Glee is a musical comedy-drama created by Ryan Murphy that focuses on a high-school glee club. A glee club means they’re a group of singers/dancers who perform and compete in competitions. While this concept alone may sound boring, I’ll reassure you that it isn’t. This isn’t simply an hour long show about singing and dancing—the show is based around the students’ lives, which deals with issues such as relationships, sexuality and other social issues. If the show still doesn’t sound appealing, maybe because you think it sounds like a High School Musical type deal. I’ll tell you, though, it’s completely different. First off, Glee isn’t a Disney program.  It’s for teenagers and not children. Secondly, there isn’t random dancing and singing; most of the songs take place during rehearsals or competitions.

Glee’s first season featured a wide array of actors/actresses: Matthew Morrison (Will Schuester), Jane Lynch (Sue Sylvester), Jayma Mays (Emma Pillsbury), Dianna Agron (Quinn Fabray), Chris Colfer (Kurt Hummel), Kevin McHale (Artie Abrams), Lea Michele (Rachel Berry), Cory Monteith (Finn Hudson), Amber Riley (Mercedes Jones), Mark Salling (Noah Puckerman), Jenna Ushkowitz (Tina Cohen-chang), Harry Shrum Jr. (Mike Chang) Heather Morris (Brittany Pierce), Naya Rivera (Santana Lopez) and Johnathon Groff (Jesse St. James). With the second season, Chord Overstreet joined the cast as a main character, portraying Sam Evans. Dot-Marie Jones also joined the cast, as Shannon Beiste, a female football coach, and finally Darrin Criss was brought on as Blaine. The Internet sensation Charice was in the first episode of the new season as Sunshine Corazon and is expected to return to the show, sometime in 2011.

It’d simply take too long to explain each character and what has happened so far in the show, so I’ll just sum it up. Will Schuester starts a glee club called New Directions, but no one really wants to join. Mr. Schuester hears Finn singing and tricks him into joining glee club, which gets people to join since he’s the quarterback. Eventually they get 12 members needed to compete at sectionals, which they win. Then, they have to compete at regionals against 4-time national champion Vocal Adrenaline, led by Jesse St. James. They do this all the while balancing relationships and personal issues, and dealing with Sue Sylvester trying to get the club canceled. Season two focuses on bringing in new members and trying to go to nationals, yadda yadda yadda. If you like comedy and music, I recommend you give this show a try.

Speaking of music, the show attempts to please everyone with their musical selections by balancing pop, rap, and rock. Now for those of you who probably disregard the actors/actresses on the show as real singers, you’d be mistaken. For the most part, they all have musical backgrounds.  For example: Mark Salling has released numerous albums, Kevin McHale was in a boy-band called Not Like Them, and Matthew Morrison, Lea Michele, and Johnathon Groff have all performed in numerous Broadway musicals/plays. There has been some criticism of the show’s use of autotune, but that seems to be a popular trend in current musical culture.

Glee has received numerous awards and accolades for the first season and is already receiving nominations for the second season, and with a third season already scheduled, we can expect more in the future. Glee has also set a record with its music—the cast holds the record for most chart appearances by a group act in history on the Billboard Hot 100, recently passing The Beatles. The cast has released five albums containing songs from the show, and they’ve sold 6.9 million copies worldwide.

Glee is a solid comedy, and a good show for anyone that enjoys musicals. It has its downsides, such as the use of autotune, but for the most part it’s a show worth watching.