Audition pieces, “On My Own” and “Respect” performed by cast members, “Fox Movie Channel Casting Session”, “Deconstructing Glee with Ryan Murphy”, “Dance Boot Camp”, “Repurposed Web VAM”

Fans of “Glee” may find it a bit premature to release the DVD of the first half of the first season. Let it never be said that companies don’t strike while the iron is hot and want to make money ASAP. The popular series comes with some nice extras but it is still a bit light on the special features; there’s nothing here that you can‘t find elsewhere. The popular series follows the Glee Club at William McKinley High School and in addition to the off-beat musical numbers has an off-beat sense of humor inspired by some very quirky characters. ***

One of the flaws of this set is the fact that we get the “Director’s Cut” of the pilot episode which is inferior to the version that finally aired. It’s usually the other way around but the inclusion of the pilot here probably should have been as an extra on the next set or the aired version should have been included as well. ---

Image & Sound:

“Glee” looks quite nice with a sharp, colorful looking transfer. Edge enhancement isn’t a big issue although there are some compression artifacts and macro blocking does occur in a couple of scenes in the episodes we see. ***

Audio sounds quite nice with a 5.1 mix that truly comes to life when we hear the cast perform. ---

We get full length audition pieces for the cast, Rachel performing “On My Own” and “Mercedes performing “Respect”. We also get “Welcome to McKinley!” an entertaining if somewhat underwhelming featurette. “The Fox Movie Channel Casting Sessions” will be important for fans to have although most have probably seen this on the internet already. ***

The special features are wrapped up with “Deconstructing ‘Glee’ with Ryan Murphy”, “Dance Boot Camp” which takes us behind-the-scenes for the training of the cast so that they could do the dance routines with conviction and “Repurposed Web VAM” which has been available on the internet via the “Glee” website. ---

Final Words: