NBC's Rise would be so much better if its biggest character wasn't such a mess

Vox

"Watching Rise feels like watching its promising high school characters take to the stage and try with all their might to bare their souls and inspire the masses," says Caroline Framke. "It’s unabashedly earnest, sporadically moving, and, when it falters, incredibly frustrating." The biggest problem, she says is that Josh Radnor's "supposedly inspiration teacher" character is a "patronizing nightmare." She adds that he "is a one-stop shop of condescension and petulance, and the show doesn’t realize it until way too late in the season."

ALSO:

• Rise does a commendable job of evoking that feeling of the transition from adolescence to adulthood
• The emphasis on Radnor's character takes away from Rise's strengths: the kids themselves
• There's a familiar naturalism with the younger stars, but the adults lack authenticity and won't get out of the way
• Rise benefits from being more Friday Night Lights than Glee
• You have to stick with Rise -- it gets better with the writers' course correction
• Just call it the anti-Glee: Jason Katims didn't want a show about kids bursting into songs
• Katims wanted to return to what he did well on Friday Night Lights
• After adapting Parenthood and Friday Night Lights, Katims has learned that you have to make a TV show your own