GLOW: Netflix's Wrestling Comedy Starts Strong

Netflix's new '80s female wrestling series, GLOW -- which premieres June 23rd -- made a huge splash at the ATX Television Festival with a screening of the first episode, followed by a Q&A panel featuring stars Alison Brie (Community, Mad Men) and Betty Gilpin (Nurse Jackie, American Gods), along with executive producer Liz Flahive (Nurse Jackie, Homeland) and casting director Jennifer Euston.

For those who aren't aware, G.L.O.W. -- aka Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling -- was an actual syndicated TV series that ran for four seasons in the mid-80s, having been created as an attempt to cash in on the huge Hulk Hogan-led wrestling boom of the era. G.L.O.W. wasn't populated with actual female wrestlers though, but rather actresses, models, dancers and other types who were trying to break into showbiz in LA at the time.

The Netflix GLOW series is a fictionalized account of the old show, with no character meant to portray someone who existed in real life. There might be stories that have risen out of the G.L.O.W. period that have been worked into the new series, but nothing is directly being adapted. If you're curious about the classic show, you can check out clips on YouTube or, even better, the documentary "GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling."

I'll have an official review of GLOW's entire first season soon, but for right now I'll just offer up some opinions on the premiere episode that screened at ATX. Firstly, it's very strong. It's overflowing with '80s awesomeness but not in a way that's meant to distract or detract from the story. Alison Brie's Ruth Wilder, a starving actress desperate for work (and longing for a rare rich part for a woman, on top of that), is at the heart of the tale, but while most stories would shine her up as the underdog hero, Ruth's a bit more complex than that. In fact, she's not even entirely likable. You understand her desire to support herself, and her dream of doing something meaningful as an actress, but there are also elements to Ruth that are somewhat self-destructive and counter-productive.

With Ruth's aspirations comes a passion to do well but also a comedic smugness, and Brie is very good here as a woman who'd like to think she's above her current situation but is also about to unexpectedly find her calling. Ruth's best friend, an actress-turned-wife/mother named Debbie (Glipin), is integral to all of this but not in a way that I can give away here. Needless to say, there are a few salty twists involved as the first episode takes us through the confusing and semi-seedy auditioning process for GLOW, keeping both the viewers and the vying actresses at a keen distance so that both parties are often wondering what everyeone's actually getting themselves into.

A lot of the confusion (and humor too) comes from the director character, Marc Maron's Sam Sylvia, as he leads and spearheads a project that he A: apparently doesn't want to do, and B: doesn't really understand. The fact that Sam doesn't really know what he's looking for, and doesn't truly know what the finished product is supposed to look like or be, makes all of this an involving and evolving situation for the characters and viewer. A lot of the comedy too comes from this process. Much of it involving Sam and the way he feels about Ruth. Much like us, sometimes Sam likes Ruth and sometimes he doesn't. He can't figure out how he feels about her and it notably bugs him.

During the panel itself, Brie spoke about what she and the other cast members had to do as far as wrestling training -- those who weren't already wrestlers, that is, like Kia Stevens, AKA Awesome Kong -- which was given to them by none other than Chavo Guerrero.

"All the actresses on the show did wrestling training for about a month," Brie explained, "with Chavo Guerrero Jr. - I adore him! - whose uncle Mando actually trained the original cast of G.L.O.W. but in a much crazier way. The stories about the women training for G.L.O.W. start with Mando putting a girl in a sleeper hold until she passes out just to show them what's going on. Our first day with Chavo though was like 'This is a ring. Step into it. Feel comfortable.' But we did the training all together, with each other and started out with the fundamentals of footwork and sitting on the ground. Also rudimentary back bumps where you'd just sit on the ground and try to put the whole of your back on the mat at the same time."

"Then we sort of graduated into three-quarter front flips and front bumps and back bumps and all that stuff," Brie added. "And we continued to train while shooting. So our training gym was adjacent to where we shot everything, so if you weren't shooting, you were training. Which was really cool because as we got to know who our wrestling characters were, and even as we got to know our characters more and our physical strengths - that was something that Chavo and also Shauna Duggins, our stunt coordinator, were good at, was playing to our strengths. And also what made sense for our characters."

Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association (TCA). Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.