--- title: "Glee" year: 2009 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/glee" fi1m_score: 68 critics_score: 77 critics_reviews: 6 published: "2026-09-17T01:12:44.540727+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T01:13:16.154842+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Glee (2009) Created by Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan, Brad Falchuk · MPA TV-PG · Comedy, Drama **Fi1m score: 68** · Critics 77 from 6 reviews *In a sentence:* A choir room full of adults pretending to be sixteen, singing until their problems go away; for one season, they do > For one season Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan had the sharpest, oddest comedy on American television, with Jane Lynch as its poison. Five more seasons followed, and the programme forgot which parts of itself were the good ones. ## Synopsis Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison), a Spanish teacher, takes over his high school’s glee club, which has shrunk to a handful of misfits nobody will sit with at lunch. Rachel Berry (Lea Michele) wants to be a star and says so; Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer) is among the misfits; and Finn Hudson (Cory Monteith), the quarterback, can sing and would rather nobody knew. Standing in the way are Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch), the cheerleading coach who wants the club’s money for herself, and Will’s wife Terri del Monico (Jessalyn Gilsig), who wants him to find a proper job. The first season runs to 22 episodes, beginning on 19 May 2009. ## Review *Glee* is a comedy about a failing show choir at an American high school, and about the Spanish teacher, Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison), who decides to rescue it. Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan built it from three things that should not fit: a teen soap, a sitcom with a mean streak, and a musical that stops three or four times an episode for a pop cover. For the first season, which began on 19 May 2009, the join barely showed. It then ran for six seasons and 121 episodes, and the later ones are why we cannot score it higher. Watch the first year; treat the rest as optional. Jane Lynch is the reason the first year works. Sue Sylvester coaches the cheerleaders, wants the glee club dead, and says so in long, calm sentences delivered as though reading the weather. Lou Eyrich puts her in a zipped tracksuit in a different colour each week, and the tracksuit does half the acting. Lynch never plays Sue as a woman with a wound; she plays her as a natural disaster with a filing cabinet. Whenever the show goes soft, and it often does, she walks in and it stiffens. The songs are the other reason. The pilot ends with the club singing ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’, and we had come expecting to be irritated. For four minutes we were not. It was the smallness that got past us: the song too big for them, and Lea Michele’s voice, which is not small at all. Michele plays Rachel Berry as a girl who has decided to be famous and will be disliked for it if necessary, and the show is honest about how tiring she is. Cory Monteith’s Finn Hudson is a big, kind boy who looks puzzled by his own singing, and he is the easiest person on screen to like. Chris Colfer’s Kurt Hummel gets the steadiest writing in the series, which may be because Colfer went on to write for it himself. Christopher Baffa lights the school flat and bright, the lockers a clean primary blue, so that when a number begins and the light drops to a single spot, the change registers before the first note. Mark Hutman’s choir room is risers, a piano, red plastic chairs and a whiteboard with the week’s theme on it, and the show never finds a better room. Bradley Buecker, who edits and directs, cuts the songs on the beat and cuts away from the feet whenever anyone has to dance, which is a kindness to several of the cast. James S. Levine’s incidental score, plucked strings creeping under Sue’s plotting, is wittier than much of the dialogue it sits beneath. The adults were the problem from the start. Will’s marriage to Terri del Monico (Jessalyn Gilsig) is written as a sitcom nightmare and played as one, and Morrison, who can sing and dance and is game for anything, is never told whether Will is the hero or the joke. The pupils are left to carry all of the feeling, and the more the writers noticed that the audience liked the feeling, the more of it they ordered. That is what happened to the later seasons. Songs arrive before the reasons for them, whole episodes are built around a single artist’s back catalogue, and characters change their minds between scenes because the next number needs them to. A new class turns up, Marley Rose (Melissa Benoist), Jake Puckerman (Jacob Artist) and Kitty Wilde (Becca Tobin), and is asked to be the old class again. By the fourth season we were bored, and by the fifth we were irritated, because a show that had been sharp about high-school sentiment was now producing it by the yard. The one steady gain is Naya Rivera, whose Santana Lopez grows from a cheerleader in the back row into the funniest and saddest person in the building. Most critics scored it on the pilot, and on the pilot they were right. Our advice is the advice we give about most long American series, and we mean it more firmly here: watch the first 22 episodes, notice the moment the songs start turning up before the scenes that need them, and stop. The show did not. *Fi1m score 68, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics like Glee, and they like it for the same thing: the musical numbers. The reviews return again and again to the energy and polish of the songs, with the pilot’s