Thanks to Netflix (though apparently not anymore), I encountered a TV show about ten years old or so that was apparently made by the being responsible for Glee. It was called “Popular,” and featured the actress who played the hot reporter from the Iron Man movies, towards whom Gynneth Paltrow (ironically, given the TV show connections) acts like a right royal bitch. She and her almost-step-sister are the main characters of the show set in a high school and features the (in my experience, fictitious) clash between the popular and unpopular kids. One of the unique aspects of this show, aside from its Glee-like suspension of reality, was that you could actually believe the popular girl WAS popular, because she was mostly pretty nice and sympathetic while her counterpart, though ostensibly the heroine, was a hypocrite and unpleasant, in addition to frequently giving the impression of never bathing. The show was apparently only two seasons long and spiraled into a tailspin of crazy before attempting to stave off cancellation with a cliffhanger finale to the second season. To no avail, apparently. Another interesting aspect was the willingness to cast unattractive females, aside from the titular lead character and her pseudo-sister who was not hard on the eyes despite there being a certain off-putting asymmetrical quality to hers. The two cliques of female characters included a popular clique which was basically the three evil chicks from Mean Girls, if Rachel McAddams was nicer, or the three cheerleaders from Glee if only one of them was cute. The unpopular clique actually had a fat girl (which would explain why she was unpopular and forced to hang out with a couple of pretentious shrews). That’s right. A fat girl on a high school show on the WB. In the 90s. I had pretty much assumed the general downgrade in appearance of the female cast of Glee had to do with their being selected for musical ability rather than looks or acting as is usually the case, but apparently Ryan Murphy has never had a problem with throwing normal-appearance chicks up on the screen.

Also like Glee, the show seems to think Gynneth Paltrow was a lot more impressive and awesome than she actually ever was, with the celebrity-obsessed popular girls name-dropping her constantly, though at the time this was on the air, she presumably had enough job offers that she did not need to stoop to actually appearing on “Popular.” Also, she looks like she could join Vince Vaughn & Susan Sarandon in the cast of the Family Guy-proposed movie “People Who Look Like They Never Sleep.”

But on to my main point, which is that equal-opportunity appearance-wise or not, he’s still a one-trick hack. Here are some bullet points about his show. Which one? Trust me, it doesn’t matter.

- There is a sometimes sympathetic blonde female character who is the head cheerleader with two best friends, who are her friends because the show said so, not because they ever act like it. One of her cheerleader friends is mean and bitchy and slutty, and the other is dumb as a box of rocks.

- The cheerleader is, at the outset of the show, dating the dumb-as-dogshit star football player who is conflicted about wanting to fulfill his image as a manly jock and at the same time, perform musically with the encouragement of an inappropriate teacher who uses underhanded methods to obtain the player’s cooperation.

- There is an evil, eerily androgynous sort-of female teacher who provides most of the comedy and is in a peculiar fashion, probably an overall good influence on the students.

- Two students with totally opposite personalities who don’t get along, though one might appear to have something of a gay crush on the other, end up in a whacky living situation when their single mother and father fall for each other and force them to move in together.

- The fat girl joins the cheerleading team, which has a cutesy pun-name, unlike any cheerleaders at any other high school I watched on TV or the movies or even attended or taught (and I had a class taught by the cheerleader coach in one of my schools, so I’m pretty sure I would have heard if they had any other name than “Don Bosco Cheerleaders”, especially because Don Bosco is an all-male school which none of its cheerleaders attended, and the name of a Catholic saint & priest is generally not what you want a cheerleading unit to be named after, much less “Ironmen.” My point is, if ANY cheerleading squad was going to get a cutesy name, it would have been my alma mater’s. But it didn’t, leading me to suspect this is a phenomenon restricted to Ryan Murphy shows). Also, the high school is named after an assassinated president, which is also somewhat outside my experience, as I know of no real life high schools named after presidents unless the town is also named after a president.

- The show addresses the magic of the female reproductive system as if it is some sort of alien horror, in rather appallingly misogynistic and condescending fashion, further strengthening my certainty about Ryan Murphy’s sexual orientation.

- There is a genuinely handicapped actress playing a recurring character on the show, in ways I suspect flirt with mockery of the character’s affliction.

All in all, just as lame as Glee, except in this case, the main actress drew me in (looking for TV shows on Netlfix I was recommended this one because I had just watched Midnight Meat Train and Talladega Nights also featuring her – she is rather versatile in the types of films in which she can play a startled-looking attractive love interest), rather than every member of my family ranting about how good it is. If Glee is your thing, but you don’t like the music, you might want to watch this. You probably still won’t like the music, but there’s less of it.