1. Gleeks In Los Angeles
The best and only truly good way we could have utilised the now-surplus to requirements original cast is to give them their own spin-off show and let them have their own adventures: pointedly, I think a LA-based show involving the journeys of Mercedes, Puck, Santana and maybe even Quinn and Mike would have been a great direction to go in to do justice to the characters. Make no mistakes - this wouldn't be Glee but warmer. Just as the Kurt/Rachel spin-off could be this generation's new
Fame (sorry but not sorry
Smash), I could see this being more in the vein of the recently-cancelled
The LA Project in which a group of performers move into a motel complex and discover their dreams together. Puck could find his place in the world, Santana could deal with her own fledging sexuality in a fully realised storyline without the constraints of juggling fifteen other characters and Mercedes could take the lead position she's been rightfully angling for since the beginning of season one. This little misfit family who already know and support and care about each other could easily be a great contrast to
Glee. A toning down of musical numbers - but not getting rid of them, let's not go crazy - and a stronger focus on consistent, centralised storytelling. Even better would be if Quinn and Mike could join the group - admittedly their own stories in Chicago and Yale respectively would make it hard, but if Mr Schue can have personality swings in the space of an episode, there's not much that couldn't be achieved. More than all this, it's the fact that towards the end of their McKinley journeys, most of these characters were shortchanged and barely got any time - Mercedes and Santana went through an awful process where their rebellion against the oppressive Glee club was demonised, Puck didn't get to do much of anything, Quinn's storylines veered from the implausible to the half-baked and Mike... well, apart from that one episode, he didn't do a lot either. A spin-off like this would have been a great way to allow these characters time to stretch and evolve into three-dimensional people rather than stereotypes. Sigh. Well I can always dream, can't I?
Would you have liked to have seen any of these spin-offs? Let us know in the comments section below.