“Glee” is Coming Back With a Reboot at Disney+/Hulu, Lea Michele Returning

The “Gleeboot” is real

The internet has been abuzz this year with rumors of a “Glee” revival. Those rumors were started by showrunner Ryan Murphy himself, who teased a reboot back in July and confirmed that he’d finished writing a new script in September.

But even with a passionate showrunner, the show wasn’t officially greenlit yet. “Glee” was a 20th Television production, which means Disney owns it now (oh, think of all the licensed songs they could use!), and it was up to Disney to decide whether the revival would happen.

Yesterday, Disney finally confirmed that the “Glee” reboot is indeed happening with a full series order, and when it airs, it’ll come to Disney+ and Hulu. Technically, Disney+ and Hulu are supposed to merge in the near future, so it’ll come to that combined streaming service, affectionately called “Hu Dis?” by Disney’s Canadian marketing team. In the meantime, the original “Glee” is streaming on both Disney+ and Hulu.

So what will this new “Glee” show look like? Can anything top the original musical comedy show, which aired from 2009–2015 in an entirely different cultural climate? Keep reading, and I’ll go over everything we know so far and speculate on things to come.

Everything we know about the “Glee” revival

Several original cast members have agreed to reprise their roles, including Heather Morris (Brittany Pierce) and Chord Overstreet (Sam Evans). And of course, it wouldn’t be “Glee” without the queen of the Glee Club herself — Lea Michele is also set to return as Rachel Berry.

That raises some questions about the structure of the show. This won’t be a true reboot, then — we’re not going to watch Kurt, Rachel, Quinn, and the rest go through high school again. Instead, it sounds like we’ll be following a new generation of glee club members in the present day, likely with some cameos from their school’s alumni.

Maybe Rachel Berry will return from New York to teach at McKinley? Will she become the show’s new Mr. Schue? That’s just speculation, but the idea of Rachel Berry having to retire early from Broadway and become a high school teacher is kind of funny to me.

What songs will they sing in the new season?

There’s another, obvious question here that I think a lot of people are curious about: If this takes place in the present day, what songs will they sing? We don’t know anything for sure yet, but a lot has happened between the show’s March 2015 finale and now. Just as a reminder, here are some things that have gotten popular in that time frame:

And that’s just in the music world. We’ve also had three presidential elections, a global pandemic, and the rise of AI. Teens use TikTok, shop for anti-aging cream at Sephora, and obsess over Nee-Doh squishies.

Ryan Murphy could use any and all of these factors, mixing them together in his mind like a witch with a cauldron. We could get a production of “WAP” performed entirely in PPE and Covid masks, or Rachel Berry desperately trying to relate to kids with 6-7 jokes and a too-serious medley of “The Amazing Digital Circus” fan songs. We could get “Glee Hamilton.” The possibilities are as horrifying as they are endless.

I just hope Darren Criss makes a return as well, if he gets a break from all of his successful Broadway shows. I know we were all watching for Blaine and The Warblers, anyway.

Where to catch up on “Glee”

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