Glee (TV series)
Glee is an American jukebox musical comedy-drama television series created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan for the Fox Broadcasting Company. Taking place at the fictional William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio, the series focuses on the New Directions, a glee club competing in the show choir circuit, as its disparate members deal with social issues regarding sexuality, gender, race, family, relationships, and teamwork.
Glee received generally favorable reviews from critics in its first season, while reception to the later five varied. Among its many accolades, it 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. In 2011, Fox chose the show to fill the coveted time slot following the network's coverage of Super Bowl XLV.
First conceived by Brennan as a feature film, Glee was primarily written by him, Murphy, and Falchuk in the first two seasons; Murphy and Falchuk also served as the series' initial directors. The pilot episode premiered on May 19, 2009, and the first season aired from September 9, 2009, to June 8, 2010. Subsequent seasons aired from September through May, while the sixth and final season aired from January to March 2015 with only 13 episodes. Glee features on-screen musical performances chosen by Murphy and produced by Adam Anders and Peer Åström, ranging from show tunes to chart hits. The series' music has been commercially successful, with over 36 million digital single sales and 11 million album sales worldwide through October 2011. Other merchandise includes DVD and Blu-ray releases, an iPad application, and karaoke games for the Wii console. The cast embarked on live concert tours after filming the first and second seasons; a concert film based on the 2011 tour, produced by Murphy and directed by Kevin Tancharoen, had a limited theatrical release in August 2011.
In 2013, Murphy announced that the sixth season would be the series' last. After 121 episodes and over 729 music performances, Glee concluded on March 20, 2015.
Series overview
The series centers on a show choir and glee club at the fictional William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio. Spanish teacher Will Schuester takes over the glee club after former teacher Sandy Ryerson is fired for inappropriate contact with a student, and attempts to restore the newly named "New Directions" to its former glory while tending to his developing feelings for his co-worker, guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury. Will must also defend the glee club's existence from scheming cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester and at times, school Principal Principal Figgins. The series gives focus to the lives of the eventual members of the New Directions: their romances, their love of singing and desire for popularity clashing with their membership in the low-status club, and the many vicissitudes that come with high school and teenhood.The first season follows the New Directions competing for the first time on the show choir circuit, from their win at the Sectionals competition to their loss at Regionals. Social issues explored in this season include sex, relationship problems, homosexuality, teenage pregnancy, disabilities, and acceptance. Will Schuester's marital issues are also in the spotlight in the first season, as his then wife Terri Schuester, Will's high school sweetheart and manipulative wife, fakes a pregnancy to trap Will in their marriage. This storyline jumpstarts Will and Emma Pillsbury's romantic storyline as they get together for the first time after Will and Terri's divorce. Terri and Will's storyline was very popular amongst fans and can be attributed to part of the shows quick success. The inaugural members of the New Directions include Rachel Berry, an ambitious performer driven by her dreams of becoming a Broadway theatre star; Finn Hudson, the school's sometimes-slow-witted star quarterback; Artie Abrams, a boy with a physical disability; Kurt Hummel, an effeminate, openly gay boy; Mercedes Jones, an aspiring vocal diva whose talents go unrecognized; Tina Cohen-Chang, a shy goth longing to be popular; Noah "Puck" Puckerman, a delinquent in need of direction; and Quinn Fabray, a popular cheerleader who experiences a teenage pregnancy and was asked to sell her baby to Terri in hopes of successfully tricking Will into thinking Terri actually had his baby.
The second season follows the club through wins at Sectionals and Regionals before losing at the Nationals competition in New York City, while dealing with relationship problems, religion, homophobia, bullying, rumors, teenage drinking, and death. Club members promoted to the main cast this season include Santana Lopez, a snarky, cynical cheerleader struggling with her sexuality; Brittany S. Pierce, a ditzy, promiscuous cheerleader who later dates Santana; and Kurt's father Burt Hummel.
The third season follows the club through wins at Sectionals, Regionals, and their first win at Nationals in Chicago, while dealing with gender identity, adoption, domestic abuse, teenage suicide, bullying, disabilities, texting while driving, and college prospects. Two club members were promoted to the main cast: Mike Chang, a soft-spoken dancer whose parents do not support his dreams, and Blaine Anderson, a Dalton Academy transfer student who dates Kurt. Terri was written out of the series while Burt returned to recurring status. At the end of the season, the McKinley High class of 2012 graduates.
