Glee fans call ‘encore, encore!’ and Fox obliges

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/06/2010 (5633 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In most cases, the best outcome that producers of first-year TV shows can hope for is renewal for a second season.

How good was Glee‘s rookie year? Well, several weeks before the tuneful Fox newcomer’s first-season finale, it had already been picked up … for a THIRD season.

Simply put, Glee‘s performance — as a ratings winner, as a goodwill ambassador for the Fox brand, as a source of water-cooler chatter, and as a self-driving revenue generator thanks to soundtrack CD sales and iTunes downloads — has been both unique and overwhelming.

Launched in an unconventional manner last spring — its series première aired during 2008-09’s season-finale wave as a teaser that generated huge hype for the show over the summer months — Glee was a smash even before it arrived in prime time last fall, and its popularity just continued to grow as the 2009-10 season progressed.

By splitting its first campaign into two mini-seasons — the first dealing with the show choir’s pursuit of a sectional title, the second following its regional-championship dream — Glee‘s producers benefited from two separate groundswells in popularity, and were able to release a well-received soundtrack CD at the midpoint of the rookie season.

“When we did Episode 13 (out of 22), for all we knew, it was a season finale,” series creator Ryan Murphy told a group of TV critics who visited Glee‘s Hollywood soundstage last January. “It was incredibly big and ambitious, but who knew what the future of the show was at that point? The back nine (episodes) sort of feels like a separate season; it (had) a very strong through-line and very strong villains…. Every chunk feels like a season on its own; that’s the way it’s been marketed, and that the reality of television now.”

When Glee has its unconventionally late season finale next week (Tuesday at 8 p.m. on Fox and Global), New Directions will have its long-awaited shot at Regionals, cheerleading boss Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) will pull one last fast one in an attempt to derail the choir’s chances, and Mr. Schuester’s (Matthew Morrison) personal life will be knocked sideways yet again.

There will be music, of course. And it will bring to a close an extraordinary season of television in which Glee has introduced genres and songs to viewers who might never have been previously inclined to give them a listen.

“It’s a great thrill for us when we air a show and you see our version of Maybe This Time, a song from Cabaret, a 1972 movie, in the Top 10 of iTunes,” said Murphy. “That, to me, says that a whole group of kids who have never seen that movie are discovering it.

“And I also love that when we do a song, nine times out of 10, the original artist will (benefit). When Mark (Salling, who plays Puck) did Sweet Caroline and Neil Diamond Twittered about it, the next day Sweet Caroline entered the charts, which it had not done in, like, 25 years. That’s just amazing.”

Added Morrison: “Also, for the older generation that watches the show, (we are) introducing them to songs that they’ve never heard before, like rap songs and stuff like that. So that has been kind of cool, too; it works both ways.”

And thanks to Fox’s unusual show of support for Glee, it will continue to do so, for next year, and the year after that, too.

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

TV worth watching

Hiccups/Dan for Mayor (Monday at 7 p.m./7:30 p.m., CTV) — The two rookie sitcoms featuring Corner Gas alumni return with four more new episodes. Hiccups finds Millie getting jealous because Stan’s paying too much attention to his new client; meanwhile, Dan commits a gaffe in a candidates’ debate that might sink his mayoral campaign.

Dragons’ Den (Monday at 8 p.m., CBC) — The entrepreneurial pressure cooker returns with a special post-season episode focused on environmental advances. Three eco-minded inventors, chosen from a field of more than 600 applicants, showcase their “greenventions” for the Dragons in hopes of grabbing a $100,000 prize.

TV on DVD

The A-Team: The Complete Series (release date: June 8) — Just in time for the première of the big-screen adaptation starring Bradley Cooper, Liam Neeson and Jessica Biel, the campy 1980s TV series (George Peppard, Mr. T,, Dirk Benedict, Dwight Schultz) hits the home-video market with a 25-disc set that contains all 98 episodes. I pity the fool who doesn’t think that’s a whole lot of car crashes and vehicle flips!