Glee

The song and dance spills over everywhere, even onto the football field, in this season's best new TV show, Glee.

The high school musical comedy occasionally flies off the rails. But maybe that's to be expected from this aggressively inventive pop fantasy. [1 Nov 2010, p.41]

It's not perfect, but in a sea of procedural conformity, Glee is its own weird, often enchanting little island escape.

McKinley and its denizens feel just a little too cliched, the emerging romantic entanglements a little too forced, the female characters--notably Terri and Sue Sylvester--just a little too mean-spirited. Still, it's a great cast.

Even with its problems--we'll get to those presently--it's one of the best shows of the fall season.

Cynical, sweet and inestimably funny, Glee--which debuted with a single sneak-preview episode last spring, but joins Fox's regular weekly lineup for the first time Wednesday--is by far the best show of the fall TV season that began rolling out this week.

The new musical-comedy drama Glee dresses like "High School Musical" and has the heart of "Porky's." That's a compliment.

Combining the breakneck comedy and sly farce of "Arrested Development" with the pop-savvy wit of "Ugly Betty" and the twisted humor, odd soundtrack and deadpan voice-overs of one of the greatest movies about high school of all time, "Election," Glee is bold, silly, demonic and addictive--one full hour of very good (but not very clean) fun.

While it's not as knock-your-socks-off as the pilot (while retaining some of the same problems), it continues to show why, at its best, this is the freshest and most joyful new show of the year.

Glee finally presents its second act tonight. And yes, it was worth the wait.

I never stopped smiling while watching the first few episodes of this pitch-perfect comedy, which finds that elusive sweet spot between snark and heart.

Glee does the teen years with some edge, but we've seen that before on Glee executive producer Ryan Murphy's previous series, The WB's "Popular." Still, Glee is delightful enough to qualify as a fall favorite.

At its best, Glee is not just entertaining but elating, dramatizing Breakfast Club-quality teen angst with the aid of tight production numbers covering new and classic popular songs.

Will this strange combination of starry-eyed optimism and manicured irony eventually combust? Possibly. But until then, there's a lot to like about this weird and frequently winning hybrid.

Thanks largely to some great singers and the comic delivery of Jane Lynch, packs more entertainment into an hour than some networks manage in an entire night. But sometimes I wonder if the show Fox is selling so hard is the same one Murphy's making.

As effective as the big numbers can be, they don't always pay off. The show also has a bad habit of delivering easy solutions to the kids' problems.

They're flashy and can be briefly shocking or funny or even moving, but the more they go over-the-top, the less impact they have for me.