Glee! returns next Tuesday and I have to say I’m looking forward to it.  Oprah, among others, called it a phenomenon.  What makes it a phenomenon is that it’s so uplifting when most current one-hour shows are ‘downers’.  

Our current viewing options are: cop show or serious dramas with a minor comedic element about vampire teens, back-stabbing teens, pregnant teens, families in crisis, or families falling apart.  Even sitcoms are tragic.  They’re mostly about go-nowhere lovable losers who constantly screw up in life.  This is not to say that we don’t enjoy watching these shows, they simply help Glee! stand out in the crowd. 

I remember loving shows like Family Ties and Growing Pains, but when I watch them now I see the moral of the story wrapped in a big religious bow.  There aren’t many shows with religious overtones these days, but it does seem to be a trend for characters to preach on their self-righteous soap box.  Glee! celebrates its members’ quirks and sends a message of acceptance without being heavy-handed, condescending or religious about it. 

High school for most of us was a battleground; we ducked and dodged insults and gossip, humiliation and ridicule just to figure out where we belong.  Hopefully, we would find a group of friends who shared our odd little quirks or who could at the very least not use them to discriminate against us.  For the kids of Glee!, the glee club becomes a safe haven for geeks. 

But Glee! isn’t all sunshine and roses.  The cool kids are also outcasts and the nerds get picked on, but in the glee club, they are all equal.  They come together through music, they pick each other up when they’re down, and their songs pick us up by the end of the episode. 

In grand Hollywood tradition, there will likely be several Glee! copy cats next season, but hey, we could always do with more glee in the world, couldn’t we?

Glee!  Airs Tuesdays after American Idol

GLEE is a one-hour comedy series with biting humour that features a soundtrack of hit music from past to present. The show follows an optimistic high school teacher as he tries to refuel his own passion while reinventing the high school’s glee club and challenging a group of outcasts to realize their star potential.