EXCLUSIVE: It’s a case of good news/bad news for Glee fans courtesy of Ryan Murphy. First the good: Darren Criss (Blaine) and Harry Shum Jr. (Mike) have officially been upgraded to full-time series regulars, effective this fall with the start of Season 3. And now for the bad… Chord Overstreet’s series regular option has not been picked up. However, a source close to the show says the actor — who joined the Fox hit last fall in the recurring role of McKinley transfer student Sam Evans — could return as an occasional guest star. Late Friday, Overstreet issued a cryptic tweet saying, “It’s been a good year. Too bad it’s over. Time for summer and starting fresh.” Additionally, another new member of New Directions, Ashley Fink, who was a recurring guest star this past season despite appearing in almost every episode, will remain a guest star and her presence may be scaled back. The news comes as the cast of Glee is wrapping their concert tour. It also comes two weeks after series co-creator Ryan Murphy raised eyebrows when he told Ryan Seacrest that most of the show’s primary characters would graduate by the end of next season. “The show to me is about the way you express yourself as you start to move out into the world as a fresh, young person,” he later clarified to Deadline’s sibling site TVLine. “Do we really want to have an eight-year [high school] senior? The only way somebody could stay on the show is if they flunk, and that is always a possibility. I think Brittany is pulling straight Fs.”
Darren Criss is 90% of what’s good about Glee. But I don’t get ditching Overstreet. He should be on the stay list along with Brittany. All the other kids should transfer or drop out immediately.
Overstreet brings something to the show in terms of conflict/new blood and we only barely had the guy on the show before he’s gone. If they are going to have kids graduate then maybe let the audience see them graduate and move on and perhaps show some possible new kids singing somewhere in the school so you get a hint of the new blood to come.
Writer boy
Overstreet is leaving of his own choice.. they offered him a role but he declined
darren criss’ character is arguably the most boring character on the show… if he is what’s good about Glee, then what the FUCK?
Darren Criss has an awesome voice. And if you think he’s the most boring character, you’ve obviously never seen Finn.
we need to take in concideration how no matter how boring the chracter is, glee wont be the same without any of the current characters! every one in glee is there for a reason, they are ALL talented. i am team blaine tho :D
lol, yeah, say that to 10-20k live glee audience that cheered on him every single night during the tour. Whether Blaine’s character is boring or not is a matter of opinion, but look up any review of any of the concert shows and watch any of the videos available on youtube: one thing remains the same; Darren (and his pips) got the loudest screams in ALL the venue in the US and UK. Compared to a few hundred cray-cray haters, who do you think will Ryan and co. cater to? Two words: Not You. LOL.
Darren seems like a good guy. Blaine is boring. He is popular for two reasons. 1. The Warblers brought a different sound and song arrangement to glee/ (it was interesting but its time has past). 2. He is Kurt’s love interest.
Anyone who was Kurt’s boy toy was going to get a bump in popularity.
Heck even Chord got buzz casue some thought her would be Kurt’s BF.
Doesn’t matter much to me. Once Rachel Berry and Kurt Hummel graduate I am gone.
I agree. I know the show is about high school, but there will be no show without Rachel and Kurt. They are Glee! In fact I am sad to see any of the regulars “graduate”, well with the exception of Finn (Not a fan). I like Blaine and glad he will be given more of a storyline, but it should not be at the expense of Sam’s character.
This is such a huge and sad mistake. Chord overstreet is very talented. I could see the writing on the wall when it seemed like they were not showcasing him or even including him in shots. It’s a terrible mistake — Darren criss is obviously great and should be upped to regular. But chord should too. I don’t agree with the idea that they get rid of most of the cast — that will kill the show. But I guess that’s what ryan murphy does. I’m sorry but matthew morrison and jane lynch are not strong enough anchors for a brand new cast.
The show has not been very clear about what year in school each character is, and I bet we start getting some “I’m just a junior” sort of references that single out some of the characters who will return for another season.
Fox is not going to turn over the majority of the cast of one of the top-rated shows on TV.
