(The below contains mild spoilers for the first episode of GLOW, but those spoilers really shouldn't do anything but convince you to watch the show : )
I've read somewhere, probably multiple places, that the most compelling characters are the ones who have lost everything, the ones who have hit rock bottom.
Jason and I have been watching GLOW on Netflix. It's a show about... well, it's a show about losers, when you get down to it. In the 1980's, a washed-up director is attempting to get a women's wrestling TV show off the ground, and all he has is the dregs, the losers, the people who have hit rock bottom and have literally nothing else. And it is glorious.
Each episode, we learn a little bit more about these "losers," about what rock bottom is for each of them. I'm not sure what I expected going into the show - maybe more silliness. And there is humor, don't get me wrong, but there is also drama and struggle, and characters that you identify with. These characters, these losers, they're the ones that you watch claw their way back up from nothing, and you root for them.
It's also doubly impactful for me watching it, as a former actress. Ruth, one of the major characters, is an unsuccessful actress. She goes to auditions and never gets called back. She's taking acting classes, but has no money for food or utilities. I've been there. She accepts a casting call for the wrestling show mainly because she has nothing else and she has been assured that it's not porn. And she's the worst! She complains. She can't take direction. She doesn't want to play the bad guy. For someone who has been in enough acting classes that one would assume she'd have at least some physical (dance, stage combat, etc.) training, she has no physical prowess. And I sit there thinking, "god, she is the WORST actress!" And then it dawns on me that yes, she IS the worst actress - that's the point. Her story arch is going to be that she grows as an actress once she starts taking this seriously.
And - spoiler alert - she does. She gets kicked out of the show for not being able to take or follow directions. She completely loses it in her acting class when the teacher falls asleep in the middle of her Tennessee Williams monologue. Then she pulls herself together. She starts watching wrestling on TV - she researches the characters and the moves. She shows up at practice for the show, striding in the door in costume and makeup like she owns the ring, and proceeds to deliver a verbal throw-down of the Maggie the Cat as portrayed by Hulk Hogan. And then she gets her ass kicked by her (ex)best friend. And it is one of the best pilot episodes I have ever seen.
Even if it were just Ruth, it would be a good show. But it's not just Ruth. We're slowly seeing characters being torn down, their vulnerabilities revealed. And now, about 6 episodes in, we're starting to see them make their comebacks. We're seeing them transform into something new and better. We're seeing them start to glow.