Gleeks, Assemble! The Glee Reboot Is Officially Happening

Gleeks, assemble! After months of speculation, Ryan Murphy has officially brought Glee back from the dead. Well, sort of. Disney+ and Hulu have given the reboot a series order, meaning our favorite fictional high school show choir is officially getting another chance to take the stage. And while we have approximately a million feelings about this news, we’re not entirely sure we’re ready for all of them.

According to Deadline, the revival has been in the works for a while, with Murphy previously revealing that he had finished writing a script for the reboot pilot. The creator has also been in touch with around 10 members of the original cast, although no casting announcements have been made yet. Murphy is reuniting with Glee co-creators Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan on the project, which will be produced by 20th Television and stream on Hulu and Disney+.

Beyond that, details are scarce. We don’t know whether our favorite characters will return, whether we’ll meet an entirely new generation of students, or how the series will approach its familiar blend of show choir competitions, teenage drama, and social commentary. What we do know is that Glee is still finding new audiences, with its music continuing to attract millions of monthly listeners on Spotify and Apple Music. Apparently, you can take the Gleeks out of McKinley High, but you can’t take McKinley High out of the Gleeks.

And honestly? We get it. We LOVE Glee. We grew up with this show; we have the songs practically tattooed on our brains, and we’re pretty sure everyone at Q+ is a child of either Klaine or Brittana. We take our origins very seriously, thank you very much. For plenty of queer viewers, Glee was a formative part of growing up, offering characters and relationships that helped make LGBTQ+ stories more visible on mainstream television. Kurt (Chris Colfer) and Blaine’s (Darren Criss) relationship gave us a gay romance to root for, while Brittany (Heather Morrison) and Santana’s (Naya Rivera ✝︎) journey helped bring a sapphic relationship between two cheerleaders into the lives of viewers who might not have seen one represented that way before.

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Of course, loving Glee also means being honest about its messier side. The show was groundbreaking in some ways, but it could also be wildly insensitive, often using racism, homophobia, disability, body image, and other deeply personal issues as the setup for a joke. Some of its humor reflected the attitudes of the time, and television has changed considerably since the show first premiered in 2009. What once passed as edgy comedy doesn’t necessarily land the same way today, especially when we’re more willing to question who gets to be the punchline and what those jokes communicate to audiences.

That’s why we’re both excited and a little nervous about this reboot. We want the show to recapture the chaotic, unapologetically theatrical energy that made us fall in love with it, but we also want it to recognize the things it got wrong. Can we have the ridiculous musical numbers, the messy relationships, the iconic one-liners, and the queer joy without falling back on the same tired stereotypes? Can we revisit Sue Sylvester and her unforgettable brand of cruelty without pretending that calling her Asian students “Asian 1” and “Asian 2” is just harmless fun? We certainly hope so.

We’re not asking Glee to pretend it was never problematic, nor do we want a reboot that feels like it’s been scrubbed of everything that made the original so chaotic and memorable. We want a show that understands why we loved it, why some of it hasn’t aged well, and why both things can be true at once.

So, yes, we’re ready to dust off our Glee playlists and start practicing our jazz hands. We’re just hoping that, this time around, the show can give a new generation of Gleeks the representation and sense of belonging that made so many of us fall in love with it in the first place, without asking marginalized characters to be the punchline along the way. Is that too much to ask?

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The original 6 seasons of Glee are available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu. Follow us on X and Instagram for all queer stuff!

Featured Image: Image Courtesy of 20th Television.