Glee Was A Mistake Says Show’s Creator
Glee creator Ryan Murphy says he thinks the show should've ended after the death of Cory Monteith.
The musical dramedy television series Glee ran on the Fox network from 2009 to 2015, focusing on a fictional glee club at a high school in midwestern America. The show was made famous for its cover songs of popular singer icons like Madonna, Whitney Houston, and Journey, but it’s become infamous for the many deaths of its cast members in the years since its debut. Co-creator Ryan Murphy has now gone on record in stating that Glee should have ended after the 2013 death of series star Cory Monteith, as reported by Deadline.
Ryan Murphy created Glee alongside frequent collaborators Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan to highlight the drama behind-the-scenes of a high school glee club. The series became wildly popular and helped prop up the careers of its young cast that included Dianna Agron, Chris Colfer, Kevin McHale, Amber Riley, Mark Salling, and Lea Michele. However, Deadline reports Murphy noted on the podcast And That’s What You Really Missed that the producers of Glee were thrown for a loop when Monteith suddenly died of a drug overdose in July 2013, and if that had happened today, the show “would’ve stopped for a very long time and probably not come back.”
However, Ryan Murphy and his fellow producers did not end up stopping Glee and instead filmed an entire episode dedicated to Cory Monteith entitled “The Quarterback,” which ran during the show’s fifth season. The fictional character that Monteith played on the series, Finn Hudson, also died in the series and the tribute episode became one of the highest rated of Glee’s tenure on Fox. Glee was eventually renewed for a sixth and final season that ultimately ended on March 20, 2015.
Since Ryan Murphy created Glee, the highly acclaimed writer, director, and producer has gone on to create award-worthy television shows like The Politician, American Horror Story, Lone Star, The Watcher, and Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. The latter has been turned into an anthology series for Netflix that will premiere two additional installments in the near future, tailored to highlight the life and murderous rampages of well-known serial killers. The Watcher was recently renewed for a second season as part of Murphy’s overall deal with Netflix, and stars Bobby Cannavale and Naomi Watts as a spouses who move into their dream home only to find that someone is watching them from outside their house.
Even though Ryan Murphy now believes his option to keep Glee on the air after the death of Cory Monteith was a mistake, the producer unfortunately cannot deny the semi-curse that the television show had on its cast. Actor Mark Salling portrayed Noah “Puck” Puckerman on the series and was arrested in 2015 for possession of child pornography, before ultimately committing suicide in 2018 while awaiting sentencing for his guilty plea. And while some cast-members like Lea Michele have gone on to success on Broadway since their time on Glee, Naya Rivera who played Santa Lopez on the show was a fan-favorite who tragically drowned while swimming with her four year-old son in Lake Piru, California in 2020.
