If you think that too much “Glee” is never enough “Glee,” get set for an overabundance of happiness as you get showered with even more glee than you ever thought possible.
On Sunday night, everyone’s favorite teen musical marries every reality competition show ever invented when Oxygen premieres “The Glee Project“: the singingest, dancingest, high schooliest reality show in the universe. Well, maybe the only one in the universe.
The premise — and it’s a good one — is a singing contest “American Idol“-style, for young singers to compete for the grand prize of a recurring role in a seven-episode arc of “Glee.” And it’s not some fake promo for the show with people who really have nothing to do with the show. In fact, all the judges, coaches and producers who work on “The Glee Project” are also the folks behind “Glee.” As it turns out, even the show itself is the brainchild of Ryan Murphy, the creator and executive producer of “Glee.”
MORE: WATCH THE CAST PERFORM ‘FIREWORK’
Included in the cast are “Glee’s” casting director, Robert Ulrich, the show’s choreographer, Zach Woodlee, its vocal coach/songwriter, Nikki Anders, and Murphy himself is the Mac Daddy judge.
At 8 p.m., there is an hour-long special which includes some of the auditions at the casting calls, which is followed by the first episode of the actual series. On the premiere, we meet the 12 finalists that were picked out of 40,000 auditions. Unfortunately, most of the finalists act like every horrible, annoying theater major you ever had to put up with in high school and college.
Yes, they are of the “I must dance! I must sing!” ilk, and you might be inclined to throw inanimate objects at your TV — until they get to actually singing. There are some very glorious voices among the annoying personalities.
Among them is the beautiful, classically trained, mean girl, the horribly annoying Latina from NYC who thinks she’s all that and a 4-foot-9 Brazilian guy who, with his family, came to the US to have docs here diagnose his condition. The final complicated diagnosis was “you’re short.” No kidding.
There’s also the requisite flamboyant guy with the girl’s voice, the oddity of a 19-year-old with the face and body of a 10-year-old, as well as a number of heartthrob boys and fantasy girls. In other words, just like “Glee.”
Each week, the bottom three kids must perform solo — which is a great way for the world to see them even if they get eliminated. I’d feel much worse about the eliminations if there wasn’t this one thing about these kids: They’re all old enough to take it, because they’re all well past high school age.