Fans of the High School Musical franchise will appreciate the new Global series, Glee, without realizing the joke is on them. This isn’t the land of bubblegum and bobby socks but a place where bullies and bitchiness rule. To some extent Glee has the DNA of any number of John Hughes’ films filled with teen angst.
High School Musical Punched
Actor Cory Monteith put it best when he described the premise to a crowd at Comic-Con in San Diego this summer: "It's like if High School Musical had been punched in the stomach and had its lunch money.” Indeed.
The opening line of Glee gives viewers an idea of what to expect: “You think this is hard? Try water boarding. That’s hard.” Jane Lynch (40 Year-Old Virgin) plays Sue, the hard-as-platinum coach of a cheer squad, and that's her motivational speech to the girls.
Glee follows an optimistic Mr. Schuester (Matthew Morrison), a high school teacher who heads up the Spanish class as he tries to reinvent the high school's glee club with a $60-a-month-budget, the school’s outcasts as his Guinea pigs, an unsupportive principal and jealous teachers, not to mention a frustrated wife played by Canadian Jessalyn Gilsig (Heroes).
Ryan Murphy's Gleek Club
Nip/Tuck creator, Ryan Murphy, is behind the quirky primetime drama so expect storylines that torture the teenagers at the bottom of the social barrel. These are kids in the sub-basement who aren’t great at sports, aren’t necessarily the best looking, but possess the acting chops and soaring vocals that could make any stage come alive. Consider them The Gleek Club.
The students who sign up for the New Directions Glee Club at Carmel High School aren’t full of glee but desperate in their own ways. The quarterback (Monteith) doesn’t want his team to know he has pipes and wants to be on stage. And primping and preening since she was three months old for stardom that continues to elude her is Rachel Berry (fresh from Broadway Lea Michele) who is open about her desperation: “Fame is the most important thing in our culture.”
The pilot is surprisingly raunchy and includes medical marijuana, stuffing a wheelchair-bound boy into a stinking Porta-Potty and, briefly, allegations of an affair between a music teacher and a pupil.
Classic Rock, R&B
Like an iPod shuffle on hyper-drive Glee features show tunes, classic rock, current music, and R&B.
The premiere winds down with a tortured (but ebullient) version of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’, which, improbably, is already a fan favourite on YouTube.
Producers say there will be more dramatic musical sequences in the future, including an episode with songs by Barbra Streisand and the Rolling Stones. (No word on whether either of the legendary singer or the band have cameos.)
"If we did the music I wanted to listen to, no one would watch the show," writer-producer Ian Brennan told the L.A. Times.
Glee premieres September 9, 2009 on Global/Fox.
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