Recently in Glee Category

One of the more bizarre aspects of American Football’s Superbowl is that the commercial spots tend to be just as eagerly anticipated as the game itself or even the half-time entertainment. These days, YouTube has a whole microsite devoted to Superbowl ads. This year’s Superbowl had some of the cast members of Glee promoting Chevrolet cars (including some back references to the Season 1 episode, Mattress). The 2-minute song and dance number was so eagerly anticipated that it even got its own teaser (the video below will show the promo, then the full ad):

Here in the UK, the commercial channels don’t really have any annual events that could pull in the same sort of advertising cachet. But tomorrow’s BRIT Awards (ITV1, 8pm) may be trying. It’s telling that a couple of ad spots are already available online.

Monday sees the final episode of the first season of Glee. Gleeks rejoice — not only will the show be back for a second season, but a third has also been ordered!

Before then, though, we have the matter of regionals to get through. And without wanting to give too much away, a couple of familiar faces pop up, as both Josh Groban and Olivia Newton-John get to reprise their scene-stealing cameo roles.

For this week’s video clip preview, we present one of New Directions’ regionals performances, a reprise of the signature song Don’t Stop Believin’. Of course, this is the first time we’ve seen all twelve members perform it…

Will New Directions triumph over Vocal Adrenaline? What will happen to Quinn and her baby? Will we ever get to meet Rachel’s gay dads? Will Sue Sylvester have all the best lines again? That last one’s pretty much a given: as for the rest, all may well be revealed on Monday…

• Glee, E4, Monday 9pm, repeated Fridays, 8pm Channel 4. For more information go to e4.com/glee

A quick video preview today - just the videos and no waffle. But these clips from Monday’s are real humdingers.

VIDEO 1: BAD ROMANCE

VIDEO 1: SHOUT IT LOUD

• Glee, Mondays E4 9pm, Fridays Channel 4 8pm. For more details, go to www.e4.com/glee

Monday’s episode of Glee sees the return of Idina Menzel (as Vocal Adrenaline director Shelby Corcoran) and Molly Shannon (alcoholic teacher Brenda Castle). Joining the guest cast this week is How I Met Your Mother star Neil Patrick Harris.

Harris plays Bryan Ryan, Mr Schu’s former glee club nemesis and now a member of the school board. He become Sue Sylvester’s latest ally in her fight to bring down New Directions.

The episode is directed by Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and TV Today favourite Dr Horrible’s Singalong Blog, which of course starred Neil Patrick Harris.

And now for the clips!

After last week’s ballad-obsessed episode failed to set enthusiasms alight, Glee is in need of a little rehabilitation in the minds of even its most loyal fans. Curiously enough, rehabilitation is the theme of next week’s episode, Bad Reputation.

Mr Schue investigates who has been circulating a salacious list about members of the glee club. In an attempt to encourage the club to repair damaged reputations, their musical task for the week is to find a song and rehabilitate it. Can they make Vanilla Ice’s Ice, Ice Baby cool (and banish any thought of Jedward from the UK audience)? How about MC Hammer’s You Can’t Touch This, even when dressed in harem pants?

But the biggest need for rehabilitation is needed by Sue Sylvester. When an old copy of her rendition of Olivia Newton-John’s Physical is uploaded to YouTube, she becomes the butt of the school jokes. The remedy? It involves an uptempo remix, fit boys in not much lycra, a barrel-load of autotune and one Olivia Newton-John herself…

• Glee: Bad Reputation, Monday, May 10, 9pm E4 and Friday, May 14, 8pm on Channel 4. Plus countless repeats throughout the week. Previous episodes are available on 4OD. For more details, see www.e4.com/glee.

I had fretted that, as we are now only a few days behind the States, we wouldn’t be able to bring you our special video previews of future episodes of Glee, the musical comedy drama where “malicious optmism” is the order of the day.

But hurrah! They now become a pre-weekend treat rather than a Monday evening one. And we kick off with the return of the delightfully dipsomaniacal April Rhodes, played by Kristin Chenoweth, in Home.

Things haven’t gone quite according to plan for April since we last shared a wine box with her. She’s now trying to to make it to Broadway via the local roller disco — where she appears to be finally realising her dream of being “the mistress of an incredibly wealthy strip mall tycoon and the owner operator of a cabaret roller rink.” But is she really where she wants to be?

Others are also dreaming of new homes and new lives, so Kurt tries to set up his dad with an unexpected partner, but his plans for a nuclear family don’t go quite the way he was expecting. Meanwhile, new Cheerio Mercedes has trouble sticking to Sue’s dietary requirements.

Over the jump, we have THREE clips for you to enjoy…

The musical comedy series Glee is returning to UK screens tonight, six days after it aired in the US. The short time gap means that we most likely won’t have access to the video previews as we did with the first half of the season.

