Look, I know a lot of people on The Avocado don’t watch the show Glee, the musical Comedy-Drama show about a show choir club and its group of misfit members. If mentioned, the things that pops into people’s minds about the show are bad due to the association with Ryan Murphy (which justified), the behind the scenes tragedy or so called “curse” (which we will not talk about here), or the few jabs taken by Community mostly because both shows’ respective film sets are next to one another. Since the show ended in 2015, Glee has had one of the most complicated reception with a few people to even call it one of the worst shows in TV history.

Right now, with news that a reboot is coming, I am currently on my first rewatch of Glee. And yet despite all the negative connotations surrounding the show, I think I considered myself a Glee fan. Now this piece isn’t a defense of the show, this is me talking about what I love (and also don’t like) about the show, and the legacy it has left behind in the culture prior to the reboot.

My personal journey with Glee didn’t start when the show first aired, nor when I was captivated by one of the actors when I became a fan of certain Broadway shows, or through TikTok. But through Mic the Snare. Mic the Snare’s 55-minute video retrospective of the show from 2020 is probably the best video about Glee, from the perspective of a neutral watcher, because he provides both the good and the bad of Glee without going full-on hater mode. Plus Mic also provides good lighthearted jokes on the show like how actor Chord Overstreet has such a cool name that he’s disappointed that it wasn’t his name of his character.

I first watched that video in early 2025. But as I kept rewatching that video a couple of times, I’ve been drawn to the show as if a siren is calling me. I finally hunkered down and watched it for the first time in July of last year. When I finished watching the show, my thought of it was “Eh, I liked it. Nothing special. But not the worst thing to happen on television.”.

Glee remained dormant on my mind for six months after that. But then around April of this year, I have watched a couple of clips that snowballed into watching multiple clips and musical performances to even reading a couple fanfics on AO3 that it felt like the show was telling me to rewatch it. So I rewatched the show in July (again). As of this writing, I am at the end of Season 3, and this rewatch of Glee has made me grow to love the show. Unlike my first watch, I became more focused on watching to the point that I don’t look at my phone or on the internet (except on a few certain scenes).

The show’s premise is simple. Season 1 to season 3 is about a Glee Club called the New Directions lead by teacher Will Schuester (played by Broadway veteran Matthew Morrison) as he tries to help a group of students find their self worth in a school where people hate them for being outcasts; often lead by cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester (played by Jane Lynch). Each of the first three seasons ends with the New Directions climbing up to the rankings of the show choir competitions yet end up short of winning, but culminates in season 3 when they finally win at Nationals and half of the original group graduating.

I didn’t watch seasons 4 and 5, but according to fans, season 4 isn’t as good as the first three seasons but still has its moments. Season 5, however, is considered by many to be the worst as the plot and the characters became cartoon versions of themselves. I watched the final season and while not as good as it was in the beginning, it was a step up from the bad seasons.

The big selling point to Glee is the music. Each episode, the cast do covers, reimaginings, and mash-ups of pre-existing songs. The genres mostly covered in the show were Pop, R&B, Classic Rock, and Musical Theatre. When the show first started, the show was lambasted on the internet by the “I was born in the wrong generation” crowd with them saying Glee is the worst thing to happen to music because it ruined the songs by comparing it to the “auto tuned Pop” of the early 2000s. But that is not the case. Watching Glee and it’s similar to a jukebox musical like Mamma Mia!. The majority of the cast were seasoned Broadway veterans that saying they were autotuned would be an insult to them. One of the few cast members who doesn’t have a musical background was the late Cory Monteith, but even he would admit that he wasn’t the best singer and dancer of the group.

As for me… after being into musicals for the past decade, I would say the music ranged from decent to great. Considering that the show is formatted like a musical, they’ve done a serviceable job with the music. It’s very hard to do a terrible job with the music considering the show is filled with people who can sing or dance (except for their rendition of “Gangnam Style”, that one is terrible). I would even go as far and say that some of the Glee versions are better than the original. I’m even currently listening to the Glee versions more nowadays. And one of those is the show’s standout rendition “Don’t Stop Believin’”. Now, as a longtime Bay Area resident, I immediately grew sick & tired of Journey and the original version being played 24/7 because Journey is basically the quintessential “San Francisco band” of all time. But the Glee version of “Don’t Stop Believin’”? Their version really did make me in not wanting to stop believing.

When looking back on what makes me come back to the show and liking it, I would say it’s the characters. Watching clips of the show prior to my rewatch, and there were moments that captivated me to moments of the show. And it’s all thanks to the characters. When done right, they were one of the most well rounded character on television. They would have high moments and also low moments, but that’s what makes them human.

Now, everything that I have say might make it seem like Glee is a perfect show similar to the likes of Breaking Bad and The Sopranos. But that is not the case. Throughout the show’s run, writers would do something just to get cheap laughs and over the top melodrama to the deterrent of honest storytelling.

Then there’s the problem with the characters. There are times where the characters would bend over backwards just for the sake of plot convenience that they don’t have consistent character development. This kind of problem leads to problems like not having a lot of positive interactions and relationships with the women of the show other than constantly feuding with one another. You couldn’t tell how frustrated I am whenever Qunn Fabray’s development would regress back to her pre-glee club personality because Ryan Murphy couldn’t come up with anything for her other than as a mean girl cheerleader.

