Glee: Road to Regionals

• Title: Glee: Season One, Vol. 2 – Road to Regionals
• tv.com: link

New love. Old enemies. Madonna. Kiss. Olivia Newton-John. Gaga. And the Journey (at least this step) comes to an end. We even get a little Vanilla Ice, a “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” a “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. What more could you ask?

The second-half of Glee‘s first season includes some memorable numbers and a strong finale. Highlights include the Joss Whedon directed episode “Dream On” with Neil Patrick Harris, the very funny music videos for “Run Joey Run” and “Vogue,” and the Rick Springfield song I should have seen coming but still surprised me.

This three-disc set includes a small group of featurettes on the costumes and choreography of the show as well as the creation of the Madonna episode and Vocal Adrenaline’s big number. The best feature, however, is the Glee Jukebox which allows you to watch just the musical numbers from all of the nine episodes.

There are a couple stumbling blocks along the way. Rachel’s (Lea Michele) relationship to rival Jesse St. James (Jonathan Groff) both begins and ends more abruptly than I’d like, the storyline involving Rachel’s mother (Idina Menzel), while strong, feels a little rushed, and I’m not the biggest fan of the musical choices for “Funk.” Even with these small complaints the second volume is solid and definitely worth picking up.