The fourth season introduces a new generation of students in Lima. This season also follows certain McKinley graduates from the third season, notably Rachel and Kurt at the fictional New York Academy of the Dramatic Arts in New York City. The season follows the club through their loss and subsequent reinstatement at Sectionals before winning at Regionals, marking their third consecutive appearance at Nationals. Rachel and Kurt, meanwhile, navigate NYADA and their lives as aspiring performers atop their respective relationships with Finn and Blaine. Issues explored in the season include sex, bulimia, gender identity, child molestation, dyslexia, school violence, and pregnancy scares. Former main cast members Emma and Quinn are credited as guest stars, while previously recurring glee club member Sam Evans was promoted to the main cast.
The fifth season, unlike previous seasons, continues the school year begun in the previous season. The New Directions finish second at Nationals before they are permanently disbanded by Sue Sylvester, now school principal, for budgetary reasons. Following graduation, the show jumps several months forward in time and deals entirely with the alumni's lives in New York City for the remainder of the season, including Rachel's successful Broadway debut. Throughout this season, the club and its alumni deal with relationship issues, death and mourning, anger issues, body image, gay bashing, and intimacy. Several cast members dropped to recurring guest stars as of this season: Amber Riley, Mark Salling, Harry Shum Jr., and Heather Morris. New main cast members included glee club members introduced in the fourth season: Marley Rose, a kind teenager who develops an eating disorder; Unique Adams, a shy, nerdy teenager who becomes more bold and glamorous after coming out as transgender; Ryder Lynn, a dyslexic teen; Jake Puckerman, a biracial teen struggling with anger issues; Kitty Wilde, a Christian mean girl. With Cory Monteith's death occurring before filming for the season commenced, Finn subsequently was stated as having died off-screen in the third episode.
The sixth and final season sees Rachel return to McKinley after her television pilot fails and deciding to reconstitute the New Directions with all-new students and help from Kurt. Will now coaches rival club Vocal Adrenaline, while Blaine coaches the Dalton Academy Warblers. All of the new main cast members from the fifth season have returned to guest star status in the final season, as well as Santana Tina ; Mercedes rejoins the main cast, and Coach Beiste joins the main cast for the first time. Social issues faced by the characters this season include gay marriage, gender identity, and transitioning. The New Directions wins Nationals, Sue is fired as principal, and McKinley High is repurposed as a magnet arts school with Will as principal and Sam as director of New Directions. The finale jumps five years into the future: Rachel has married Jesse St. James, won a Tony Award, and is a surrogate mother for Kurt and Blaine. Artie has directed Tina in a film, Mercedes is a highly successful recording artist, and Sue has just been re-elected Vice President of the United States. The McKinley auditorium is renamed after Finn.
Cast and characters
In casting Glee, Murphy sought out actors who could identify with the rush of starring in theatrical roles. Instead of using traditional network casting calls, he spent three months on Broadway, where he found Matthew Morrison, who had previously starred on stage in Hairspray and The Light in the Piazza; Lea Michele, who starred in Spring Awakening; and Jenna Ushkowitz, who had been in the Broadway revival of The King and I.During their auditions, actors without any theatrical experience needed to demonstrate that they could also sing and dance. Chris Colfer had no previous professional experience, but Murphy wrote in the character Kurt Hummel for him. Jayma Mays auditioned with the song "Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me" from The Rocky Horror Show, while Cory Monteith initially submitted a tape of himself acting only, and was requested to submit 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 previously been part of the group Not Like Them. He explained that the diversity of the cast's backgrounds reflects the range of different musical styles within the show itself: "It's a mix of everything: classic rock, current stuff, R&B. Even the musical theatre stuff is switched up. You won't always recognize it." Jane Lynch was originally supposed to have a recurring role as Sue Sylvester, but was made a series regular when a Damon Wayans pilot she was working on for ABC fell through. The cast is contracted for a potential three Glee films, with their contract stating that " hereby grants Fox three exclusive, irrevocable options to engage in up to, respectively, three feature-length motion pictures." Murphy said in December 2010 that he wasn't interested in doing a Glee movie "as a story", and added, "I might do it as a live concert thing." Glee: The 3D Concert Movie, filmed during the 2011 Glee Live! In Concert! tour, was released on August 12, 2011.
