Thanks to its high school-based storyline, Fox’s Glee has had to work around students graduating in recent seasons, cutting out some characters and changing others to recurring. While this is bad news for the actors and actresses who are forced to graduate from the series, it’s actually good news for some of the younger characters, who get the opportunity to step up and take center stage on the musical series. On Saturday, Glee promoted five actors to series regular status for the show’s upcoming fifth season.
The five actors include Jacob Artist, who plays Jake, Melissa Benoist, who plays Marley, and Becca Tobin, who plays Kitty. According to THR, the two other series regular roles will go to The Glee Project’s Blake Jenner and Alex Newell, who play Ryder and Unique, respectively. These character should help to usher in a new era for Glee, which was recently renewed by Fox for both a fifth and sixth season.
The news has broken just one day after Fox’s dramedy cut five cast members from their regular roles. Dianna Agron, Heather Morris, Mark Salling, Amber Riley, and Harry Shum, Jr. will not be returning in a regular capacity for Season 5. None of this news was much of a surprise. Agron’s character was already apparently demoted, Morris is pregnant in real life, and Salling’s character will be a loss, but since he plays Jake’s half-sibling on the series, Salling’s Puck may have more of a reason to stick around than some of the other characters. Reportedly, just like when kids graduated last year, Glee will try to find reasons to keep the characters involved in the show—just on a less regular basis.
On the one hand, I want to give Glee some kudos for trying to keep the musical dramedy close to a real-life high school experience, rather than keeping the kids in high school limbo forever. Additionally, with an ever-changing cast of characters, it’s probably easier to drum up new drama and new plotlines each week. Regardless, this also means it’s going to become increasingly more difficult for fans to remain loyal to characters that they know will be right out the door, soon.
Even though Glee may cycle through its cast members somewhat, many of them do pop up from time to time after they’ve left New Directions. We’ll miss Brittany and the gang, but at least there are plenty of series regulars to look forward to and plenty of gifs and videos available on the Internet to remember the former lead cast members by.
