Friday, July 6

Nextflix Reviews - GLOW

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GLOW stands for Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling, this program has had 2 seasons so far on Netflix and I am hooked. I binge watched both seasons pretty much as soon as they hit the network. The premise is based on a real life wrestling promotion that started out in 1986 and had a syndicated TV show for 4 seasons that was known for it's comedic skits. 

In 2012 there was a documentary about the promotion, this was seen by Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, who were looking for ideas for a female-centric show at the time. They went on to create this GLOW show. This 2012 documentary is also available on Netflix and is an interesting, funny and poignant watch, well worth checking out to see the history and influence it had on this show. 

Season one of GLOW came out on Netflix in 2017, with season 2 just coming out at the end of June this year. The wrestlers from the series are based on the original characters but with different names.

Alison Brie is a keen but essentially failed actor, she just can't get a decent role despite her passion, professionalism and enthusiasm. Her best friend Debbie Eagan is a fairly successful soap opera star and seems to have it all, making Alison feel overshadowed by her. The pair fall out in spectacular fashion when Brie sleeps with Eagan's husband. 

Alison goes to an audition for GLOW, a wrestling show to be filmed for TV, it's pay rolled by enthusiastic but inexperienced rich boy Sebastian "Bash" Howard and to be directed by irascible, jaded Sam Sylvia. The team is soon put together and starts training, Alison brings her acting chops and enthusiam to the project which rubs Sam up the wrong way but this is the best job she's ever been given and is determined for it to be a success.

Things take a nose dive for Alison when her ex-friend Debbie is picked up to be the star draw of the show as all american good ol' girl Liberty Belle. This threatens her position and stirs up animosity between them, but can they forget their differences and make the show and their relationship succeed?

This disparate team of women need to become like a family to each other, living through the bumps and bruises of life whilst going through the bumps and bruises in the ring. Will the fans like the show? Will the network like the show? Will they be able to pull off the manoeuvres they've practised?


The tone of the show is a great mix of fun and serious, there is drama and proper character development but there is a lot of light hearted stuff mainly in the in-ring personnas of the wrestlers, with such names as Welfare Queen, The She-Wolf, Zoya the Destroyer, Beirut, Fortune Cookie and Brittanica. Most of them are terribly non-pc stereotypes which are so familiar to anyone who watched wrestling back in that era.

Season two is a continuation of the themes of the 1st really with new challenges being presented to them to do their best to try and overcome. I won't say what happens but it seems very likely we'll see a 3rd season sometime in the future, where I hope they'll be able to keep up the level of quality and entertainment of the previous ones.

Oh yeah I just found out today that the character Welfare Queen is played by real life wrestler Kia Stevens. Her TV show wrestling persona is a fun heel who is a sweetie out of the ring, nothing like the powerhouse, Awesome Kong she portrayed for the TNA wrestling promotion.

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