“Glee” arrived on Fox on May 19, 2009, with a pilot that promised something the American high school show had not tried before: a musical comedy where the songs were not jokes. Created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan, the series ran six seasons and 121 episodes, ending on March 20, 2015. It is a jukebox musical, a drama about outcasts, and — for a while — the most confident thing on television.
Trailer, via kbros9698.
William McKinley High School and the New Directions
The setup is plain. Will Schuester, played by Matthew Morrison, is an optimistic teacher who takes over the glee club at the fictional William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio. He wants to refuel his own passion while rebuilding a group of students the school has written off. The club, the New Directions, competes in the show choir circuit while navigating sexuality, gender, race, family, relationships and teamwork.
That list of themes is where “Glee” earns its keep and where it overreaches. The show handles them in the same episode, often in the same scene, and the results vary.
Lea Michele, Chris Colfer and a Broadway Casting Bet
Murphy did not run traditional network casting calls. He spent three months on Broadway, where he found Morrison, who had starred on stage in “Hairspray” and “The Light in the Piazza,” and Lea Michele, who starred in “Spring Awakening.” Jenna Ushkowitz came from the Broadway revival of “The King and I.”
The bet paid off. Michele’s Rachel Berry is the show’s engine, a performer whose ambition is played straight rather than mocked. Chris Colfer had no professional experience at all; Murphy wrote the character Kurt Hummel for him, and Colfer turned Kurt into the series’ most durable emotional thread.
- Matthew Morrison as Will Schuester
- Lea Michele as Rachel Berry
- Chris Colfer as Kurt Hummel
- Jane Lynch as Sue Sylvester
- Amber Riley as Mercedes Jones
- Kevin McHale as Artie Abrams
- Chord Overstreet as Sam Evans
- Darren Criss as Blaine Anderson
- Dot-Marie Jones as Sheldon Beiste
Actors without theatrical experience had to prove in auditions that they could sing and dance. Cory Monteith first sent a tape of himself acting only, then a second musical tape in which he sang a cheesy, ’80s music-video-style version of REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling.” Kevin McHale came from a boy-band background, having been part of the group Not Like Them. He said the mix of the cast’s backgrounds reflects the range of styles in the show itself.
“It’s a mix of everything: classic rock, current stuff, R&B,” McHale said. “Even the musical theatre stuff is switched up. You won’t always recognize it.”
Jane Lynch and the Sue Sylvester Problem
Jane Lynch was originally set for a recurring role as Sue Sylvester. She became a series regular when a Damon Wayans pilot she was working on for ABC fell through. That accident gave “Glee” its best antagonist and its sharpest comic voice. Sue is the show’s id, and Lynch plays her without a wink.
The cast was contracted for three potential “Glee” films. The contract granted Fox three exclusive, irrevocable options for up to three feature-length motion pictures. None of that matters to the finished show, but it says something about how Fox saw the property in 2009: not as a television series but as a franchise.
Over 729 Performances and Over 36 Million
Each episode features on-screen musical performances chosen by Murphy and produced by Adam Anders and Peer Åström, ranging from show tunes to chart hits. Across the run, “Glee” staged over 729 musical performances. The series’ music accumulated over 36 million downloads.
That number is the commercial fact of the show, and it explains the show’s shape. “Glee” was built to sell songs, and the song choices sometimes bent the story rather than served it. When the music and the plot pulled in the same direction, the show was unmatched. When they did not, episodes became a runway for a track.
Fox chose “Glee” as the lead-out program for its coverage of Super Bowl XLV in 2011. That is the network’s clearest statement of what the show had become: a mass-audience event, not a niche musical.
Six Emmys, Four Globes and a SAG Ensemble Win
The first season drew generally favorable reviews. Reception to the later five seasons varied. The awards did not vary much. “Glee” won six Primetime Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and the 2009 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.
That ensemble award is the right trophy for this show. “Glee” was never one performance. It was a group, and the group was the point.
The Second Half Is Where It Slips
Six seasons was too many. The show’s best ideas — Rachel’s ambition, Kurt’s isolation, Sue’s cruelty as a management style — were fully stated by the end of the second season. What followed was maintenance. Characters graduated, new ones arrived, and the show kept chasing the same emotional beat with diminishing returns.
Murphy announced in 2013 that the sixth season would be the last. That was the correct call, and it came late.
What holds up is the pilot and the first season’s willingness to treat teenagers’ feelings as serious material. “Glee” made a generation of viewers take show choir, and theater kids, seriously on screen. Fox’s decision to slot it behind the Super Bowl in 2011 shows how far the show had traveled from a niche musical.
Verdict
“Glee” is a 7.8 out of 10. The first season is close to essential television, the casting is inspired, and the show’s cultural reach — 121 episodes, over 729 performances, over 36 million downloads — is not in dispute. The later seasons dilute the whole. Watch the first two seasons and the finale, and skip the middle.
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