TV Flashback: Glee

In a new feature exclusive to On-Screen, we look back at TV shows (ongoing or axed) when they were in their prime or their darkest days!
Here at On-Screen, we're constantly on the look out for new opportunities to bring you fresh, exclusive content that you won't find anywhere else. Our commitment to doing so this year will hopefully prove to be doubly noticeable, with the Diary of Sound feature series that we launched last month (more on that front soon!) marking the start of a new era for this blog and with any luck a more engaging experience for you, its readership.

That renewed approach from us continues today, as we launch another semi-regular feature series that will focus on a different medium of entertainment entirely. In TV Flashback, we'll be recalling television greats and not-so-greats which may have escaped your notice recently, either due to their cancellation or due to their current trajectory being to your disliking. Some of these aforementioned programmes will be new discoveries even for this writer, with cult classics such as Firefly and Spaced currently sitting near the top of my 'To Watch' list and all-but-guaranteed to feature here somewhere along the line. If you have any suggestions of 'lost' televisual gems or duds, please feel free to forward them along by the usual social networking mediums and we'll endeavour to recognise those programmes in the not-too-distant future.

For now, though, our focus is on a show which made big waves upon its début five short years ago and yet which has seemingly faded into the background of viewers' attention these days. Certainly, one group who will not forget the influence which Fox's aspiring musical-drama Glee has had on their careers are Journey, whose classic 1980s hit Don't Stop Believin' earned itself an unprecedented revival in popularity in 2009 thanks to the teenage cast's remarkable cover of the track at the climax of the series' pilot episode. Though it may tow the line between drama, comedy and melodrama quite recklessly at times, those who have stuck with Glee through the years will most probably agree that its musical output has been pretty consistent, its various covers at least putting in a solid effort in terms of matching the originals, even if their success in doing so is often widely disputed by critics and followers of the original artist(s) in question.

To this viewer, however, debating the quality of the covers themselves (with relation to their inspiration or otherwise) is besides the point when it comes to putting into words why Glee once deserved and (to an extent) still does deserve recognition within the televisual spectrum. Though hardcore music devotees out there might claim that the show represents an incorrect method of discovering some of the superior tunes of our generation and those who've come before us, surely it's just as reasonable to ask of them what the 'correct' way to do so really is? Most discoveries of this kind usually come about through chance recommendations or replays of the aforementioned tracks on the radio, and if anything, Fox's enduring project offers a direct means through which to find those greats rather than leaving it up to happenchance. Sure, the covers themselves may not always be the finest renditions known to man, but they at least point their listeners/spectators in the right direction to uncover the originals (or the superior covers) in all of their majesty.

As a frequently outdated connoisseur of music in its various forms, I rely on Glee on occasion to remind me that there are in fact quality artists to be found beyond the 20th Century (specifically the 1980s, a decade which to a large extent would have suited my tastes better had I been born during the period), and it would be virtually impossible for me to recount the number of times it has excelled in this regard: Imagine Dragons, Fun and Cee Lo Green are just a few examples of those incredibly talented musicians whom I would not likely have discovered until years after their popularity faded without the help of Lea Michele, Matthew Morrison and the like. Rather than delving through the show's extensive back-catalogue of brilliant covers, though, I've chosen the cast's sterling original rendition of Don't Stop Believin' as the video to accompany this retrospective (videos such as this will be a regular element of this feature series, though naturally, the scenes won't always be presented through song!), featuring just one of the plethora of superb performances from the late and great Cory Monteith. Rest in peace, my friend.