What makes Glee so good?

LOS ANGELES – Why is Glee a hit, exactly?

It doesn’t fit the usual network TV mould of cop-show/lawyer-show/hospital-show. Glee is unusual, even by HBO’s, AMC’s, FX’s and Showtime’s lofty standards, where True Blood, The Pacific, Damages, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Dexter and Nurse Jackie are raising the bar, week in and week out, on what TV can do. Even Treme, while soaked in the jazz and blues of one of New Orleans’ oldest neighbourhoods, doesn’t have characters burst into song at the drop of Elvis Costello’s pork-pie hat.

Ryan Murphy, Glee’s co-creator, executive producer and a former magazine writer – if pressed, Murphy will describe himself as "a recovering journalist" – tried to take a run at Glee’s mystery success earlier this year, on Glee’s main stage set at 20th Century Fox Film Studio in Century City, Calif., several city blocks of what, from a distance, looks like a clump of warehouses and aircraft hangars surrounded by the gleaming glass towers of Southern California’s major banks and insurance companies. The difference? Those empty-looking warehouses and aircraft hangars are where the real money is being made these days.

And Glee is a part of it.

"Personally, I think it’s because of a couple of things," Murphy said, in trying to put his finger on Glee’s success. "I think it’s because this cast is so incredible; they are so incredibly talented. Also, in … the writing, I think we locked into a one-of-a-kind mixture of heart and soul that makes you root for these people.

"And promotion, getting the message out there – you can do great stuff and nobody will watch it. Fox – the studio and the network – very early on got behind this show and put a lot of energy and resources into marketing it, getting the word out, and having test screenings. As you saw, this past fall, this show did an almost unheard-of thing for network television: It built and built and built and built.

"We all look at each other and think: ‘I don’t know how this worked.’ And I don’t, I really don’t. It’s surreal. From the moment it got picked up, we all said, ‘Okay, let’s give it our best shot, because, who knows?’ I feel very lucky and privileged to be standing here, frankly."

Glee is not meant to be realistic, Murphy insists – not really. It may have caught on in the real world, but it does not aim for hyper-realism in the way that Fame tried to paint a realistic portrait of New York City’s High School for the Performing Arts in the 1980s.

That’s why Murphy isn’t afraid to use lip-synching, if the moment calls for it.

"We have done a couple live numbers on the show, but, for the most part, the show is about a very specific idea, which is that, when you are this age – in high school – your life is a fantasy. It’s a theatrical fantasia; when you walk down the hallway, you feel like you’re in the spotlight. That’s your world. The device of the show was always a little bit heightened and little bit theatrical," Murphy said.

"And, of course, they lip-synch. . . . That’s what you do in musicals. That’s what Gene Kelly did when he shot Singing in the Rain. That’s the convention of a musical: It’s breaking into song.

"We do have a couple rules on the show. For the most part, we’ll do it either in the choir room, or the auditorium, or sometimes in a fantasy. Other than that, I don’t know what to say about it other than our show has its own rules."

Lip-synching isn’t the scandal it might be on, say, Saturday Night Live. Murphy says the proof is in the post-show music sales on iTunes.

"I look at the music sales with great pride. What you watch is what you hear, which is what people seem to be buying. I believe the cast performs each song with so much emotion and longing and heart; I honestly think that’s the reason people are reacting the way they do. It’s because when they sing, you can feel it."

Glee premieres tonight on Global.