Glee

At William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio, idealistic Spanish teacher Will Schuester takes over a struggling show choir called New Directions, determined to rebuild it from a ragtag group of outcasts into national champions. The kids who join are the school's misfits: theater obsessives, closeted teens, social outcasts, and a few reluctant jocks and cheerleaders who slowly fall under the spell of singing together. Each week the club channels its heartbreaks and hopes into elaborate cover performances, turning the choir room into a refuge from the cruelty of high school.

Standing in their way is Sue Sylvester, the merciless cheerleading coach who sees the glee club as a threat to her budget and her trophies, and who schemes endlessly to tear it apart. Around that rivalry, the series spins out love triangles, surprise pregnancies, coming-out stories, and the everyday agonies of being a teenager who dreams too big for a small town. Glee mixed broad comedy with genuine emotion, never afraid to swerve from a joke into a tearjerker within the same number.

Over six seasons the show grew into a full-blown cultural phenomenon, its chart-topping covers and earnest underdog spirit inspiring devotion from fans who called themselves Gleeks. It followed its characters from the choir room to New York stages, college dorms, and back home again, charting the messy passage from adolescence into adulthood. The sprawling ensemble was anchored by the breakout performances of Lea Michele, Chris Colfer, and Jane Lynch.