Glee

The third episode of Glee has aired in the UK and everyone here has fallen in love with another great American export that is often lighter than a frothy milkshake and sometimes as meaty as a quarter pounder with cheese. A lot of cheese.

Okay, can I say this? I am an official Gleek. Whether it’s that I started new modules today and listened, once more, to the drone emerging from the coffee-wielding, cookie-cutter students or the fact that today is apparently the most depressing day of the year, all I know is I needed my Glee fix tonight like every 21st century student needs caffeine. Finally, a show with music and fun again.

Let me start with the cover of Don’t Stop Believin’, which rose by 94 places to No. 5 in the UK charts this weekend. What a rip-roaring beast of a track to put in the pilot. It sounds as if Lea Michele sang this song as if her life depended on it and I can guarantee it was this song that made everyone sit up in the seats and realise Glee should be taken seriously.

Secondly, bless the ground the Golden Globes walks on. They may not have the prestige of the Oscars, but they are the freckled, talented younger brother. By winning a Golden Globe award yesterday, Glee has cemented its credibility and geared itself up for even further commercial success. Thank the Lord that FOX cannot cancel yet another show that we all love. (Well, with FOX’s track record we may be having a very different conversation in a year’s time…)

I feel the key to Glee’s success is that it intersperses the serious with the comic and uses music as the filler in-between these two sandwich ends. At its heart, the show is like any other: full of entertaining characters and plots that pull us in week after week. However, Glee uses the medium of song equally with that of story and it is a testament to Ryan Murphy and the writers that neither seems to drown the other out.

Story-arcs I think are likely:

• Will/Terri/Emma love-triangle. Did you catch all those wandering glances from Emma to Will during the performances this episode? Terri sure did…

• Rachel/Finn hook-up. Are they that compatible though? Hell, maybe they’ll pull a Moonlighting and not get together for two more seasons. Or it could be late and my senses impaired.

• Quinn will be revealed as having a personality. All I mean by this is that she won’t be a typical airhead cheerleader, which by now is about as surprising as watching Susan Boyle’s audition. I demand that Sue Sylvester gains another puppet to throw barbed comments at if this does happen, though.