If you happen to read my tweets on Wednesday nights, you know quite well that I am a Glee fan. A Gleek. It’s the unrequited musical theater ensemble dancer in me. Thus far into the series, I’ve been too busy tweeting my favorite Sue Sylvesterisms to delve deeper into the show on this blog. In celebration of the Glee cast being pulled out of the Macy’s Day Parade and rumor mills buzzing about a Glee tour, it’s time I jot down some meatier notes here.

Glee. How?
Indeed. How did one of the most avoided and ridiculed groups in high school become so popular and get invited into the living rooms of so many American homes every week? Maybe it was the byproduct of American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance?, that regular boobtube watchers started to grow an affinity of the performing arts (albeit in their more “pop” interpretations). I would guess that Glee would not have gotten this much of a big bang debut if it weren’t for all these addicting competition shows paving the way.

On May 20th, when the AI season that should have gone to Adam Lambert came to a close (I only watched the last few because Billiam – not I – was totally hooked.), its finale show was immediately followed by a sneak preview of Glee. And that is when I lost my shit. I enjoyed the show so much I started tweeting my fingers off, and then about twenty of my friends on Twitter starting tweeting their little fingers off, and collectively we became just a blip on the twittosphere (Wow, that sounds annoying.) of Glee-related posts. Fox and Twitter should shake hands and buy each other multiple rounds of drinks, because they totally just blew each other up.

Our tweets started out with quotes and general exclamations of unintelligible OMG I LIKE THIS talk, and when the episode ended, we got dropped to cope throughout our own lonesome withdrawals. It was like the end of a good trip. We wanted more. But we had to wait for months. THANKS, FOX. THANKS A LOT.

Aside from totally frustrating fellow Gleeks and myself, you know what that gap between May and September did? It got Fox and the show boatloads of free marketing. People tweeted, people Facebooked, people blogged, people reviewed, people hypothesized, people hyped. Myself included. If you are at all registered in anything resembling a “social network,” you probably read a thing or two about this four-letter word. The regular season of Glee became the Apple iPhone of network television. We knew there’d be a wait, but we still stuck around for it.

Glee. Why?
I can only speak for myself, but I love Glee because it is fun and fancy free. It is cheesier than American processed cheese food, but in between a backlog of Six Feet Under and my unrelenting love for Joan of Mad Men (More on that on Monday!), I welcome it. The drama is, at times, even more than I expect from a theatrical performance (Last night’s hallway duet of “No Air?” Umm, cut.), but it’s still goddamn entertaining.

Glee. Who?
In terms of who Glee has caused to fall in love with it, it’s got me and everyone else who appreciates fantastic performances and likes to make light of real life drama. Those of us with any sort of relationship to the stage were just low-hanging fruit. (Haha, that’s the corporate term I hold the least respect for. Even less than “drinking from the garden hose.”) People who like drama like Glee because of the drama – Although it moves so quickly I don’t see diehard soap opera fans falling over themselves for situations like Kurt coming out to his father in just the third episode.

In terms of who Glee is made of, the cast is simply unparalleled. Jane Lynch needs an Emmy. I can just imagine the crew being like “Hey Jane, will you please just act irate and say something absolutely ridiculous for the camera? Okay, now, scowl!” I don’t know how she can keep a straight face saying things like “Even in the heat of battle, I am elegant.” If I didn’t bust out laughing I’d probably be patting myself on the back for being so incredibly quotable. Jenna Ushkowitz (the Asian girl with the rather awful [as in bad, not heavy] stutter) and Lea Michele have known each other since they were in grade school. Broadway babies. (They make me sick.) And the Beyonce of the group, Amber Riley.

I’d like to personally thank the casting group behind American Idol for rejecting Amber Riley from getting into the competition. Glee gives her so much more space to shine. Not every song performed on the show is a home run (Take, for instance, last night’s “No Air” and “Set Me Free.”), but Riley’s cover of Jill Scott’s “Hate On Me” made me want to be angry at someone! And who ever wants to be angry at someone? She sang with so much soul I thought she was gonna bring another storm down on California. You can find clips of Riley’s in-show performance pretty much anywhere online, but here’s a live version of her performing it with Mulatto:

It fills me with glee.