Glee is the surprisingly ambitious pet project of three different writers and as the first season of the show progresses it becomes more apparent that they aren't all equally talented. Last week's stellar episode was the product of Ryan Murphy's script and Paris Barclay's direction. This week, we can thank Brad Falchuk for a far inferior hour of television. This is a trend in Glee. Murphy writes interesting, entertaining scripts that are properly paced while Falchuk tosses off lumps of clunky dialog and clumsy storytelling devices. Falchuk was the mind behind "Preggers", the episode that I still consider the weakest of the season, though tonight's wasn't far behind. I'd be happy to see a second season of Glee that alternates between Murphy's good storytelling and oddball Ian Brennan's weird but stylistic episodes.

What's really a shame about "Ballad" is that it was a major character episode. It ostensibly advanced the personal stories of half the principle cast, but it did so in a pretty embarrassing variety of ways.

The big development was that Finn and Quinn's parents finally find out about the pregnancy, which should have been a big, engaging story but actually ended up being as hokey and just plain bad as possible. Finn gets found out when his mom catches him singing his jocky little heart out to a sonogram, which is in the running for the cheesiest moment in the entire series. As for Quinn's folks, they get the news when Finn takes Kurt's advice and literally sings the news to them over a plate of ham. Adding to the crime was the waste of the admittedly typecast Gregg Henry in the role of Quinn's conservative caricature of a father.

On the other end of the episode, Rachel inexplicably develops a crush on Will that leads to a series of over-the-top gags and the introduction of an awful one-off character named Susie Pepper, another one of Will's lovesick students from the recent past.

See, this is the problem at the core of "Ballad". It's an episode surrounded by grotesques instead of characters, so when deeply emotional moments like Quinn's confession to her parents or Kurt's hopeless romantic advances toward Finn come up it's impossible to strike the right dramatic tone. Dianna Agron and Chris Colfer give great performances regardless, but there's not an actor in this world who could make this material work.

Oh, and an episode consisting entirely of slow pop ballads? No thank you. My palate just can't handle that much treacle.

Best Moment: Quinn's confession. The dialog was awful, but bless Dianna Agron for giving it her all anyway.

Favorite Song: The entire club singing "Lean on Me". I like it when everyone gets together and it was a refreshing change of pace after all the diva ballads. Will's mash-up was a close second, but the scene was just so clunky.

Episode Rating: 2.5/5- Everything starts with the script and Brad Falchuk just doesn't know how to drive one. Also, this episode featured no Jane Lynch at all and several scenes of Terri. That's all kinds of wrong.