TV is the New Reading

‘Glee’ is pure joy

First and foremost, for those who missed the podcast -- tonight opens the FOX geek-out with the fifth-season premiere of “Bones” featuring David Boreanaz as a post-surgical Agent Seeley Booth, and the second-season premiere of “Fringe,” featuring Anna Torv as a multidimensional Agent Olivia Dunham.

Naturally this is exciting news and I’m looking forward to it like it was my next breath. But putting my personal geekout to the side for the moment, it is finally time to talk about a show that has been waiting patiently since we got a sneak peek at the pilot episode last May. In the wake of three “High School Musicals,” in the glow of the “Fame” revival, FOX premieres “Glee.”

Me, I always loved “Fame.” I was a teenager when the show was on and it always seemed so incredibly cool. The show managed to showcase a lot of pop music and quite a lot of individual talent, but in much the same way as it would be exhausting to stage a new musical every day, it must have taken an enormous amount of work.

At the same time, I wonder how demanding an audience I was. A troupe of actors, all of whom must have been well out of high school as this show was produced, bursting into song and having angsty teen problems was really interesting to a backroads rural kid like me. It seemed really exciting and somehow ... real. I don’t remember being especially slow as a child, but looking back I do not know how a couple hundred impossibly beautiful kids bursting into a spontaneous, meticulously choreographed dance routine out of a lunchroom and into the streets of New York City seemed real.

Unreal

So I’m not demanding realism or anything like that from Ryan Murphy (”Nip/Tuck”) and his angsty teen musical dramedy “Glee.” I anticipate that “Glee” geek Rachel will often be singing her heart out to no-one in particular during a montage of emotionally significant scenes. And that the object of her affection, the alpha singing jock Finn, will be clueless about what to do about her love, given his rocky relationship with Quinn, a cheerleader and head of the Chastity Club.

The teens aren’t the only ones in dire emotional straits. Spanish teacher and former Glee Club rockstar Will Schuester has taken over the group in hopes of reliving some of his glory days. However, all the extracurricular power and prestige -- and funding -- rests with the cheerleading squad and alpha cheer coach Sue Sylvester, and there are dark Machiavellian manipulations at work to get Glee Club terminated.

Will can’t even catch a break from his wife, Terri, who works a couple minutes a week at a retail outlet and makes outrageous demands of his overextended teacher’s salary. He put in for twice the hours at half again the pay because she told him she was pregnant -- just as he was on the verge of leaving her for a fellow teacher, Emma, a timid germophobe who is completely smitten with him.

Drama

As it turns out, Terri was simply having a hysterical pregnancy, which fits this show perfectly. See, Will was going to buy a new house so they’d have room for a nursery (along with Terri’s crafting suite), and without the pregnancy, there goes the new house -- and possibly Will. So Terri is determined to get pregnant for real. Will is wishing he could leave -- and he probably would if he knew -- and Emma is stepping back because Will is going to be a father.

Man, that non-existent baby sure is affecting a lot of lives on this show -- and it can’t even sing and dance yet.

Between the raw yearning, longing and angst explored by this particular cast of characters, the colorful sharp-edged high-school setting and art direction that reminds me a little bit of “Pushing Daisies,” “Glee” seems determined to explore the depths and heights of human emotion, and is a bright spot of joy on the grid, 8 p.m. Wednesdays on FOX.

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