn’t quite a comedy but isn’t quite a drama either. This type of program doesn’t have the laughs that you would normally expect from a comedy. There aren’t out and out jokes. But it has all of the underlying elements that generally support most comedies, laughs aside. If it doesn’t exist to make you live, it does live to make you smile. It’s not too heavy, there’s some drama, but it’s never too tragic, and at the end of the day you feel better after watching than you did before you started. GLOW lives in this third category.
GLOW isn’t really funny; there aren’t jokes, but it’s light on its feet. There are dramatic moments and some real pain but it’s not heavy in the way a Transparent or an Enlightened is. I never had anything less than full confidence that things would work out and that the season would for the most part end with lots of positive moments. The show makes it onto the air, Debbie participates and stands up against her somewhat bumbling husband, Carmen battles her stage fright, Sam makes peace with his newfound daughter. As a born pessimist, I’ve certainly enjoyed reveling in the depression and terrible people of a Transparent, but exactly because of that, it is nice to have a contract; a fun, clean, light-but-not-too-light respite like GLOW to actually kind of make you feel like the world’s going to be okay.
The low point for the main characters of GLOW actually comes right away, early in the first episode, when Ruth sleeps with her friend (her best and/or only friend as far as we see in the show) Debbie’s husband, for the second time as it turns out. It’s an awfully shitty thing to do, and she knows it, but she does it anyway, and Debbie chases Ruth down to the wrestling ring and confronts her. She ruins her friendship and her friend’s relationship, appreciates the magnitude of what a shitty thing she did and her season’s arc, besides trying to create the kind of meaty female part she’s been unable to find in traditional acting, is trying to make up for her misdeeds with Debbie. In fact, the only unresolved tension at the end of the season is Debbie’s pointed response to Ruth’s drink offer that they’re not there yet as friends, but the fact that they’re talking shows the amount of progress that has happened since Ruth did one of the worst things someone can do to a friend.
Wrestling started out as something silly on GLOW; nothing but a job for everyone involved (except for Carmen and maybe Bash who was funding it), but over the course of the show the characters began to take it seriously; for the career opportunities it offered, for the soap opera narratives, for its ability to tell a story and stoke an audience (not so much for the stereotypical foreign heels, but hey, it was the ‘80s, and they’re still doing that today).
There were pretty much three main characters, Ruth, Debbie, and Sam, but the whole ensemble were delightful in their interactions, some more limited than others. Over the course of the show, Carmen got a nice arc about being willing to break away from the wishes of her family for her hard-won personal fulfillment, and fighting her stage fright to succeed and eventually win the admiration of her family. Cherry, likewise, had an arc about winning Sam’s respect, taking control over her character and making it a success, and impressing enough to win a part outside of wrestling. Both were smaller, more peripheral stories, than those of Ruth, Debbie, and Sam, but felt satisfying on their own merit.
At the end of the day, GLOW isn’t really super complicated or confusing or complex and there are no layers on layers on layers. It’s a warm, fun, show,with solid well-constructed characters that leaves you with a smile on its face. Bob’s Burgers has been my stand in for the type of show that I love to watch before I go to sleep, that leaves me happy, and hopefully leads to good dreams. GLOW fulfills that promise, and that’s no small thing.
Television, the Drug of the Nation 