The show, which is a phenomenon in America, follows the lives of the McKinley High, New Directions, a group of oddball students who make up the school choir. Enthusiastic school teacher Will Schuester, known by the pupils as Mr Schu, leads the choir through regional competitions and defends them against rival teacher, Sue Sylvester.
The series was created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan, who first came up with the concept of Glee as a film. The first episode aired on May 19, 2009, followed by the entire first season from September 9, 2009. The pilot episode was watched by over nine million viewers.
The second season stormed onto our screens on September 21 this year and a third season is also in the pipeline. The most recent series sees the group challenged by school budget cuts, rival choirs, finding new recruits and the ongoing feud between the two teachers. The show highlights every day High School issues such as teenage pregnancy, drugs, alcohol, work, arguments and parent troubles.
Glee covers all kinds of songs from The Journey’s classic, Don’t Stop Believing, to Beyonce’s club anthem, Bootylicious. All the tracks covered on the show are sold on iTunes and Amazon in the same week as they appear on the show. In February there were five Glee tracks in the top 75 of the singles chart, with one climbing 94 places to make it to number five.
The term ‘Gleek’ (a Glee fan) has become well known this year, and with over 9.7 million fans on the Glee Facebook group it’s no wonder Glee merchandise sells like hot cakes. It seems that there is no chance of them slowing down in the future either with a series of concert dates announced for next year during the shows summer break. Glee Live! is set to play in London, Dublin and Manchester from June 22 to July 3, 2011 and will feature all of the shows choir members. However, if you can’t wait until then to listen to the casts unquestionably cheesy tunes then ask Santa for their Christmas album, Glee: The Music-Christmas Album.
This year Glee also won a Golden Globe Best TV Series (comedy or musical) and at the same Los Angeles ceremony walked away with Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy for Jane Lynch’s performance as Cheerleading Coach Sue Sylvester.
So despite how annoying some of their cheesy covers may be, those Glee kids have clearly rocked it in 2010 and don’t look to be slowing down any time soon.
Rachael Patan
Tagged in Glee