GleeFan.com | A blog and fansite for Fox's TV Show 'Glee'.

Christmas came a little early for me when I received my advanced review copy of Glee, Vol. One: Road to Sectionals yesterday. If you want to see all of the DVD set’s general info (such as episode listings), then you should visit my recent post: “Glee” Season 1, Vol. 1: Road to Sectionals – Dec. 29th!

Some of the first things that I noticed when I played the DVD were all the cool menus! Everything is organized quite nicely, and each menu screen has a different background featuring the different Glee characters. It plays the a cappella music that is used for background music and scene transitions in the show. I really like it. :)

From the title menu, you can choose to automatically play all the episodes, you can select a specific episode (which is handy since it features a nice episode summary), you can go to the ‘set up’ and adjust the subtitles (English, Spanish, French or Portuguese) and lastly, you can watch the bonus features!

Now I’ll get into the bonus features, aka ‘Extras’. The first is called Welcome to McKinley! and it features the hilarious Principal Figgins. With the help of McKinley’s AV club, Figgins has created a welcome video for 8th graders that are about to start school at McKinley High. Iqbal Theba, the actor who plays Figgins, has perfect comedic timing and I promise that the entire video (which is a little over 5 mins long) will crack you up.

Next is a Glee Music Video. It features the Glee cast’s version of Somebody to Love and is edited together very well. It uses a lot of promo footage that was shot when the show was new (bits of which might look familiar from early Glee promos) and adds in some scenes from the first few episodes. Then they creatively edit in some of the song lyrics and the result is a video that perfectly capture’s the feeling of Glee‘s early days. I LOVE it. :)

Then there are the Full Length Audition Pieces. The DVD has the full version of Lea Michele singing On My Own as Rachel Berry’s audition piece for New Directions. It also has an extended version of Mercedes’ Respect. Amber Riley kills it, in a good way of course!

Fox Movie Channel Presents Casting Session is a 12 minute video that was created to be shown on the Fox Movie channel. It talks with a lot of the creators of Glee and other important people at Fox Broadcasting. It really gives you a behind the scenes look at what it was like creating Glee, long before it became a huge success. It’s probably the most informative of all the videos and you even get to see some awesome audition footage from the actors’ Glee auditions.

Then there’s Deconstructing Glee with Ryan Murphy. This featurette tries to answer questions like ‘What is Glee?’ and tells you more about the casting, music selection and misfit characters.

We get to see footage from dance rehearsals for Glee and hear what the cast thinks about dancing in Dance Boot Camp. The actors reveal the fact that they’re not professional dancers, but choreographer Zach Woodlee (who seems both awesome and hilarious) guides them when creating the many dance numbers for the glee club’s performances.

Then you can get to know the cast and characters with a series of videos filled with fun facts! I love these. Every single one is hilarious!

• Jane Lynch A to Glee
• Meet Jane Lynch

• 5 Things you don’t know about Jayma
• 7 Things you don’t know about Cory
• 6 Things you don’t know about Amber
• 7 Things you don’t know about Chris

Finally, the Video Diaries are the last set of bonus features and they’re some of my favorites! Why the heck Fox chose to put them last, I will never know. These are the Glee cast’s video diaries that follow them on their adventure in New York City last May for the Fox Upfront where they performed ‘Somebody to Love’ live! Maybe I love them so much because I’ve always wanted to go to NYC, or maybe it’s because they remind me of way back when Glee was new. Good times, good times. :)

Either way, I promise you will love them, too! They show how hilarious the cast is when you give them Flip cams and turn them loose in the city that never sleeps. If you’re newer to the Glee fandom, then you’ve got to see these, but if you’re an old time Gleek like me, then you’ll love to watch them and relive this past summer’s Glee hysteria. I would buy the DVD set just for these vids, honestly. xD

There are video diaries for the following cast members:

• Jane Lynch
• Lea Michele
• Matthew Morrison
• Cory Monteith
• Kevin McHale
• Amber Riley
• Chris Colfer
• Dianna Agron

Overall, this DVD set completely lives up to my high expectations while still leaving stuff for the future. Maybe we’ll get some episode commentaries or deleted scenes in the full release of season one…? Who knows! All I know is that Glee, Vol. One: Road to Sectionals is a must have for every Gleek or anyone who is trying to get into the series. Seriously. Preorder/buy it NOW! You will not regret it, I promise. :)

All images are © 2009 FOX and its related entities.
All Rights Reserved.

PRE-ORDER NOW!