Glee, Season 1 (2009)

If you want to be a social pariah at William McKinley High, the quickest route is to join the show choir, AKA the Glee Club.  You can be confident of a full dance card of being throw into dumpsters and/or getting a daily face-full of slushie.

Of course, some kids are already social pariahs, and there are others who find themselves willing (or coerced) to risk their social status by signing up to do ensemble covers of various show tunes, pop songs, and so forth.

And since this is a TV show, said collection of long time outcasts and former cool kids will all turn out to be uncommonly talented in one form or another, and - despite the opprobrium of the school body in general, and the vitriolic cheerleading coach in particular - they'll not just find camaraderie in the glee club, but also the chance for success.

Glee is a show that today is probably better known now for the unhappy ends of some of its stars, but back when it came out it was quite the topic of conversation, whether that be celebrating or attacking the musical performances, or celebrating or attacking the show's diversity of casting.

I personally tend to think attacks on the former are a bit naive: Yes, the show uses auto-tune.  Of course it does.  It's not reasonable to expect your cast to learn and be pitch perfect on roughly one hundred songs over the course of a season.  As for criticisms about the diversity, well, if they're of the "Glee has too many non-white, non-straight characters", then I have no time for them at all.  If they're of the "it's a shame that Glee has so many great minority characters and then invests so much of its narrative energy on the foibles of the white, heterosexual, conventionally attractive cast", well, I think that there's some merit there, especially in the first half of the season.  Still, it does slowly improve on this front as it goes along.

Glee will not appeal to all tastes.  It's a musical, for one thing, and it is certainly not afraid to rely on its comedic tone to justify some wildly improbable plot elements (as well as some pretty awful behaviour by supposedly sympathetic characters), but it's full of energy, often funny, and as well performed as I think is reasonable to expect given the production schedule.  If you're looking for an "underdogs make good" TV show, you could do a lot worse.