Fans of Glee were stunned by Ryan Murphy’s recent announcement that stars Lea Michele, Chris Colfer and Cory Monteith would not return to the show after their planned season 3 graduations. Twitter went wild. Gleeks revolted. Lots of people made statements.
Now it seems that Ryan Murphy has gotten around to clarifying his earlier remarks. If you go by Murphy’s newest statement, the reaction was just plain wrong, we were all kind of stupid to believe what we heard, and we have only hurt ourselves as a result.
Ryan Murphy speaks.
Ryan Murphy spoke at length in an interview posted on Deadline.com. The basic gist of Murphy’s statement is:
- He wasn’t planning to fire Lea Michele, Chris Colfer and Cory Monteith.
- They will be graduating, and that’s good.
- The idea had been to give those actors a New York-based spinoff, where they would attend Juilliard.
- The actors knew about the spinoff and that they were not fired.
- Now, the whole spinoff idea has been shelved until some future point.
Most of the interview focused on how the three big Glee actors did know — at least as far as Murphy was concerned — about everything that was going on. They just couldn’t say anything. This requirement of silence seems to have been Murphy’s explanation for everything that got out of hand:
“And all of them knew they weren’t fired, but it was an awful thing to read. And I felt for them. And they couldn’t come out and say, ‘No, we weren’t fired. We’re talking about a spin-off.’ Because we told them not to.”
Click here to read the full interview.
What Ryan Murphy didn’t talk about.
The whole Chord Overstreet situation apparently didn’t come up. Or maybe Ryan Murphy is fully committed to not talking about it. He also failed to discuss the futures of actors like Naya Rivera, Amber Riley or Mark Salling, whose characters are all identified as soon-to-be graduating seniors.
Perhaps we should just not worry about them. Because if we do…
It’s our fault.
If you take Ryan Murphy at his word in the newest interview, we have only ourselves to blame if Glee fails to deliver. That attitude permeated Murphy’s interview.
For example:
Until the whole “They’re getting fired!” thing erupted, there was going to be a Rachel-Kurt-Finn spinoff. Now there is not. Maybe they will think about it in the spring, but no one at Glee will be working toward a spinoff for the moment.
What has changed? As far as can be gleaned from Murphy’s interview, the only issue at hand is the public’s negative reaction.
Ryan Murphy did not like that reaction. And now he’s going to take his toys and go home.
The Glee creator said: “To be honest, since then because of the press and because of the perception and because Brad and I have had another show picked up, we have simply stopped with everyone’s understanding.”
Maybe if we were nicer, we’d get a spinoff. As it is, no dice.
Do you feel ashamed of yourself yet?
Want more Glee? Check out our Glee Ultimate Fan Page on Facebook.
What do you think of Ryan Murphy’s explanation? Will there be a spinoff? Are the press and public to blame for the change in plans? Let us know by leaving a comment below!
(Image courtesy of WENN)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
Laurel grew up in Mamaroneck, NY, Grosse Pointe, MI and Bellevue WA. She then went on to live in places like Boston, Tucson, Houston, Wales, Tanzania, Prince Edward Island and New York City before heading back to Seattle. Ever since early childhood, when she became addicted to The Muppet Show, Laurel has watched far too much TV. Current favorites include Chuck, Modern Family, Supernatural, Mad Men and Community. Laurel received a BA in Astrophysics (yes, that is possible) from Colgate University and a PhD in Middle Eastern Studies and History of Science from Columbia University before she realized that television is much better than studying.
