Glee - Musical Comedy or Comedic Musical

I love musicals. There's something about a rousing musical number that I just can't get enough of. In recent years, there have been far too few examples of quality musical for me to partake of. The remake of Hairspray, the movie version of Rent, and a few musical episodes of TV shows are pretty much all we've had for a while.

We've also had quite the drought of good television in recent years, especially when it comes to new shows. The Office and 30 Rock continue to please in the 30-minute category, Lost and Chuck are both good but on hiatus until after the Winter Olympics, and Jay Leno has destroyed NBC's entire 10pm block. That's why Glee is such a breath of fresh air.

Glee is the tale of a high school teacher (Matthew Morrison) taking over the glee club after the last sponsor (Stephen Tobolowsky) is forced to leave. He recruits a ragtag band of vocally-talented misfits including an exceptionally talented and annoyingly driven star-to-be (Lea Michele), the quarterback of the football team (Cory Monteith), and a wheelchair-bound musician (Kevin McHale).

Glee is one of those rare shows that are genuinely funny while integrating music. Jane Lynch is hilarious as the champion cheerleading coach out to destroy the glee club, and each of the other characters have their own funny idiosyncrasies scatter in among their character development. My only real complaint on that point is that the fake pregnancy of Mr. Shu's wife Teri (Jessalyn Gilsig) has lost its charm, but that is the only part of the show that lacks charm. This show has definitely made it to my regular rotation.

Watch it on Hulu.