Last night’s episode of GLEE had us thinking back to our summers spent working at camp. Rest assured, we are not about to recount the tale of which role in our camp production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show won us a “Tsimmie” (Our camp’s Tony Award Equivalent), particularly since we were more of a behind-the-scenes-type-of-guy as a result of some fairly harsh criticism handed down from a drunken friend (Another story for another time!) But rather, the reason for this trip down memory lane is to drudge up an expression an old camp director of ours liked to toss around from time to time. That expression, “Everybody’s replaceable,” and none more so than the cast of GLEE.
Take Mark Salling for example. You may-or-may-not have noticed — for reasons that FOX has yet to officially confirm or deny — that the actor has been conspicuously absent from GLEE’s past two episodes. Now, why this should be of concern to the current McKinley High student body, well, that’s simple. Combine an increasingly overpopulated Glee Club with the show’s penchant for erratic storytelling coupled with musical numbers that more-often-than-not completely overshadow even the slightest hint of character development and what you’re left with are a slew of interchangeable characters that are little more than cardboard cutouts inadvertently giving credence to Sue Sylvester’s offensive labels from last season such as, “Wheels, Gay Kid, Asian, Other Asian, Aretha.” So much so that if GLEE’s second season has illustrated anything, it’s that for every Mark Salling, there’s an “ab-ulous” Chord Overstreet waiting in the wings.
Just a little something Salling, the cast of GLEE and more importantly, their demanding agents might want to keep in mind the next time an offer for a solo album comes along, or its time to renegotiate those contracts. We’re just sayin’ 