Glee has featured as many as fifteen main roles with star billing, after starting with twelve. Morrison plays Will Schuester, McKinley High's Spanish teacher, who becomes glee-club director and hopes to restore it to its former glory. Lynch plays Sue Sylvester, head coach of the "Cheerios" cheerleading squad, and the Glee Club's nemesis. Mays appears as Emma Pillsbury, the school's mysophobic guidance counselor who has feelings for Will, and Jessalyn Gilsig plays Terri Schuester, Will's wife whom he eventually divorces after five years of marriage and the discovery that she has faked being pregnant instead of revealing she had suffered a false pregnancy. Michele plays Rachel Berry, talented star of the glee club whose ambition sometimes causes her to be insensitive toward others. Often bullied by the Cheerios and football players, she grows closer to them as the show progresses and begins an on-and-off relationship with Finn Hudson starting in season one; they become engaged in season three. Monteith played Finn, star quarterback of the school's football team who risks alienation by his friends after joining the glee club. Also in the club are Amber Riley as Mercedes Jones, a fashion-conscious diva who resents having to sing back-up but eventually finds her place in the choir; Colfer as Kurt Hummel, a fashionable gay man countertenor who is often bullied by the jocks in the school; McHale as Artie Abrams, a guitar player and paraplegic who longs to be seen for his personality rather than only his physical injuries; and Ushkowitz as Tina Cohen-Chang, a painfully shy Asian American student who fakes a speech impediment as a defense mechanism. Dianna Agron plays Quinn Fabray, Finn's cheerleader girlfriend, who later joins the glee club to keep an eye on him. Mark Salling plays Noah "Puck" Puckerman, a good friend of Finn's on the football team who at first disapproves of Finn joining the glee club, but later joins it himself. Naya Rivera and Heather Morris portray Cheerios and glee club vocalists Santana Lopez and Brittany Pierce respectively and were originally recurring actors, but were promoted to series regulars in the second season. Mike O'Malley, who plays Kurt's father Burt Hummel, also became a series regular on season two. Gilsig and O'Malley no longer appeared on the list of starring actors at the beginning of the third season, though O'Malley was a recurring guest star in at least six episodes during the season. Two actors were promoted to series regulars as of the third season: Harry Shum Jr. as football player and glee club member Mike Chang and Darren Criss as former Dalton Academy Warbler and new club member Blaine Anderson, both of whom started as recurring actors, Shum in the first season and Criss in the second. For the fourth season, Chord Overstreet, who started as a recurring actor in the second season, playing glee club member Sam Evans, was promoted to the main cast, while Agron and Mays were credited as recurring guest stars.
Many of the original characters graduated from McKinley High at the end of the third season. Murphy said, "We didn't want to have a show where they were in high school for eight years. We really wanted to be true to that experience." Adult characters played by Matthew Morrison and Jane Lynch would remain to provide continuity to the series, though according to Falchuk, some students—Rachel, Finn and Kurt in particular—would likely remain on the show after they graduate. In May 2012, Murphy said that just because a character on the show graduates high school does not mean that they are leaving, "A lot of people have been writing Dianna's off the show, Amber's off the show — they're not off the show. I think Amber was talking about that bittersweet feeling of, 'I'll never be in the choir room with that exact group of people.' At least that's what she told me... When I read that I said, 'I think people will misconstrue that.' She's excited about where her character is going. They all are. I wanted to do the right thing by all of them." He then continued: "They're all coming back. Anyone who is a regular is coming back. Everyone said yes."
On June 28, 2013, the media reported that Morris, Riley, Salling, and Shum would be changing from starring status to guest starring roles for the fifth season, and on the following day that Jacob Artist, Melissa Benoist, Blake Jenner, Alex Newell, and Becca Tobin, were all being promoted to the show's main cast.
On July 13, 2013, Cory Monteith was found dead in his room at the Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel in Vancouver, British Columbia, after failing to check out. Staff were sent to his room where his body was discovered. An autopsy completed on July 15 indicated that he died of an accidental alcohol and heroin overdose. On July 20, 2013, Ryan Murphy said in various media outlets that Cory would have a tribute in season five's third episode, which would deal with the death of Monteith's character, Finn.
On July 30, 2013, Mays confirmed that she would depart the show after the fifth season to work on other projects, but stated that she would be open to returning as a guest star in the future.
On July 7, 2014, it was confirmed that Rivera and Ushkowitz would be placed on a recurring status for the sixth and final season. On August 28, a website revealed that Amber Riley would once again become a regular along with Dot-Marie Jones while Jayma Mays would be on a recurring status.