All Rise...

Judge Brett Cullum expects racist Disney characters to pop out of your briar patch hair and start singing!

Editor's Note

Our reviews of Glee: The Complete First Season (published September 14th, 2010), Glee: The Complete First Season (Blu-ray) (published September 29th, 2010), Glee: Season Two, Volume One (published February 28th, 2011), Glee: The Complete Second Season (published September 28th, 2011), Glee: The Complete Second Season (Blu-ray) (published October 5th, 2011), Glee: The Complete Third Season (Blu-ray) (published November 22nd, 2012), Glee: Encore (published April 27th, 2011), and Glee: The Concert Movie (published December 29th, 2011) are also available.

The Charge

Like Britney says "Hit me baby, one more time!"

The Case

Glee has got to be one of the most lucrative shows on the air right now, and not really because it cleans up in the ratings. The true appeal of the whole Gleek phenomenon lies in selling singles on iTunes and moving CDs with entire collections of songs that the kids cover every week. Fans are rabid about the musical numbers, and much is made about the announcement of what is coming up on the series. Glee: Encore is simply a collection of thirty songs from Season One packaged altogether to play continuously. Seems a little strange because the season one DVDs and Blu-rays came with a jukebox feature that let you play every single song from the entire year if you like. This one is missing quite a few great numbers. The playlist is as follows:

• "On My Own"
• "Don't Stop Believin'"
• "Gold Digger"
• "I Say a Little Prayer"
• "Alone"
• "Somebody to Love"
• "It's My Life/Confessions Part II"
• "No Air"
• "You Keep Me Hanging On"
• "Defying Gravity"
• "I'll Stand By You"
• "Don't Stand So Close to Me/Young Girl"
• "Lean on Me"
• "Imagine"
• "True Colors"
• "Smile"
• "Don't Rain on My Parade"
• "You Can't Always Get What You Want"
• "Gives You Hell"
• "Hello"
• "Vogue"
• "Like a Virgin"
• "Like a Prayer"
• "Fire"
• "One Less Bell to Answer/A House is Not a Home"
• "Beautiful"
• "Run Joey Run"
• "Total Eclipse of the Heart"
• "Jessie's Girl"
• "Rose's Turn"
• "Bad Romance"
• "Beth"
• "Faithfully"
• "Any Way You Want It/Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'"

This Blu-ray is comparable to the Season One release in terms of visual and sound quality. It's very solid with nice color balance and a lively interplay of speakers to make the music sound fresh and fun. I can't complain much about the technical aspects, which mirror the high definition broadcasts. Both the picture and the audio have a nice saturation and they feel robust. There are no extras, just the songs right after each other or reachable by a click on the menu.

I don't mean to sound like Cheerios coach Sue Sylvester, but to me this release feels about as original as Will Shuster's sad little greasy, curly hairdo that has enough product in it to season a wok. Sure, it's fun to see these songs out there back to back on one Blu-ray. But heck, I have Season One if I want to go down that road. So what I can't figure out is who this is for. Fans already own a superior version of it, and non-fans won't see much value. Maybe small kids who aren't allowed to watch the show, or people with very short attention spans will dig it. It would be perfect playing front and center at your Glee themed birthday party, or as a background to a fan get-together. My gripe is that it does feel like a cash grab since it doesn't offer anything new, and certainly falls far short of giving us all the Season One songs which can be found on the Season One set. Still, this is undeniably great uplifting music at a nice price point. So if you're looking for just a smaller serving of Glee maybe this is it!

The Verdict

Guilty of making me love Journey all over again and finally admit I was in show choir in high school.

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