The club competes as a show choir while its disparate members deal with social issues, regarding sexuality, gender, race, family, teen relationships and teamwork.

Other main cast members played students, with Dianna Agron as Quinn Fabray, a popular cheerleader who experiences a teenage pregnancy; Chris Colfer as Kurt Hummel, an effeminate, openly gay boy; Kevin McHale as Artie Abrams, a boy with a physical disability; Lea Michele as Rachel Berry, an ambitious performer driven by her dreams of becoming a Broadway theatre star; Cory Monteith as Finn Hudson, the school's sometimes-slow-witted star quarterback; Amber Riley as Mercedes Jones, an aspiring vocal diva whose talents go unrecognized; Mark Salling as Noah Puckerman, a delinquent in need of direction; and Jenna Ushkowitz as Tina Cohen-Chang, a shy goth who longs to be popular.

[1] Glee features on-screen, performance-based musical numbers selected by Murphy, who aimed to maintain a balance between show tunes and chart hits, and produced by Adam Anders and Peer Åström.

The central characters are glee club director Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison), cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch), Will's wife Terri (Jessalyn Gilsig), guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays), and glee club members Rachel (Lea Michele), Finn (Cory Monteith), Artie (Kevin McHale), Kurt (Chris Colfer), Mercedes (Amber Riley), Tina (Jenna Ushkowitz), Puck (Mark Salling), and Quinn (Dianna Agron).

The characters deal with gender identity, adoption, domestic abuse, teenage suicide, bullying, disabilities, texting while driving, college and other social issues.

The show then jumps several months forward in time and deals entirely with the alumni's lives in New York City for the remainder of the season, including Rachel's successful Broadway debut.

Several main cast members dropped to recurring guest stars as of this season: Amber Riley as Mercedes, Mark Salling as Puck, Harry Shum Jr. as Mike and Heather Morris as Brittany.

New main cast members included glee club members introduced in the fourth season: Melissa Benoist as Marley Rose, a kind teenager who develops an eating disorder; Alex Newell as Unique Adams, a shy, nerdy teenager who becomes more bold and glamorous after coming out as transgender; Blake Jenner as Ryder Lynn, a dyslexic teen; Jacob Artist as Jake Puckerman, a biracial teen struggling with anger issues; and Becca Tobin as Kitty Wilde, a Christian mean girl.

The finale jumps five years into the future: Rachel has married Jesse St. James (Jonathan Groff), wins a Tony Award, and is a surrogate mother for Kurt and Blaine (who are themselves Broadway stars).

Artie has directed Tina in a film, Mercedes is a highly successful recording artist, and Sue has just been re-elected Vice President of the United States.

"[11] Jane Lynch was originally supposed to have a recurring role as Sue Sylvester,[12] but was made a series regular when a Damon Wayans pilot she was working on for ABC fell through.

[13] Mays appears as Emma Pillsbury, the school's mysophobic guidance counselor who has feelings for Will,[19] and Jessalyn Gilsig plays Terri Schuester, Will's wife whom he eventually divorces after five years of marriage and the discovery that she has faked being pregnant instead of revealing she had suffered a false pregnancy.

[citation needed] Also in the club are Amber Riley as Mercedes Jones, a fashion-conscious diva who resents having to sing back-up but eventually finds her place in the choir; Colfer as Kurt Hummel, a fashionable gay man countertenor who is often bullied by the jocks in the school;[20] McHale as Artie Abrams, a guitar player and paraplegic who longs to be seen for his personality rather than only his physical injuries; and Ushkowitz as Tina Cohen-Chang, a painfully shy Asian American student who fakes a speech impediment as a defense mechanism.

Naya Rivera and Heather Morris portray Cheerios and glee club vocalists Santana Lopez and Brittany Pierce respectively and were originally recurring actors, but were promoted to series regulars in the second season.

"[29] On June 28, 2013, the media reported that Morris, Riley, Salling, and Shum would be changing from starring status to guest starring roles for the fifth season, and on the following day that Jacob Artist, Melissa Benoist, Blake Jenner, Alex Newell, and Becca Tobin (who play Jake Puckerman, Marley Rose, Ryder Lynn, Wade "Unique" Adams, and Kitty Wilde, respectively), were all being promoted to the show's main cast.

[46] Starting with season three, a writing staff of six was hired: Ali Adler, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Marti Noxon, Michael Hitchcock, Matt Hodgson and Ross Maxwell.

[45] Morrison, Lynch, Michele, Monteith, and Colfer reprised their roles as Will, Sue, Rachel, Finn, and Kurt respectively for a cameo appearance in an episode of The Cleveland Show that aired January 16, 2011.

[94] Glee has been syndicated for broadcast in many countries worldwide, including Australia, where cast members visited to promote the show prior to its September 2009 debut on Network Ten.

[141] Halfbrick Studios published a Glee content version of the mobile game Band Stars[142] by Six Foot Kid [143] in collaboration with Fox Digital Entertainment[144] on March 27, 2014, currently available on iOS platforms, but with plans to release to Android.

[186]Variety's Brian Lowry was critical of the show's early episodes, highlighting acting and characterization issues and deeming the adult cast "over-the-top buffoons", with the exception of Mays' Emma, who he felt offered "modest redemption".

[187] Though he praised Colfer and Michele's performances, Lowry wrote that the show's talent was squandered by its "jokey, cartoonish, wildly uneven tone", deeming the series a "one-hit wonder".

"[189] As Glee's initial success pulled in a large audience, John Doyle of The Globe and Mail wrote that the early shows "felt fresh, mainly because the motley crew of kids had a kind of square naïveté."

[190] Matthew Gilbert of Boston Globe similarly wrote that "It has become a powerful, promotional machine, long on hype and short on the human feeling—the glee—that once made it so addictive.

[199] During the second season, Rob Sheffield for Rolling Stone noted the Britney Spears and Rocky Horror tribute episodes as examples when he lauded Glee and its choice of music.

He praised Murphy for his selection and resurrection of "forgotten" pop songs and compared the show's uniqueness to "MTV in its prime" as the embodiment of popular culture.

[209] Similarly, Glee fans have created portmanteaus of character couples, such as "Finchel" for Finn and Rachel, "Samcedes" for Sam and Mercedes, "Klaine" for Kurt and Blaine, and "Brittana" for Brittany and Santana.

[217] Paris Barclay and Ryan Murphy both received nominations for "Outstanding Directing – Comedy Series" at the Directors Guild of America Awards for their work on Glee.

[228] The show's judges were former EastEnders actress Tamsin Outhwaite, Blue member Duncan James, singer Anastacia and High School Musical choreographer Charles "Chucky" Klapow.

[232] Narrated by Nick Grimshaw,[233] it went behind the scenes with real-life glee clubs and detailed celebrity show choir alumni including Lance Bass, Ashton Kutcher, Blake Lively and Anne Hathaway.

"[235] The newspaper's Lucy Mangan reviewed the documentary positively, writing: "It will, one way or another, fill your heart to bursting", and commenting that: "Glee, it turns out, is not a gloriously ridiculous, highly polished piece of escapism.