Quick its very important.
If you all still haven't guessed at the date its 21st September folks, GLEE season 2 starts today.
I don't know about you guys but I for one am very much excited about the return of the show, have been excited since the end of season 1.
But what is Glee?
To all the non-Glee readers, the word 'glee' literally means happiness or joy.Glee is a musical comedy-drama television series that airs on Fox in the United States. It focuses on a high school show choir (a modern glee club) called "New Directions", at the fictional William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio. The pilot episode of the show was broadcast after American Idol on May 19, 2009, and the first season began airing on September 9, 2009. On September 21, 2009, Fox officially gave the series a full-season pick-up. Glee aired its mid-season finale on December 9, 2009 and returned from a four-month hiatus on April 13, 2010, picking up the remaining nine episodes of the season. The spring premiere had an estimated 13.7 million viewers, nearly doubling in followers on its return. It was renewed for a second season, which is scheduled to begin on September 21, 2010(i.e., today), and will feature three new cast members.
The show's creators, Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan, first conceived Glee as a film. Murphy selects the series' music, aiming to maintain a balance between show tunes and chart hits. Songs covered in the show are released through the iTunes Store during the week of broadcast, and a series of Glee albums has been initiated by Columbia Records, beginning with Glee: The Music, Volume 1, which was released on November 2, 2009. The music of Glee has been a commercial success, with over seven million digital sales.
Now lets see a bit of history behind GLEE, as to how the show was conceived.
Ian Brennan conceived Glee based on his own experience as a member of the Prospect High School show choir in Mount Prospect, Illinois. He initially envisioned Glee as a film, rather than a television series, and wrote the first draft in August 2005 with the aid of Screenwriting for Dummies. He completed the script in 2005, but could not generate interest in the project for several years. Mike Novick, a television producer and a friend of Brennan's from Los Angeles, was a member of the same gym as Ryan Murphy, and gave him a copy of Brennan's script. Murphy had been in a show choir in college, and felt he could relate to the script. Murphy and his Nip/Tuck colleague Falchuk suggested that Glee be produced as a television show. The script was entirely rewritten, and was picked up by Fox within 15 hours of being received. Murphy attributed that, in part, to the network's success with American Idol. "It made sense for the network with the biggest hit in TV, which is a musical, to do something in that vein", he said. Murphy and Falchuk became the show's executive producers and showrunners, while Brennan is a co-executive producer and Novick is a producer. Brennan, Falchuk and Murphy write all of the show's episodes.
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| Lea Michele |
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| Jane Lynch |
Glee is set in Lima, Ohio. Murphy chose a Midwest setting as he himself grew up in Indiana, and recalled childhood visits to Ohio to the Kings Island theme park. Although set in Lima, the show is filmed at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. Murphy has said that he has never seen a High School Musical film, to which Glee has been compared, and that his interest lay in creating a "postmodern musical," rather than "doing a show where people burst into song," drawing more heavily on the format of Chicago. Murphy intended the show to be a form of escapism. "There's so much on the air right now about people with guns, or sci-fi, or lawyers running around. This is a different genre, there's nothing like it on the air at the networks and cable. Everything's so dark in the world right now, that's why Idol worked. It's pure escapism," he said. Murphy intended to make a family show to appeal to adults as well as children, with adult characters starring equally alongside the teenage leads. Murphy has mapped out plans for the series covering a three years of broadcast.
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| Glee Season 2 premiere photoshoot |
But What is Glee exactly about?
Optimistic teacher Will Schuester tries to inspire a group of ragtag performers to restore McKinley High School's glee club to its former glory and take part in a national competition. Of course, it would be an easier task if it weren't for the current stars of the choir: a nerdy soprano, a diva-in-training who refuses to sing back-up, a geeky guitar player and an awkward girl who struggles to suppress her stutter. Still, with two real talents in his sights, Will and fellow teacher Emma Pillsbury are determined to do whatever they can to prove all naysayers wrong and make the show choir great again. GLEE is an uplifting musical comedy series with biting humor that features a soundtrack of hit music from past to present!
