KOKH Conspiracy Theory

The critical darling of this Fall's television season is undoubtedly Fox's new musical-comedy, Glee.  As a network, Fox was so excited about their new show that they chose to air the pilot last May in conjunction with the American Idol finale.  For the audience this show is targeting, that is kind of like premiering a show by introducing it after the SuperBowl.

As a result, Glee had a ton of buzz and a rabid fanbase before the first season even began.  That's why so many people were tuned in when Oklahoma City's Fox affiliate, KOKH, broadcast the first new episode last Wednesday.  What they saw ended up being incomplete due to "technical difficulties."

One of our readers blind-copied us on an email to KOKH in complaint about the station's mistake...except this person thought the "technical difficulties" might not have been unexpected.  In fact, the suggestion was that Channel 25 may have creatively censored the episode.

Listen, I'm not a tin foil hat conspiracist.  Contrary to Chad's suggestion last Friday, I believe that terrorists were behind the attack on the World Trade Center, I find it plausible that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone shooter, and if Neil Armstrong was not on the moon, I don't want to know where he was.  After watching Glee's episode entitled "Showmance" on Hulu.com, though, I kind of think this reader might be on to something.

The executive producer of Glee is also one of the show runners of another Fox produced program Nip/Tuck, which is routinely panned by the Parents Television Council, a noted censorship group.  Knowing this, it is no surprise that this new show will push the envelope of good taste.  Of course, as a result of the technical problems of KOKH, the good people of Oklahoma may never be exposed.

After the jump, I'll catch everyone up on what was missed.

-- The first technical difficult wiped out a scene portraying the inner happenings of a Celibacy Club meeting.  While I have yet to give Glee my stamp of approval, I have to comment that I enjoyed how, in the pilot episode, the show steered away from the stereotypical portrayal of this plot twist.  In the pilot, a quarterback turned glee club star turned out to be dating the head cheerleader and president of said club.  They immediately flashed to a scene of the two making out, at which point I expected the two to proceed to bumping uglies...because as all high school boys know, dating girls who take celibacy pledges is perfect because they won't make you wear a condom.  Instead, she stopped the make out session to pray.

In KOKH's first lost scene, the inner workings of the Celibacy Club are portrayed and featured some of the episode's best jokes.  For instance, with the exception of one glee club member who was begrudgingly allowed to attend (and only wanted to attend to get the attention of Finn--the former quarterback), all the girls were cheer leaders.  During the first half of the meeting, which segregated the boys and girls, the cheerleaders practiced their raunchy, stripper pole like moves.  They finished with a cheer--"Remember!  It's all about the teasing!  Not the pleasing!"

Meanwhile, the boys part of the meeting turned to a discussion about premature ejaculation.  Finn said he doesn't have a problem with it and in his head explains to the audience that he manages to keep his dry humping dry by remembering the time he ran over a mailman while his mother taught him to drive.

When the meeting integrated to include both genders, they paired up boy-girl (conveniently having an equal number of each sex) for an exercise that involved placing a balloon in between the pubic bones.  The instructions from Quin, the club president, involved informing the group that if the balloon popped, and angel cried.  It was then her boyfriend, Finn, who burst the bubble when he got excited staring at his fellow glee club member.

Said glee club member, Rachel, then goes off on a tangent that I might as well have written about the dangers of abstinence-only education.  She finishes her monologue by informing all the boys in the group that girls want sex just as much as boys and storms off.  At this point, KOKH temporarily solved whatever ailed their transmission.

--When the station began having problems again, it missed the big assembly that the episode had been building up.  In it, the glee club surprised their sponsor by performing a student choreographed (meaning without his knowledge) version of Salt N Pepa's Push It, rather than some disco song that the stereotypical homosexual kid declared "gay", that the sponsor had forced on them.

It was absolutely raunchy and included simulated sex acts including one move where a female member of the club pretended to go down on a wheelchair bound male performer.

But I'm sure it was just a problem with KOKH's satellite feed that caused them to go off the air.
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Anyway, as I said, I'm not ready to give this show the "Clark Matthews Stamp of Approval", but it has potential.  I'm just not a big fan of people breaking out into song and dance with everyone around instinctively knowing the words, parts, and steps.  Like all musicals, the dialogue is certainly lacking.  But as my wife's friend said, "if all I get from it is a weekly musical number featuring Journey covers, I'll watch it."

The next episode is tonight at 8:00.  We'll see if the local network can show all of it this week.