closing performance of ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ named more than once as the moment the show earns its keep. Several also credit the writing for playing high-school clichés straight and with zest, which lets the programme work as both a parody of the genre and a sincere example of it. The reservations are about everything that happens between the songs. Variety finds the dramatic tone uneven and the adult characters overdrawn. The one properly mixed notice, from Den of Geek, objects to adults playing teenagers and argues the misfits story is less subversive than it pretends, while still admiring Jane Lynch and Jayma Mays. The spread is otherwise narrow: nobody is hostile, and the praise sits comfortably between enthusiastic and fond. ### Reviews we read (6) - **The Guardian** (90/100, inferred): The pilot is a joyful, escapist high-school musical comedy about an idealistic teacher reviving a ragtag glee club. The critic singles out the polished, energetic musical numbers—especially the finale performance of 'Don't Stop Believin''—as the show's irresistible highlight. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2009/dec/15/glee-season-one-pilot) - **The Independent** (90/100, inferred): The critic describes Glee as High School Musical on steroids and a beautifully judged parody of high-school shows. It praises the writing, performances and direction for treating clichés with zest as if in earnest. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-night-s-television-glee-e4-delia-through-the-decades-bbc2-1864781.html) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Daniel Carlson (80/100, inferred): The critic finds the pilot a smart, fun and completely winning hybrid of musical and dramedy that is unabashedly heartfelt and sweet. The musical numbers stand out as quick bursts of poppy energy. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/glee-tv-review-93184/) - **Variety**, Brian Lowry (75/100, inferred): The critic notes that the dramatic tone is uneven but the show succeeds on talent and energy, particularly in its musical numbers. They single out the infectious musical sequences, like the rendition of “Don’t Stop Believin’,” as the program's saving grace, while criticizing the over-the-top adult characters. [Read](https://variety.com/2009/tv/reviews/glee-2-1200474873/) - **Empire**, William Thomas (70/100, inferred): The review highlights the show's soapy high-school problems and virulently catchy soundtrack as the elements that keep viewers riveted. It draws a parallel to John Hughes films in its appeal to geeks and misfits. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/tv/reviews/glee-season-1-volume-1-review/) - **Den of Geek**, Madeleine York (45/100, inferred): The critic finds the pilot frustrating due to adult actors playing high-schoolers and a lack of true subversion in its high-school misfits story, though she notes witty incidental music and strong turns from Jane Lynch and Jayma Mays. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/glee-pilot-episode-review/) ## Details - **Created by:** Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan, Brad Falchuk - **Creator:** Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan, Brad Falchuk - **Director:** Bradley Buecker, Brad Falchuk, Eric Stoltz, Paris Barclay, Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan, Elodie Keene, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, Adam Shankman, Paul McCrane, Wendey Stanzler, Carol Banker, Barbara Brown, Tate Donovan, Michael Uppendahl, John Scott, Dante Di Loreto, Joaquin Sedillo, Tim Hunter, Michael Hitchcock, Sanaa Hamri, Joss Whedon, Matthew Morrison, Bill D'Elia, Anthony Hemingway - **Writer:** Ian Brennan, Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, Michael Hitchcock, Matthew Hodgson, Ross Maxwell, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Garrett Lerner, Russel Friend, Allison Adler, Ned Martel, Marti Noxon, Jessica Meyer, Aristotle Kousakis, Stacy Traub, Chris Colfer, Rivka Sophia Rossi - **Cinematography:** Christopher Baffa - **Editor:** Bradley Buecker - **Music:** James S. Levine, Devin Star Tailes, David Singer-Vine, Virman Coquia, James Roh, Jae Choung, Kevin Nishimura, Kshmr - **Production design:** Mark Hutman, Kevin Constant - **Costume design:** Lou Eyrich, Elizabeth Martucci, Brigitta Romanov - **Producer:** Kenneth Silverstein, Alexis Martin Woodall, Michael Novick - **Cast:** Lea Michele as Rachel Berry; Cory Monteith as Finn Hudson; Melissa Benoist as Marley Rose; Jacob Artist as Jake Puckerman; Chris Colfer as Kurt Hummel; Matthew Morrison as Will Schuester; Jane Lynch as Sue Sylvester; Dot Jones as Sheldon Beiste - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-PG - **Release (the US):** 19 May 2009 - **Genres:** Comedy, Drama ## Where to watch in the US - Disney+: streaming, hd - Hulu: streaming, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy, hd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, IE, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Fame* (1980): The New York performing-arts school original; grubbier, sadder, and it can actually dance. - *Freaks and Geeks* (1999), Fi1m 88: One season of American high school with no songs and nobody pretending to be sixteen. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/freaks-and-geeks.md) - *Popular* (1999): Murphy’s earlier high-school comedy, meaner and stranger, with the same lunch-table politics. - *Crazy Ex-Girlfriend* (2015): Songs that arrive because the scene needs them, and a lead as exhausting as Rachel. - *Sing Street* (2016): Dublin, 1985, a boy forms a band to impress a girl; the songs are the point. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/glee