Last night Elaine Atwell told me she’d heard serious rumblings about Fox not renewing Glee for a fifth season, and I scoffed because with advertising revenue and iTunes sales and merchandising tie-ins Glee seems to make more money than God. But the truth is Fox hasn’t renewed the show yet, even though they’ve doled out orders for most of its other major hitters. And then, earlier this week on E! News, one of the hosts said she’d heard from a source that Glee isn’t making fifth season story plans yet because Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan and Brad Falchuk might not be returning.
Glee‘s ratings have been consistently strong this year, as strong as season three, at least, and the show has garnered a lot of renewed interest from critics with the debut of its New York storyline. And while it wouldn’t be surprising if the show’s main creatives stepped away to focus on their plethora of other projects, it would be pretty shocking if their departure caused Fox to cancel the whole show.
Some might even argue that Glee could use a writer/producer/showrunner shake-up to freshen things up a bit. Of course, everyone said that when Smash brought in a new showrunner and writing staff for its sophomore season, and the ratings and critical reception have been so poor that NBC exiled its one-time golden child to Saturday night. If there’s one thing TV fans knows, it’s that the grass is always greener on the other side – unless you’re on the side of Pretty Little Liars, in which case the grass is black because everything in Rosewood dies.
Would you watch Glee with a new writing/production staff? Or would you rather embrace the devil you know than the one you don’t?