The first season of Glee consists of 22 episodes. The pilot episode was broadcast on May 19, 2009. The series returned on September 9, 2009, airing on Wednesdays in the 9:00 p.m. timeslot until December 9, 2009 for a total of thirteen episodes. On September 21, 2009, nine more episodes were ordered for the first season by Fox, with the first of these episodes airing on April 13, 2010. These episodes aired on Tuesday evenings at 9:00 p.m. On January 11, 2010, it was announced that Fox had commissioned a second season of the show. The second season began production in June 2010. Season two is scheduled to begin on September 21, 2010, initially airing in the 8 p.m. time slot on Tuesdays, then moving to the 9 time slot on Wednesdays after a special episode following the 2011 Super Bowl. A third season was ordered by Fox on May 23, 2010. The early renewal of the show will allow the production team to cut costs and to plan ahead when writing scripts.In June 2010, it was announced that Oxygen would host a reality series set to air in June 2011, featuring performers competing for a spot on Glee.
The first season of the musical comedy-drama television series Glee originally aired on Fox in the United States. The pilot episode was broadcast as an advanced preview of the series on May 19, 2009, with the remainder of the season airing between September 9, 2009 and June 8, 2010. The season consisted of 22 episodes; the first 13 aired on Wednesdays at 9 pm (ET) and the final 9 aired on Tuesdays at 9 pm (ET). The series was executive produced by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Dante Di Loreto; Murphy's production company helped co-produce the series alongside 20th Century Fox.
The show features the fictional high school show choir New Directions competing for the first time on the show choir circuit, while its members deal with relationship, sexuality and social issues. The central characters are glee club director Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison), cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch), Will's wife Terri (Jessalyn Gilsig), guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays), and glee club members Rachel (Lea Michele), Finn (Cory Monteith), Artie (Kevin McHale), Kurt (Chris Colfer), Mercedes (Amber Riley), Tina (Jenna Ushkowitz), Puck (Mark Salling) and Quinn (Dianna Agron).
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| Lea Michele & Jonathan Groff at Glee Concert singing HELLO by Lionel Ritchie |
The series features numerous musical cover versions performed on-screen by the characters. At the beginning of the season, Murphy intended for the performances to remain reality-based, as opposed to having the characters spontaneously burst into song. As the season progressed, however, Glee began to utilize fantasy sequences, with paraplegic character Artie imagining himself dancing to "The Safety Dance", and six separate characters performing a fantasy version of "Like a Virgin". The first thirteen episodes of the season averaged five songs per episode. For the final nine episodes, the number of performances increased to eight. Murphy believes that many of the songs were "really fun and successful", however the production team intend to return to five songs per episode for Glee's second season, in order to return focus to the characters.
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| Jonathan Groff & Lea Michele on stage performing in the coming-off musical THE SPRING AWAKENINGS. Playing the roles of Melchior Gabor and Wendla. |
When seeking to attain the rights to songs, early in the season Murphy was often requested to send out advanced scripts, but refused, not wanting to set a precedent for record labels having creative involvement in the show. Singer Rihanna offered her single "Take a Bow" for use at a reduced licensing rate. Madonna granted the show rights to her entire catalogue, and the tribute episode "The Power of Madonna" features Madonna performances exclusively.
