Search - Glee: The Complete First Season on DVD

K. K. (GAMER)
Reviewed on 1/18/2023...

The drama soapy part of this was a bit draining but most of the Glee singing was pretty awesome especially, Neil Diamond's Hello Again, Rock Band Kiss, Madonna Songs, Billy Joel's Piano Man, Journey, Queen and others. A must watch for music and video fans (hint - Hit the fast forward to the music)!

Bonnie S. from TALBOTT, TN
Reviewed on 7/14/2013...

We enjoyed it very much.

Awesome disc features, however...

outrageous | 10/02/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"First off, love the show.
Pre ordered the Full season which I got in a timely matter.
Got the regular DVD version, not blue ray.
Everything was a-ok.
Nice amount of bonus features, however was hoping for bloopers and maybe more "making of".. Guess Fox wants to keep that all to them selves lol.."

Glee's first season gets a lot of attention

Haunted Flower | Indianapolis | 09/30/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"22 Episodes on 7 Discs, released September 14, 2010

WOW. SEVEN discs of "Glee" plus over two hours of bonus features for this complete first season set! Well, they better since they tried to release the season in two parts to begin with and are now offering a $10 rebate if you already bought the "Road to Sectionals" half season. "Glee" began piggy-backing off the viewers tuned in to "American Idol" and just grew from there. Who hasn't felt like an outsider in high school? Theater majors, choir members, and outcasts across the country followed this show religiously for all the nostalgia it evoked and pretty soon, larger demographics joined in when they saw how entertaining it was. There has never quite been a musical TV show like this and no one can seem to get enough "Glee".

Along with being nominated for 19 awards including Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, and acting nominations for Lea Michele, Matthew Morrison, Chris Colfer, Jane Lynch, Mike O'Malley, Kristin Chenoweth and Neil Patrick Harris, this show ran away with the opening skit to the Emmys!

The premise is that a Spanish high school teacher, Will Schuester played by Matthew Morrison takes over the Glee Club full of underdog misfits and slowly through team work helps them rise to greatness. Making up this club are the leading lady, Rachel Berry (Lea Michele), football quarterback leading man, Finn Hudson (Cory Monteith), self-proclaimed diva, Mercedes Jones (Amber Riley), head of the cheerleaders (cheerios) Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron) forced to drop out after coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) finds out, rough-edged mohawked Puck (Mark Salling), soprano fashionista Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer), the best dancer who happens to be in a wheelchair, Artie (Kevin McHale), shy Tina (Jenna Ushkowitz), and the other two cheerios, Santana (Naya Rivera) and Brittany (Heather Morris).

Most of the conflicts revolve around Mr. Schuester's failing relationship with his wife who is lying to him about being pregnant herself and his mutual attraction with school guidance counselor germaphobe Emma Pillsbury played by Jayma Mays, Sue Sylvester's determination to take down the Glee Club once and for all, Quinn's difficulties with high school pregnancy, Kurt coming out of the closet, and a few romantic hook ups and break ups between the students.

All of it is interlaced with song and dance numbers either as assignments or sudden expressions of feeling that help develop a character. Tons of guest stars appeared in this season including from the first cast of "Wicked" - Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, Josh Groban, Eve, Molly Shannon, Olivia Newton-John, Jonathan Groff, and my favorite Neil Patrick Harris competing for the lead in "Les Miserables" with Mr. Schuester! A break-through in uniqueness and a win all around, so check it out.

Bonus Features:

Ok, at first the menu singing that is the ambient transition music for the entire show being in the menu sequence is cute, but it gets annoying VERY fast. There is a "Welcome to McKinley!" featurette that is an introduction for new students by the Principal and is very silly ("There's no "I" in "misunderstanding."). There is a Glee Music Video to Queen's "Somebody to Love" where all the characters walk down the hallway sweetly in slow motion. You can also watch the full audition videos for Glee Club for Rachel's "On My Own" which has always had a special spot for me since that's the song I always used for auditions in school and college and Mercede's "Respect."

The Glee "Casting" is a behind the scenes journey of a screenplay written in 2005 that was decided to work better as a TV show than a movie. The dependence upon finding cast members who were a triple threat (can sing, dance, AND act) and the first person they found was Lea Michele for Rachel, the most important component for the show that everyone else is based around to make the story work. Apparently she got into a huge accident and totaled her car right before her audition in front of the FOX lot and she managed to nail it despite pulling bits of glass out of her hair. Also there was great difficulty in casting Finn to find a guy who could be a jock and a glee club member. They ended up creating a role for the character of Kurt Hummel after meeting Chris Colfer since he was so unique and interesting for their project.

"Deconstructing Glee" with Ryan Murphy is a shorter featurette about the casting process that was made for TV marketing. The Dance Bootcamp is about learning the dance numbers for the cast members. The irony is that Kevin is probably the best dancer of the group but is always in a wheelchair (except for that daydream sequence).

Jane Lynch is my favorite element on the show and she has a couple of VERY short featurettes: one where she talks about her first role in elementary school as the letter "A" and another called "Meet Jane Lynch" where she explains why Sue is the way she is and tons of her best quotes are thrown in for good measure. There are several "# Things you didn't know about (Jayma, Cory, Amber, Chris)" sequences that are very short, cute, and probably are played during commercial breaks to advertise the show. There are video diaries for 8 different cast members about their journey to New York for publicity and drumming up ad support. It would have been easier probably to combine them all into one big video since they mostly get different views of similar moments, but it's still kind of cute and impromptu.

When on Jukebox mode, it plays tons of songs from the show one after another that you can leave on just to watch the song and dance routines and you can even put them on shuffle! There is also the sing-along karaoke version of four songs, "Alone", "Somebody To Love", "Keep Holding On", and "Don't Stop Believin" where the words appear on the bottom and slowly highlight as the song progresses.

Dressing like your favorite Gleek is a great little featurette on how the distinctive costuming came about for each character. Staying in Step with Glee allows you to learn the "Rehab" dance from the first episode performed by Vocal Adrenaline. There are featurettes on the Madonna episode and the Making of a Showstopper. The Madonna episode was a journey through the pop star's career complete with music videos and every incarnation of Madonna possible in background shots and was a big challenge and triumph for everyone involved. The Bohemium Rhapsody showstopper in the final episode took two days to choreograph, four days to get the costumes, and several dancers were injured in the shooting hitting their heads on a steady camera, spraining an ankle, and breaking a finger to name a few."