Glee = Eric, Eric = Glee

It isn't often that I latch on to TV shows. As most people who know me will attest, I am such a movie creature that the small screen to me seems to be just that - small.

Every once in a while I make an attempt to get into a show, but for one reason or the next, it rarely takes. Sometimes it's because I end up getting bored, as happened with American Idol. But more often it's because these days, the shows are so complicated that even if you blink during an episode, you're totally  Lost. (Capitalization intentional.) Other times the show is so far into its run that I don't feel inclined to spend an inordinate amount of time playing catch-up. I'd rather catch up on my TCM backlog on my DVR.

Last week, however, a show finally caught me - a little phenomenon called Glee.

I had watched one episode before - the one with my second favorite Broadway actress, Kristin Chenoweth, but as ususal, various distractions kept me from committing. When I heard the show was going to go back on the air with new episodes, I figured, "It's still a young show - I'll give it a shot. Seems right up my alley."

Wow. Is it ever.

It's a wonder I didn't get into Glee from the start. It's a musical, for which I am a considerable fool. Not for nothing are four of the movies on my Ten Best of All Time list musicals. 

Moreover, I have a rather famous fondness for girls who can sing, particularly long-haired brunettes, making Lea Michele (actual age 23) my latest celebrity crush. 

And besides being a good-looking girl with a hell of a voice, she's a hell of an actress. Her character, Rachel, the "star" of the group, casts the image of someone who seems to an outsider to have at all together, but on the inside is ragingly insecure. That's a quality I find very touching. 

And speaking of touching, the show hit me hard in personal ways I did not anticipate. Of course, there's the disabled character (Artie), but Glee's overall focus on all kinds of outcasts is what hit home for me. I've always seen myself as one, and not just because of my physical limitations. Even at my high school, where people were pretty friendly to me, I always felt like a bit of an outsider. No one ever doused me with a Slushie, but unlike 80 percent of the people there, I didn't grow up with the gang, having come into the district rather late. In many ways, I never felt part of the "in" crowd. Sometimes that actually felt good - sometimes it was lonely. Glee puts that across.

And what does Glee pull out of its hat when I make a commitment to watch it? With Lea singing? A Beatles cover!

Hello, hello indeed!  Or, as the part they left out goes:

Hey-la, hey hello-ah

Hey-la, hey hello-ah

Cha cha cha!

Hey-la, hey hello-ah

Wooo-ooo!

Hey-la, hey hello-ah

Heyyy-la!

Hey-la, hey hello-ah

Cha cha cha!

Hey-la, hey hello-ah

Woo-oo-ooo!

Hey-la, hey hello-ah

Cha Cha!

Hey-la, hey hello-ah

Cha Cha!