But in the meantime, enjoy this spoof 60-second recap of Glee’s first 13 episodes, courtesy of comedy site Babelgum, featuring a cast of comedians who bear very little resemblance to the real actors. Which only makes it funnier, in a way, but there’s nowhere near enough Sue Sylvester.

• Glee, E4, Mondays 9pm

We’re battening down the hatches here for the wails from protest from all the Gleeks who are going to be disappointed when, after next week’s episode, Glee takes a three week break from UK transmission. Of course, in America they’ve had to wait since December, so we don’t have it too bad — especially since, when it returns, we’ll be seeing episodes barely a week after they air Stateside.

In anticipation of the series’ return, Fox has started teasing with what I hope is the first of many ‘Sue’s Corner’ web exclusives:

And that’s how Sue “C”s it.

Don’t forget that you have until 12pm Friday to enter our competition to win GLEE: THE MUSIC, VOLUME 2 on CD. See http://j.mp/stage-glee-cd for details

• Glee, Mondays 9pm E4, Sundays Channel 4. For more information go to http://www.e4.com/glee

We hope you’ve been enjoying the Glee video previews that we’ve been able to show you thanks to the generosity of our friends over at E4. This will be the last for a few weeks, but only because we’ve finally caught up to the US schedules, and ‘Sectionals’ is currently the last episode that has been seen in the US. Following Monday’s show, Glee will be taking a break from shoing new episodes for a while, before returning with all new episodes on Monday, April 19 — just a few short days after they have been shown in the US.

To help tide you over that three week gap, here are this week’s two clips from what our transatlantic cousins like to call “the mid-season finale”, which airs next Monday.

Rachel’s suspicions are aroused about Quinn’s big secret. She does what she thinks is right — but it might mean the end of Glee club’s chances for Sectionals, as one member just can’t take it anymore…

With Mr Schu having to step down, the kids take full creative and directive responsibility of the club, including composing their own set list. Furthermore, with what seems like the whole universe already conspiring against them, they arrive at Sectionals to find that their set list has been leaked and used by the competition!

Without a leader, a director and no set list, how on earth will they be able to continue? Surely they can’t let Sue Sylvester win?

Meanwhile, things are not going so well for Emma and Ken. And Terri tries to win back the love of her life, but can Will ever bring himself to take her back?

• Glee: Sectionals, Monday, March 29, 9pm on E4; repeated Sunday, April 4, 5.35pm on Channel 4. For more details, go to www.e4.com/glee.

COMPETITION: WIN A COPY OF GLEE THE MUSIC VOLUME 2

If you’re on Twitter, you could win a copy of the second volume of songs from the TV series. All you have to do is, from your Twitter account, post the following message:

RT @TheStage: Watch a preview of #Glee at sectionals! http://bit.ly/stage-glee-cd RT this link and you could win a CD!

There are some terms & conditions for this competition - see below:

1. You must be following @TheStage on Twitter. We will be notifying the winner by direct message - if you win and we can’t contact you because you are not following us, we will draw another entry instead.

2. To enter, you should tweet a message that includes the hashtag #glee, the username @TheStage and a link to http://bit.ly/stage-glee-cd. We will provide a link which you can retweet (see above).

3. For tweets to be eligible, they must be publicly visible and posted directly from your account before 12pm on Friday, March 26, 2010. “New style” retweets are not eligible.

4. You may enter multiple times if you wish. However, in order to prevent potential spam activity, we will only accept one tweet per hour from each account. Any tweets posted more frequently will be ineligible for entry.

5. Usual Stage competition rules apply.

6. Competition only open to residents of the United Kingdom.

7. The judges’ decision is final.

**UPDATE: The competition is now closed. Many thanks to all who entered!

Sorry for the tardiness of this week’s Glee preview. I’m still recovering from all the wonderful songs from Monday’s episode, Ballads (if you missed it, it’s on Sunday on Channel 4 and gets a further repeat the following Saturday).

On to Monday’s E4 show, Hairography:

While Sue Sylvester continues to sabotage Glee, the rest of the Gleeks are becoming increasingly distracted.

Having invited their rival choirs in for a “friendly” sing off, Will is distracted by the flowing locks and bootyliciousness of the Jane Adams Academy. Much to the horror of the Glee club, he panics and decides to make some hair raising changes to McKinley High’s own act, but Rachel is convinced everyone will see through the smoke and mirrors of Schu’s “Hairography”. Is she right?

Terri is becoming increasingly desperate, knowing her fake pregnancy is on the brink of exposure. Employing some diversionary tactics of her own, can she maintain the illusion or will Schu see through his wife’s particular brand of hairography?

Clip 1:

Clip 2:

Glee is on E4, Monday 9pm, repeated Thursdays on E4 and weekends on Channel 4. For more details, go to http://www.e4.com/glee

A little later than usual this week, for which our apologies - but to make up for it, this week we have two musical clips from next week’s episode, Ballads.

