I'm Worried About The Glee Reboot

When Glee was hitting the right notes, it was glorious — and honestly, it was also a ton of fun when it devolved into a discordant mess. I may have fallen off Ryan Murphy’s musical soap opera toward the end (I gave the NYC years my best effort, I promise!), but I still consider myself a Gleek because I cherish those delightfully unhinged first several seasons. So, you’d think I’d be thrilled to hear that Hulu and Disney+ have officially picked up a Glee revival series. And maybe I would’ve been a few years back. But now, I’m mostly filled with dread.

This new reboot — announced over a decade after the show’s finale — has been teased as a passion project for Murphy, who recently revealed he wrote a script for the premiere and has been in touch with several cast members about reprising their roles. Only a few returning stars have been confirmed so far, but after Murphy’s latest attempt to revitalize one of his properties with a deluge of comeback characters, I’m less concerned with who will be back than with how they’ll be back.

The Glee-boot was announced amid American Horror Story’s Season 13, which feels like an unfortunate portent. In Murphy’s spooky anthology, he used the latest installment as something of a revival in and of itself, bringing back pretty much all the most iconic AHS characters into one overstuffed satanic narrative. Much like the similarly cameo-and-callback-heavy Apocalypse season, AHS: 13 has felt like an overeager attempt to cram as many viral lines, memes, and in-fandom references into more of a concept of a storyline. (Sorry, but we really didn’t need another “Surprise, b*tch” intro from Madison Montgomery).

I have a little more faith that a new Glee show would have an actual plot, since it’s not in the free-wheeling, supernatural, “anything goes” space of AHS — but it seems likely that Murphy’s impulses would be less about authentically exploring where the New Directioners are at in their adult lives, and more focused on rehashing viral moments from the original show for social media clout. Cue: Sue Sylvester creating yet another environment that is so toxic.

Of course, there are a lot of other reasons to be trepidatious about this Glee revival. Several cast members have been embroiled in controversy and death in the years since it premiered. In particular, several Glee actors have voiced struggles working with star Lea Michele, which begs the question of who will return now that Michele has confirmed she’s reprising her role as Rachel Berry.

As a proud Gleek, I will still be tuning into whatever this revival series becomes, but I’m bracing myself for the worst. Then again, Glee was always one of those shows that could really be so bad, it’s good. So I guess I won’t stop believin’ just yet.