Glee's successful first act

The thing about Glee is that it came along at the right time.

Network prime time television is filled with about-to-be-canceled programs that never establish viewership, a few standby dramas and reality show after reality show. Enter Glee.

A cross between The Breakfast Club and  Grease? Maybe not, but Glee is a combination of teen angst, musical theater and soap opera-worthy love triangles ready for prime time.

The show centers on a collection of high-school misfits participating in their school's glee club. Each week, the popular kids help the misfits and then humiliate them. The Glee kids are bright, talented, and funny; however, for various reasons, they would also be the first to tell you it would be social suicide to be their friends.

Wednesday's episode is the end of Glee's first act. The show is taking a four-month break. But the show's fans, known as Gleeks, will have plenty of the show's music to sustain them through the winter break.

Three months into the 2009-10 TV season, Glee has drawn weekly audiences of 8.6 million viewers to Fox. TV shows are expected to generate ratings, but Glee has generated much more to satisfy the Gleeks.

Gleeks have bought more than two million tunes sung by the show's cast on iTunes. Glee: The Music, Volume 1, the show's first soundtrack, made its debut at No. 4 on Billboard's 200 chart the first week of November, selling 113,000 copies. Glee: The Music, Volume 2 just hit stores this week.

This isn't the first television show to base each episode around a big production number. Fame and Cop Rock both tried and failed at carrying the musical format. So why has Glee beem successful? Glee's songs and productions numbers are done with purpose.

"A song is never sung for no reason," show star Jane Lynch told CNN. "There's always deep psychological or emotional impetus for the song, and it's usually uplifting or tragic, and I think people love that, especially bringing that out through music."

Glee will return April 13, and gleeks can revel in some big-name love: An all-Madonna episode is ready to go, and Barry Manilow will be a guest star. Also, Jane Lynch, who plays Will Schuster's hilarious nemesis, Sue Sylvester, will put a few of her tirades to song.

posted by The Mindless Man