After sitting through the terrible terrible Vampire Diaries, the prospect of sitting through another high school drama was not that appealing. On the surface Glee looked like a desperate attempt to grab the cinema going audience who enjoyed High School Musical and when ITV tried that with Britannia High it didn’t work that well. Since the pilot had been hanging around since it was tested after the American Idol finale in May, I thought I better get around to reviewing it.

Now Glee clubs is not something we have over in the UK and not really something we have seen in American high school TV shows and films.  We have no idea where Glee sits in the complex social hierarchy, we know jocks and cheerleaders are up top and we know nerds and band are down the bottom. This leaves Glee kind of floating in the middle with the debate team, the thesps and the Goths, although for the purposes of this show they are described as being in the basement.

Glee opens on the football field, not for the sports, but for the cheerleaders and there is the face and sends a wave of relief that this won’t be like any normal high school drama. Comedy actress Jane Lynch “You think this is hard? Try being waterboarded!”, she plays the coach of the school’s pride and joy cheerleaders known as the Cheerios, she is also the chief antagonist for the next person we meet. We meet the Spanish teacher Will Schuester, who was once part of the schools champion Glee team, so when the Glee coach is fired for a gay relationship with a pupil, he throws his hat into the ring, much to the disgust of his wife at home.

Auditions for the Glee club are carried out and rather opting for hilarious failed auditions, we actually get a series of talented singers, talented but funny characters. With the group in place Will realises they need more male voices, quite frankly the camp guy and the wheelchair bound guy, while fine singers don’t usher in the mix vocal and physical talents needed in the group.  Will sets his site on the football team where comes across quarterback Finn singing in the shower, a quick dastardly trick has him in the club.  With the group in place Will takes them on a field trip to check out the competition and see last years champions perform.  An amazing rendition of Amy Winehouse’s ‘Rehab’ is performed leaving our 6 members of Glee dumbfounded.  News that Will’s wife is pregnant shakes things up further and as he considers looking for a new job with better benefits, but after seeing the group perform ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ he realises that it kill him to see them win without him. There are some other stories around the singers, but I will leave you to discover those by yourself.

The series was created by Ryan Murthy who was behind Nip/Tuck and 2000sPopular, this is an ambitious show but easy to see why it will be a hit. The characters are sterotypes, but the writing is tight with a tongue firmly placed in the cheek. At Comic-Con someone was heard to describe it “as if High School Musical had been punched in the stomach and had its lunch money stolen.”This might me taking it a little too far, but the appeal is certainly wider than the tween audience who enjoyed those films. While there are shades of light and dark, the shows primary purpose is to entertain and well make you gleeful and at this it is a 100% successful guilty pleasure.

Going forward I don’t see many surprises in where the story is headed, obviously they are going to have to compete against the ‘Rehab’ team and probably win.  To do that they will need more members and hopefully that will throw enough tension into the mix to make the predictable journey worth going on. The relationship between Will and school guidance councillor, Emma will also be interesting, they seem a good match but Will is married.

Written by: Ryan Murphy & Brad Falchuk & Ian Brennan
Directed by: Ryan Murphy
Starring: Dianna Agron, Chris Colfer, Jessalyn Gilsig, Jane Lynch, Jayma Mays, Kevin McHale, Lea Michele, Cory Monteith, Matthew Morrison
Date premièred: 19th May 2009 (pilot), 7th September 2009 (Directors Cut)
UK Details: E4 – early 2010

Update 1

I just caught the second episode and there is no doubt that Jane Lynch is in danger of upstaging the whole musical cast with one of the most entertaining new characters I have seen this year.

Update 2

The third episode was a slight disappointment, but obviously not in the ratings as Fox has picked up the series for a full season order adding an extra 9 episodes.