With a win from the TV Critics Association as program of the year, and the most Emmy nominations of any show, “Glee” is basking in glory as it prepares for its next season.
What else will it bring? A Britney Spears episode, another likely featuring the music of Paul McCartney, a Christmas show with Susan Boyle, a guest spot from John Stamos, an episode about auditioning and another about faith and maybe in the future an international trip, creator Ryan Murphy told reporters at the TV Critics press tour.
In fact, he says. “We’ve sort of mapped out the first four years with our original cast.”
How will the producers keep the “Glee” stars, some of whom are already deep into their 20s, to continue to portray high schoolers?
Well, for one thing, Murphy says he’ll keep the beloved dim character Brittany, a breakout star in the spring episodes, “We decided she was going to be held back every year,” he joked. “That way we only have 11 more kids that we need to find.”
Actually, “We haven’t thought about that,” he says. “We obviously have to deal with the cast and the fact that, you know, the show will hopefully go many, many years.”
Whatever happens, he says, “I think we have an obligation to be true to the high school experience. I don’t want to do a thing where we wake up and episode five is five years in the future and they’re all living in the same condo complex.”
They can spend all their time preparing for various sectionals and regionals and nationals, but Murphy says “one year we want to go to Copenhagen or Moscow for the International Show Choir Competition.”
Of the theme shows they’re planning one featuring a famous pop name has already been announced.
“We’re working out a Britney Spears episode in a really cool way, so before we do that, we do stills of all her videos and all her public appearances and sort of, like we did for Madonna and the Gaga thing, pull out those iconic looks. I think those are the most hard because people know them, and you have to copy them, and you have to be true to them.”
The approach this time will be different, he says. “My favorite thing about the Britney Spears thing is Matt Morrison [the show’s Mr. Schuester] was asked on the red carpet if we were doing it, and he said, ‘Oh, I hope not.’ So the entire episode is him saying ‘No, we’re not doing Britney Spears.’
“But I don’t want to do too many of those,” Murphy says of single-artist episodes. “This year we’re going to do that one and we’re going to do one after the Super Bowl as a tribute to a musical artist that we’re in negotiation for. I think every year we’ll probably do, like, two or three.”
There may be an exception from one musician who contacted them.
“I got a mix tape from Paul McCartney a couple weeks ago,” Murphy says. “It was amazing. I thought I was being punked.”
The selections from the ex-Beatle “just sort of came out of the blue, and it was in a package and it was sort of handwritten. It had two CDs and it said, ‘Hi, Ryan. I hope you would consider some of these songs for ”Glee,” ’ and then it said ‘Paul.’ And I opened it up and I think that it was ‘Michelle’ and it had, like, these huge songs.”
Murphy says he had heard McCartney was a fan of the show “and loves that it’s about art education. I mean, I was gobsmacked. I grew up with that guy. So, of course, we are going to do something.”
“I don’t think a whole episode,” he says, “but something with him.”
Other than that, he says, “We’re going to do a Christmas episode that Susan Boyle is hopefully going to do.”
And there will be an original-music episode, Murphy says. “The assignment will be for the kids to write their own music.”
Will “Glee” continue to produce new recordings, which have quickly become hotsellers?
“I don’t know if we’ll do a Christmas album,” Murphy says. “But we probably will do, like, a Volume I for fall and a Volume II for spring and then maybe sort of a mini EP for the Super Bowl episode like we did for the Madonna episode. But I don’t think we’ll do as many soundtracks as we did last year. I think we’ll do less.”
He says he’s glad “Glee” cover versions have led fans to seek out the original artists.
“I got a great thrill seeing something from ’Funny Girl’ in the iTunes Top 3, and then, you know, those originals then re-chart, which is an amazing thing for me, because I love all those songs.”
As for guest stars, “John Stamos is coming on the show to sort of be Matt Morrison’s rival. John has been sort of in four big Broadway musicals and constantly sends me clips of him in ‘Cabaret’ wearing almost nothing saying, ‘I would like to do this.’”
But generally, Murphy says the plan for season two is not to go for a lot of big name stars or have a lot of big theme episodes, but to go smaller.
“Instead of going bigger and overstuffing season two, which I think people would expect us to do, he says, “Let’s really sort of dwell on a lot of these supporting characters like the Santana character, the Brittany character and the Mike Chang character and the Tina character. So we’re giving all those actors big storylines this year because I think people want to know about them.”
And the number of songs performed on the show needs to be scaled back.
Murphy says that when the show was paired with “American Idol,” “we kind of blew it out. Like that Madonna episode had nine numbers, which was insane. So we’re scaling back a little bit and concentrating a little more on the stories.”
The first episode back is called “Auditions.” “I t’s about the idea that everybody, even if you’re not in high school, your daily life is an audition for something. That’s a theme. The third episode, which I think is our most controversial one we’ve ever done, is about faith and has our kids talking about what God means to them.”
The success of the series has not escaped him, with stints at the White House, All Star Game and Oprah Winfrey in addition to the Emmy nominations.
“I feel so humbled by it and amazed and shocked. And I’m continually shocked and so happy about it,” Murphy says. “I remember right after the weekend — we called it the ‘Big O’ weekend, which was the Oprah-Obama weekend — It was sort of an amazing experience,” he says. “I had a meeting with all the kids in my office, and the meeting was simply just, like, let’s go around the room and talk about where we were and where we were working a year ago. And that’s really all we did.
“And most of the kids didn’t have jobs. One was working at a gas station. So they really sort of got back in touch with who they were and where they came from and why they were doing it.”
Murphy calls them “sweet and lovely kids” who “got sucked into something I don’t think that they knew that was going to be so big. And the fact that they’re all so close and tight, I think, has helped them keep their heads on straight.”