Rent: Live

The audience was super annoying. Most of the songs were fine but the vocals werent great, especially in "today for you"

As a confirmed #renthead who has seen the stage and film versions more times than I'm willing to admit, here are my thoughts: -I know it's a lot to ask to find vocalists who can compare with the original cast, but Fox was obviously more concerned with hiring names teenagers would recognize than anyone with actual talent. Hudgens is fine, probably the best of the bunch, but she's no Idina. The rest of them have virtually no range and put no power into the performances. -I kinda like the expanded staging, but the audience being in the middle of everything distracts from the story and turns it into just another concert. -The censorship of certain lines and content is anathema to what the show is about. If Fox wasn't brave enough to do it as it was written, they shouldn't have done it. Larsen would have a fit knowing it was on Fox anyway. -It feels like the director knew the vocals weren't up to par based on the comparative volume of the musical accompaniment. The instruments, particularly the piano, would sometimes drown out the vocals.

Overall, it was just meh. Not enough talent, not enough energy, not enough anything. I would expect something hyped this much would be much better. 3/10

These TV musicals are always a little sketchy. I'm not a "Renthead" so I don't have much to go on. I saw the Broadway traveling company a few years ago and was quite captivated. Here, I felt the pacing was a bit slow. It is performed on an enormous stage, with the audience sitting in rectangular cells. This is a really touching story of the AIDS epidemic. It is about a sort of artists colony in a rental building. Many of the people there are HIV positive at a time when most would die from it. Others are drug users. Some are gay. They are all trying to survive. It is mixture of the angst that such a society would deal with, watching their young friends die off or lose their dreams. There is a nice moment at the end.

So sad Jonathan Larson isn't around to give his input into the productions that followed his magnificent Broadway premiere but I think he still would be humbled to know that his play continues to resonate with so many people over 20 years later. Overall, not bad being mostly the taped dress rehearsal. Sets were a bit of a jumble but the acting and singing decent enough to keep our interest until that final tearjerking live reunion with the original Broadway cast which really made this memorable.

What do you get when you take Rent and put it on TV during prime time? All the actors had their volumes cut. Many of them seemed to be out of their range. Where Rent thrived on grit, this performance strove for pocket lint. The last three minutes with the original cast was not enough to save this. I'm sad, now.