Changes: GLOW

Revision as of 13:35, 1 July 2018

GLOW is an American comedy-drama television series created by Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch. The series is a fictionalized account of the characters and situations of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. Created by David McLane in the 1980s, the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling was a women's professional wrestling circuit. The first season is ten episodes long, and was released via Netflix on June 23, 2017.

Premise

Set in Los Angeles in 1985, Ruth Wilder is a struggling actress who receives an invitation for an audition along with dozens of other women in a fledgling professional wrestling promotion called the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (GLOW). Ruth's tendency to overact in the ring sets her at odds with the director of GLOW, Sam Sylvia. A further complication is Ruth's affair with the husband of her best friend, Debbie Eagan. The resulting feud makes the pair GLOWs top stars.

Cast

Main

Recurring

Jackie Tohn as Melanie "Melrose" Rosen
Kate Nash as Rhonda "Britannica" Richardson
Britt Baron as Justine "Scab" Biagi
Chris Lowell as Sebastian "Bash" Howard
Bashir Salahuddin as Keith Bang
Rich Sommer as Mark Eagan
Kimmy Gatewood as Stacey "Ozone" Beswick
Rebekka Johnson as Dawn "Nuke" Rivecca
Sunita Mani as Arthie "Beirut the Mad Bomber" Premkumar
Kia Stevens as Tammé "The Welfare Queen" Dawson
Gayle Rankin as Sheila the She Wolf
Ellen Wong as Jenny "Fortune Cookie" Chey
Marianna Palka as Reggie "Vicky the Viking" Walsh
Shakira Barerra as Yolanda "Junkchain"
Alex Rich as Florian
Amy Farrington as Mallory

Cameos

Several professional wrestlers made cameos throughout the season. These include John Morrison as Salty "The Sack" Johnson, a trainer who appeared the first episode, Brodus Clay and Carlito, who played Carmen's wrestler brothers, Joey Ryan, as a wrestler known as 'Mr. Monopoly', Ryan's real-life wife and wrestler Laura James played his valet 'Crystal', Alex Riley who played a wrestler known as 'Steel Horse', Brooke Hogan as night club manager Amber Fredrickson, and Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian as unnamed wrestlers.

Production

The idea for the series came when Flahive and Mensch, who at the time were looking to make a new female-centric show, came across the 2012 documentary GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. Before this series, neither woman had heard of the GLOW wrestling league, and they became intrigued by the premise of producing a fictionalized version of it. Both women found the storyline intriguing as a way of exploring the aftermath of the 1970s Woman's Liberation Movement, with Flahive's telling Rolling Stone "We wanted to look back on the 1970s, coming out of the women's movement, and into the 1980s, and ask the question: Did it work? Did things get better?" To this end, it was important for the series to maintain a tension between whether or not the league was exploiting women or empowering them.

Episodes

Reception

GLOW was praised by critics upon its release; receiving a 97% approval rating from review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, the site's consensus being "With spot-on 1980s period detail, knockout writing, and a killer cast, GLOW shines brightly." The series has a Metacritic score of 81 out of 100, based on 35 critics. Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly gave the first season an A rating, calling it "a silly-smart masterpiece, with an ensemble cast entirely made up of breakout characters". Sophie Gilbert of The Atlantic said, "...it’s just a blast to watch women having so much fun. GLOW fully owns its campiness and its showy aesthetics, but it’s smart and subversive underneath the glitter."

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 |name= GLOW
 |num episodes= 10
-|num seasons= 1
+|num seasons= 2
 |network= [[wikipedia:Netflix|Netflix]]
 |first aired= 23 June, 2017