The glee club kids are randomly paired up by Mr Schuester this week, in an attempt to get the choir to bond with each other. Such events have consequences, of course, and when Mr Schu stands in for one of the club, his singing partner starts to develop a crush on him. And the news about Quinn and Finn’s baby starts to extend beyond the school gates…

Our first clip sees Finn and Kurt rehearsing The Pretenders’ I’ll Stand By You:

And for our second clip, the club express their solidarity for one another — as usual, through the medium of song — with a rousing rendition of Bill Withers’ Lean On Me:

• Glee, Mondays 9pm on E4 (repeated Thursdays E4, Sundays & Saturdays Channel 4). For more details, go to E4.com/glee
• Episodes 1-8 of Glee are now available on demand at channel4.com/programmes/glee/4od. New episodes are added after their first Channel 4 transmission.

Did you enjoy episode 8, ‘Mash-up’? Word is if you did, you’ll love next week’s episode. And if you needed any convincing, those lovely people at E4 have given TV Today readers not one, but two great clips to whet your appetite.

First of all, the episode summary:

When Artie’s chances of going to Regionals are in doubt, Will challenges the others to experience life from a different point of view by spending three hours a day in a wheel chair. Kurt and Rachel have their first ‘diva-off’ to decide who gets to sing their favourite solo song.

Quinn tells Finn to ‘man-up’ and figure out a way to support her and ‘his’ baby and one wonders whether Finn will ever figure out the truth. Without Finn realising, he has a ‘Dad off’ with Puck, as Puck claims that he says if it were his baby, he would do “whatever it takes.” Puck reels in the cash for Sectionals by turning a lousy bake sale into a success by getting the whole school hooked on his ‘special’ cupcakes.

And now the clips. First, there are sparks as well as cooking ingredients flying between Quinn and Puck in the home economics lab:

Next, Rachel and Kurt compete for the right to sing the lead in Defying Gravity at the impending Sectionals. Be warned - this clip does cut off a little too quickly:

• Glee, Mondays 9pm on E4 (repeated Thursdays on E4 and Sundays on Channel 4). For more information, go to e4.com/glee

Defying Gravity is a track on the newly released soundtrack album, Glee - Volume 1. To hear track previews and order individual tracks, use the widget below or use the following links to buy the complete album:

• Glee: The Music, Volume 1 [MP3]
• Glee the Music, Volume 1 [Audio CD]

What’s this? Could Finn and Quinn no longer be the hottest couple in school? It looks that way, especially as the “Slushy in the face” that was the habitual way of putting down Rachel in the first couple of episodes is inflicted on the high school sweethearts.

There are other couple problems afoot, too — Emma and Ken can’t decide on the song they want for the first dance at their wedding. She wants I Could Have Danced All Night, he wants Sisqo’s Thong Song. And so, the enterprising Will comes up with a mash-up of the two. Which is an odd union indeed, but not quite so weird as Puck and Rachel…

In this week’s video preview, we’ve got a whole musical number for you: Puck singing Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline:

• Glee, Mondays 9pm on E4 (repeated Thursdays on E4 and Sundays on Channel 4). For more information, go to e4.com/glee

Sweet Caroline is a track on the newly released soundtrack album, Glee - Volume 1. To hear track previews and order individual tracks, use the widget below or use the following links to buy the complete album:

• Glee: The Music, Volume 1 [MP3]
• Glee the Music, Volume 1 [Audio CD]

And so once more those lovely people at E4 have provided TV Today readers with a special preview of next week’s episode…

In Throwdown, Sue Sylvester is now co-director of the glee club, and her ongoing battle with Will sees the club splitting in two — with Sue getting all the ‘minority kids’ (or, in Sylvester-speak, “Santana, Wheels, Gay Kid, Asian Kid, Other Asian Kid, Aretha, Shaft”). Meanwhile, Quinn and Finn have to contend with a blogger threatening to reveal their secret, while Terri has to find a way to stop Will from heading to the hospital for her ‘baby scan’…

• Glee, Mondays 9pm, E4 (repeated Thursdays E4, Sundays Channel 4). For more details, go to e4.com/glee.

Once again, those kind people at Channel 4 are allowing TV Today readers a sneak peek of the next episode of Glee, a full week before the full episode is shown on E4.

In episode 6, Vitamin D, Will tries to engender a sense of competition within the glee club by starting a girls vs. boys mashup competition. Meanwhile, Terri decides she needs to keep an even closer eye on Will, so she becomes the school nurse — despite having as much medical experience as Doctor Fox. So that’s bound to end well…

• Glee, Mondays 9pm, E4 (repeated Thursdays E4, Sundays Channel 4). For more details, go to e4.com/glee.