There’s also the show’s biggest problem: No One Deals with the Long Term Consequences of Their Actions. How will the show deal with Finn outing Santana? Nope! Santana was the one who got punished and almost got suspended for slapping Finn but Finn stopped it because he wants equal competition for sectionals. Surely, some punishment will be hammered when the glee club was set up for failure when they set up a benefit concert? Nevermind, Will has told Tina to toughen up and told the heckler club to go home without any punishment.

And then there’s Rachel Berry, the de facto main character of Glee. The show’s problems are amped up to 11 just to fit the needs and whims of Rachel Berry. Characters would be sidelined and would not get any solos all because they get in the way of Rachel. And Rachel doesn’t have to deal with the consequences of her actions whenever she acts over not being the main character.

The only time that Rachel has faced serious long term consequences over her actions is when she sends Sunshine to a crackhouse because Rachel feels threatened that she’s a better singer than her. As a result, the show sidelined her from any solos for Sectionals, and minimized any big moments in the season 2 competition. Characters even have to remind Rachel about Sunshine whenever she tries to do any of her ideas throughout the season.

Another big Rachel storyline that has gotten criticism since then is how out of character it is of her to abandon her dream role of being Fanny Brice in Funny Girl on Broadway just for her to do a TV show about herself, which became a punchline within the show’s universe at the start of the 6th and final season. Now I haven’t seen season 5 yet due to its terrible reputation, but I would say that it makes sense. Rachel has finally achieved her playing her dream role, but when she got it she became disillusioned and felt empty about it. Many people have faced this problem when they got their dream job or something they wanted. The problem though is that it felt rushed and didn’t have enough time to develop.

There are still some positive moments of Rachel, but I have seen and understand people’s frustrations with her. Heck, I sometimes relate to her because I also have that drive in wanting a career in the arts (albeit not sending my competition to someplace terrible). There’s this comment that I have seen, either in the Glee subreddit or TikTok, that best describes Rachel Berry:

“If you were a student in that school and you have seen or known Rachel Berry, she’ll be a great and most trusted friend you can ever have. But if you ever share the same goals as her, then Rachel will do ever it takes to steal the spotlight and one up you.”

As mentioned before, the show didn’t end on a high note and has a rocky place in culture in 2015, but something happened for the past 10 years. I was in middle and high school when Glee aired. During the show’s peak, the ones I’ve seen (at least in my schools) who are more into Glee are people who are not that well versed with Pop Culture history and Broadway. But around 2020, when TikTok was at its infancy and people were stuck in their homes, Glee has now been reclaimed by the LGBTQ+ community and musical theatre fans; the latter might’ve gotten into musicals thanks to Glee. These are the kinds of people who talk about Glee and are fans of the show to this day.

In the year of our Lord in 2026, even before talks of a reboot were starting to make noise and the official announcement, I have seen a lot more admiration for Glee than ever. Maybe not in the same way (thankfully) as The Office when the show was on Netflix a decade ago, but not in the same kind of hostility as the “the worst thing ever” in the early 2010s that it’s in the same way as Gilmore Girls, the type of show for a niche audience. Some Glee songs has made their way to the mainstream today, including a version of Young the Giants’ song “Cough Syrup” sung by Darren Criss. Certain references of the show have made their way towards other pop culture places, including numerous reviews on Letterboxd. Sidebar: The fact that there are many recollections of the show through the Letterboxd page of Glee: The Concert Movie (the only movie in Letteboxd that is all things Glee) instead of outright hatred shows how much has change since the 2010s.

As for me? Like I said, I might consider a fan of Glee at this point. A “Gleek” if you will. I have been listening to the Glee version of a lot of songs. They are really well done and some are even better than the original. I read a lot of fanfics of the show, specifically one ship involving Rachel. I wasn’t a believer of this specific ship, but after seeing a compilation of Rachel and the other character of said ship, I started to see where fans were coming from and being with that character has helped tone down the negative aspects of Rachel’s character.

Who knows how the reboot will go. Fans have already said that a Glee reboot will be bad and a train wreck like the original, but they will still tune in. I might, and I hope they address one certain character because she’s my favorite out of the whole show.

To paraphrase Mic the Snare at the end of his Glee video:

“Glee… is a product of its time. For better or worse. It could be sporadic, salty, impulsive, [dizzying], sombre, saccharine, tasteless, and outright awful. Sometimes all within the same episode. But when it was good, there was nothing else like it.”

And that is what you missed on GLEE!

Recommended Glee tracks to listen to:

• “Don’t Stop Believin’”
• “Bad Romance”
• “4 Minutes”
• “Valerie”
• “Dog Days Are Over”
• “Thriller”/“Heads Will Roll”
• “Blame It (On the Alcohol)”
• “Loser Like Me”
• “Songbird”
• “Unpretty”/“I Feel Pretty”
• “I Will Survive”/“Survivor”
• “We Are Young”
• “Cough Syrup”
• “Shake it Out”
• “Paradise By the Dashboard Light”