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| Glee cast done Madonna's MATERIAL GIRL look |
The season had a cast of twelve actors who received star billing. Matthew Morrison played Will Schuester, director of the McKinley High glee club. Jane Lynch played Sue Sylvester, head coach of the cheerleading squad and the glee club's arch-nemesis. Jayma Mays portrayed Emma Pillsbury, a mysophobic guidance counselor with romantic feelings for Will. Jessalyn Gilsig played Terri Schuester, Will's wife of five years. Lea Michele played Rachel Berry, the star of the glee club. Cory Monteith portrayed Finn Hudson, star quarterback of the school's football team, blackmailed into joining the club. Also playing club members were Amber Riley as Mercedes Jones, Chris Colfer as Kurt Hummel, Kevin McHale as Artie Abrams, and Jenna Ushkowitz as Tina Cohen-Chang. Mark Salling played Noah "Puck" Puckerman, a football player and bully who later joined the club, while Dianna Agron portrayed Quinn Fabray, Finn's girlfriend, who became pregnant with Puck's baby.
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| At the Tony Awards 2010 |
A number of secondary characters were also portrayed throughout the season, including Patrick Gallagher as Ken Tanaka, coach of the football team, Iqbal Theba as Principal Figgins, and Stephen Tobolowsky as former glee club director Sandy Ryerson. Mike O'Malley appeared as Kurt's father Burt Hummel, and Romy Rosemont played Finn's mother Carole Hudson. Naya Rivera and Heather Morris played Santana Lopez and Brittany, cheerleaders who joined the glee club with Quinn. Harry Shum, Jr. and Dijon Talton were initially hired for a single episode as football players Mike Chang and Matt Rutherford, but remained on the show as supporting members of the glee club.
Guest stars from musical backgrounds were often featured on the show, including John Lloyd Young as wood shop teacher Henri St. Pierre, and Victor Garber and Debra Monk as Will's parents. Josh Groban appeared playing an "ignorant asshole" version of himself, while Olivia Newton-John portrayed the "dark side" of herself; a "mixture of mean and diva". Kristin Chenoweth played April Rhodes, a former member of the glee club who never finished high school and ended up hitting rock bottom. Jonathan Groff played Jesse St. James, the male lead of rival glee club Vocal Adrenaline, and Idina Menzel appeared as Vocal Adrenaline director Shelby Corcoran, who is revealed in "Dream On" to be Rachel's biological mother. Fans had originally lobbied for Menzel to be cast as Rachel's mother due to the strong physical resemblance between Menzel and Michele. Eve played the Jane Addams Girls Choir director Grace Hitchens, having been cast after Whitney Houston declined to appear. Michael Hitchcock appeared as the Haverbrook School for the Deaf choir director Dalton Rumba.
Sarah Drew played Suzy Pepper, a senior with "an insane, absurd, psychotic crush on Mr. Schuester". Drew described Suzy as "kind of stalkerish and creepy", but ultimately redeemable. Gregg Henry and Charlotte Ross appeared as Quinn's parents, Russell and Judy Fabray, and Molly Shannon played Brenda Castle, an alcoholic astronomy teacher and badminton coach who clashed with Sue. Neil Patrick Harris guest starred as Bryan Ryan, Will's former glee club rival, now a school board member bent on vengeance against the club. Murphy created the role particularly for Harris, who received clearance from CBS to appear on Fox for the episode.
The twelve main cast members from season one will return for season two: Matthew Morrison as glee club director Will Schuester, Jane Lynch as cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester, Jayma Mays as guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury, Jessalyn Gilsig as Will's now ex-wife Terri Schuester and Dianna Agron, Chris Colfer, Kevin McHale, Lea Michele, Cory Monteith, Amber Riley, Mark Salling and Jenna Ushkowitz as glee club members Quinn Fabray, Kurt Hummel, Artie Abrams, Rachel Berry, Finn Hudson,Mercedes Jones, Noah "Puck" Puckerman and Tina Cohen-Chang. Heather Morris has confirmed to TV Guide's William Keck that she and Naya Rivera, who portray the currently recurring roles of Brittany and Santana Lopez respectively, will be promoted to series regulars. Mike O'Malley, who plays Burt Hummel will also become a series regular in season two.
