Glee

 Glee is an American musical comedy-drama television series. It focuses on a high school show choir (also known as a glee club) set within 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. The show was created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan, after being originally envisioned as a film rather than a TV series. Murphy selects all music featured within the series himself, and intends to maintain a balance between show tunes and chart hits. Songs covered in the show are released on iTunes during the week of broadcast, and a series of Glee albums will be released through Columbia Records, beginning with Glee: The Music, Volume 1, which was released on November 3, 2009. The broadcast of the pilot episode averaged 9.619 million viewers. Critical response was mixed, with The New York Times' Alessandra Stanley highlighting the episode's unoriginality and stereotyped characters, but praising the showmanship and talent of the cast. The Daily News's David Hinckley opined that the show was imperfect and implausible but "potentially heartwarming", while USA Today's Robert Bianco noted casting and tone problems, but commented positively on the show's humor and musical performances. Mary McNamara for the Los Angeles Times wrote that the show had a wide audience appeal, calling it "the first show in a long time that's just plain full-throttle, no-guilty-pleasure-rationalizations-necessary fun."

Glee was created by [|Ryan Murphy], Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan. Murphy drew inspiration from his childhood experience as a lead actor in all of his high school's musicals. Brennan and producer Mike Novick were also highly involved in their own schools' glee clubs. Brennan originally wrote a script for a Glee movie based on his own experiences at [|Prospect High School (Illinois)], but Murphy believed the concept would work better as a TV series. [|Fox] picked up the series pilot within 15 hours of receiving the script, which Murphy attributes in part to the success of the network's [|American Idol], commenting: "It made sense for the network with the biggest hit in TV, which is a musical, to do something in that vein". Glee is set in [|Ohio]. Murphy chose a Midwest setting as he himself originates from [|Indiana], and recalls childhood visits to Ohio to the [|Kings Island] theme park. Although set in Lima, the show is actually filmed at [|Paramount Studios] in [|Hollywood]. Although Glee has been compared to film series [|High School Musical], Murphy has commented that he has never seen a High School Musical film, 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, explaining: "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." With regard to Glee's audience, Murphy intended for it to be a family show which would appeal to adults as well as children, with adult characters starring equally alongside the teenage leads.



