Glee Reaches 100 with Brittany S Pierce

I've never made a secret of my love of Glee. I remember when the first season began airing in the US, waaaay before it was even close to hitting UK screens (that's right, I'm a Gleek hipster), I spent my Thursday evenings in my hovelly little Japanese bedsit enraptured by the misadventures of everyone's favourite a cappella show choir.

Glee gets a lot of stick from my personal contemporaries, but in its early years (most noticeably the first season) it really was a great show; character driven with just the right amount of well chosen, if often cheesily reproduced, pop numbers. Indeed, I can remember a good handful of occasions when the show brought me almost to tears. Managing to walk that fine line between touching and hilarious, the first few seasons of Glee were truly worthy of their accolades.

This wee, Glee reached its one hundredth episode and decided to delight its fans with a special reunion show, bringing back all of the (non-deceased) original cast members. Unfortunately, rather than celebrate Glee at its peak, this remixed reunion did little more than make this haggard old writer realise just how far from the tree the Glee apple has rolled.

In a recent conversation with a friend (and indeed a former Glee fan herself), I mentioned that I had been enjoying a marathon catch-up of season five so far. She was shocked to discover that the show is still running. This having been said, I found myself examining the season so far...

Firstly, the current cast. Yes, we still have the "back row" members from the first season, Artie and. Tina, as well as fan favourites Sam and Blaine who made their debuts in season two, but them aside, I find myself struggling to even remember the names of the rest of the utterly undeveloped members of the New Directions.

Then we have the New York bobbins. Fearful of letting go of their characters after they graduated from McKinley High, creators Brad Falchuk and Ryan Murphy decided to split the completely unconnected action between NY and Lima. And you know what? It doesn't work! If they had concentrated on developing new characters rather than holding feebly on to the old ones, perhaps the show would still be as strong as when it began.

Bringing back classic characters this week really reminded me of how very well the original characters were written and developed, and how smart the storylines once were; Terri Shuester's faked pregnancy, Quinn's baby, Kurt's coming out to his father (one of the greatest moments in American TV of the last decade), anything, abso-ruddy-lutely ANYTHING involving Noah "Puck" Puckerman, and, most memorably of all, just how bloody horrible and hilarious Sue Sylvester once was.

So make a choice, creator people. Either move on and accept that you need to spend time and effort on your sophomore cast members, or just bring back the old cast for good and stop fancying about with meaningless drivel.

And many be lets have some more of Brittany being Britney. 'Cause, y'know, that was just the right mix of hilarity and down right sexiness.