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| Lea Michele performing "Don't rain on my parade" at Tony Awards 2010 |
Supporting cast member Harry Shum, Jr. will have an increased role as glee club member Mike Chang, dating Tina, who breaks up with Artie due to his careless attitude. Dijon Talton will, however, not return to the role of Matt Rutherford. He will be written off as having transferred. Guest stars Jonathan Groff, Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel will return as Jesse St. James(take a double HURRAY!! i'm biased towards Groff & Michele pairing), April Rhodes and Shelby Corcoran respectively, and Murphy is hopeful that Neil Patrick Harris will return as Will's high school rival Bryan Ryan. Kurt will get his first boyfriend and they will become a school power-couple, and Charice will play a foreign exchange student named Sunshine Corazon from the Philippines and rival to Rachel. On June 8, 2010, it was announced that John Stamos, who was derided by Emma in "Acafellas" as having "more certainty than talent", has been cast as her new love interest. Susan Boyle will guest-star in the Christmas episode as a cafeteria worker, and Javier Bardem will guest-star during the second half of the season as an ex love interest of Sue. Dot Jones will appear as football coach Shannon Beiste, replacing Patrick Gallagher as Ken Tanaka. Chord Overstreet will play Sam Evans, a transferring student athlete who befriends Finn at first, but ends up becoming his rival. Cheyenne Jackson will play Vocal Adrenaline's new coach, replacing the role previously played by Menzel. Sue Sylvester's mother will also be introduced this season, to be played by stage and screen legend Carol Burnett. Meat Loaf and Barry Bostwick, who both starred in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, will appear in Glee's Halloween Rocky Horrortribute episode. On September 20, 2010, Kristin Dos Santos of E! Online reported that Gwyneth Paltrow will also appear as a substitute teacher who takes over for (and catches the interest of) an ailing Will for two episodes in November.
In January 2010, it was announced that open auditions would be held for three new roles to be introduced in Glee's second season. They were open to amateurs and professionals aged 16 to 26, and were intended to be the subject of a multi-part television special, set to air in the lead-in to the second season premiere in fall 2010, with the new cast members revealed in the first episode. Murphy commented: "Anybody and everybody now has a chance to be on a show about talented underdogs. We want to be the first interactive musical comedy on television." On June 22, 2010, Josef Adalian of New York magazine revealed that the reality show would not go ahead, due to Murphy's desire to concentrate on the main series, and fear that the distraction of the reality show may damage Glee. Adalian reported that the production team would still choose several winners from the entrants and invite them to appear on Glee for at least one episode.
Such a popular show should also have a huge fandom right!
Here they are fans of Glee are commonly referred to as "gleeks" (i'm one myself), a portmanteau of "glee" and "geek". Fox ran a "Biggest GLEEK" competition, measuring fans' Glee-related activity on social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace, and found that the growth of the fanbase outpaced the network's science-fiction shows. The cast's Hot Topic tour was titled "The Gleek Tour". Glee is one of the most tweeted about TV shows. Fans have recreated many of its musical numbers in tribute to the show, sharing them on YouTube. Based on this trend, show producers included instrumental versions of some songs on the show's soundtracks.
Glee has received generally favorable reviews, with a Metacritic score of 77 out of 100, based on 18 critic reviews. It was praised by critics in several round-up reviews of 2009 in television. James Poniewozik of Time ranked it the eighth best television show of the year, commenting: "when Glee works — which is often — it is transcendent, tear-jerking and thrilling like nothing else on TV." Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker ranked it ninth, calling it "Hands down the year's most novel show [and] also its least likely success", Lisa Respers France of CNN wrote that while ordinarily Glee's premise would have been "a recipe for disaster", the show has "such quirky charm and bravado that it is impossible not to get swept up".
After the episode "Showmance", the Parents Television Council named Glee the 'Worst Show of the Week', calling it "an edgy, sexually-charged adult series that is inappropriate for teenagers". Nancy Gibbs of Time magazine wrote that she had heard the series described as "anti-Christian" by a youth minister, and commented: "It is easy to see his point, if you look at the specifics. [...] The students lie, they cheat, they steal, they lust, they lace the bake-sale cupcakes with pot in order to give the student body a severe case of the munchies. Nearly all the Ten Commandments get violated at one point or another, while the audience is invited to laugh at people's pain and folly and humiliation". However, Gibbs continues to mention: "It insults kids to suggest that simply watching Characters Behaving Badly onscreen means they'll take that as permission to do the same themselves. [...] And it's set in high school, meaning it's about a journey not just to college and career but to identity and conviction, the price of popularity, the compromises we must make between what we want and what we need."
Variety's Brian Lowry was critical of the show's early episodes, highlighting acting and characterization issues and deeming the adult cast "over-the-top buffoons", with the exception of Mays' Emma, who he felt offered "modest redemption". Though he praised Colfer and Michele's performances, Lowry wrote that the show's talent was squandered by its "jokey, cartoonish, wildly uneven tone", deeming the series a "one-hit wonder". Following the show's mid-season finale, Lowry wrote that while Glee"remains a frustrating mess at times", its "vibrant musical numbers and talented cast have consistently kept it on [his] TiVo must list" conceding that "even with its flaws, TV would be poorer without Glee."
As Glee's initial success pulled in a large audience, John Doyle, Globe & Mail, wrote that the early shows "felt fresh, mainly because the motley crew of kids had a kind of square naïveté." Doyle notes that the early success took Glee away from its original characters and plot, focusing more on celebrity guests. 'The gaiety is gone from Glee. You should have set it in its prime, mere months ago".
Glee has received a number of awards and nominations. In 2009, the series won five Satellite Awards: "Best Musical or Comedy TV Series", "Best Actor" and "Actress in a Musical or Comedy TV Series" for Morrison and Michele, "Best Supporting Actress" for Lynch and "Special Achievement for Outstanding Guest Star" for Kristin Chenoweth. In 2010, the show won a Golden Globe Award for "Best Television Series — Musical or Comedy". Morrison, Michele and Lynch also received acting nominations. The series was nominated for two Writers Guild of America Awards, with screenplays nominated in the "Comedy Series" and "New Series" categories. The Glee cast won the "Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series" award at the 16th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. Paris Barclay and Ryan Murphy both received nominations for "Outstanding Directing – Comedy Series" at the Directors Guild of America Awards for their work on Glee. In July 2010, Gleereceived 19 Primetime Emmy Award nominations, including "Outstanding Comedy Series", "Outstanding Lead Actor – Comedy Series" for Morrison and "Outstanding Lead Actress – Comedy Series" for Michele. It ended up winning 4, incuding Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for Jane Lynch and Outstanding Guest Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series for Neil Patrick Harris.
Not only America but the whole world is a fan of GLEE.
Glee has been syndicated for broadcast in several countries worldwide, including Australia, where cast members visited to promote the show prior to its September 2009 debut. In Australia it is shown on Network Ten and FOX8. Season 2 will premiere in Australia on 22 September 2010, four hours after the North American premiere . It also airs in Canada, Latin America, Puerto Rico, Slovenia on TV3 Slovenia, Brazil on Fox Brasil, New Zealand, and Fiji. It is broadcast in South Africa, where Fox beams the episodes directly to the M-Net broadcast center in Johannesburg rather than delivering the tapes. In Europe, episodes of Glee premiere 20 hours after their US broadcast in Ireland. It also airs in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Portugal, Italy, Denmark, Spain, Turkey, France, the Netherlands, Georgia, and the Czech Republic. In Asia, it airs in the Philippines,Japan, Southeast Asia, India (Star World), Malaysia, Singapore and in Israel on yes stars Next.
So, with a slew of stars, lists of some of the best songs and a whole lot of high school drama GLEE has become a runaway success, now returning for the next season of the musical drama. So guys "ITS SHOW TIME!!"
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