Cory Monteith is 29 and I’m sure he’s not the only cast member in that age range so unless the show wants to get ridiculous like GREASE and have a bunch of “students” who are pushing 40 then they need to ditch the older cast members. If they wanted to ditch the untalented cast members, there’d be nobody left as the “singing” these little twerps do is like listening to a cat get impregnated under your bedroom window at 2am.
Agree, they keep Blaine singing and dancing, I’ll keep watching!
Sure will miss those lips!
I hate Ryan Murphy. Just because he is gay, doesn’t mean that Glee must become gay
Darren Cris is epic and really deserves this sort of recognition. This is a good thing for Glee. Will miss Chord. Wonder what happened?
Chord sucks, as does Glee. Can’t wait till both go away forever
Good riddance!
Honestly, this is good news. The character brought NOTHING new to the show. He was basically just a prop and every once in a while they would crack stupid jokes about his “trouty mouth.”
If they are going to keep Darren Criss, please transfer him over to Mckinnley. It’s their final year so the show can’t afford to put any focus on Dalton Academy. It should focus on the kids at Mckinnley and no one else.
Agreed… He’s a season regular now so they must transfer him…. Anything else would be disastrous.
Weren’t Overstreet’s and Amber Riley’s characters seen holding hands in the season finale? Guess that romance is over before it even got started.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
wait, who’s Chord Overstreet?!
They finally gave Mercedes a boyfriend and he’s getting the boot.
TRUE! damnit Ryan Murphy!
Wonder if this means they found what they wanted in whoever is the Glee Project winner? They’d said one of the things they were looking for was a boyfriend for Mercedes. Which tells me Cameron or Samuel wins.
It’s too bad though for Chord – they never gave the guy anything interesting, and he had no chemistry with anyone. Although I kind of liked the romantic pairing between him and Mercedes – I thought it worked in the final two eps. But I guess not enough. Still, his character is easy enough to write off – his parents have to take jobs in another city/state so the family won’t remain homeless. Buh-bye Sam.
Thank goodness he is gone, they had to have him half naked to hide his inability to act!
you know what? did you see him in Rumors? shut up. he can act waaaay better than Darren and as good as other character
Why you have the need to bash Darren to make Chord look good? Can’t you just said Chord is a good actor? It’s not his fault Chord is not returning on season 3.
His story was interesting but his acting was a little ‘meh’. I was glad his character made Finn and Rachel look like jerks (and made Quinn and Kurt look like reliable friends) but it appeared that story of his parents looking for employment left an opening for writers to phase him out.
Right? I really thought the homeless thing could have made for some interesting storylines and the Mercedes relationship could have been promising as well. Guess we will never know what might have been.
This is really messed up. It was implied that Sam was in 10th grade so he wasn’t going to be a senior with the rest of the other kids… so he wasn’t going to have to be one of the ones graduating. Plus he was one of the actual INTERESTING people on the show. So disappointed in this decision. :/
You DO watch the show, right? He’s not interesting at all.
This a bummer. Chord was a great part of the show. He couldn’t dance sure. But when he was written for and allowed to sing he was exemplary. He has a great voice great look and if was casting I’d use him. #nothismotherjustafan
I think it sends a clear message, all the kids will graduate this year. Glee will have a complete Season 4 reboot. Interesting concept, it’s never been done successfully on a tv-show.
Um, excuse me?
Clearly you’ve never watched Skins
Clearly, he has.
and won’t work this time. The die hard fans love the cast not the characters.
What happened? Did he decide he didn’t want to be naked every week for Murphy to leer at him? Guy was interesting on the show. Gotta say, not much else to look at each week now. FAIL.
Mabye chord should have spent more time working on his acting skills instead of doing shirtless photo shoots!
Yay for Harry Shum!
And upping Harry and Darren increased the show’s Asian series regulars by 200%.
I lol’ed..
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE HARRY SHUM!!!!
Chord was a great addition this past season to McKinley High; sang great duets and was another guy who could actually sing so it wasn’t just the chicks always singing. Oh well. On to bigger and better things hopefully.
This explains why the writers have been somewhat mum on the future of Sam Evans when asked about his relationship with Mercedes.
I think the feeling could be that a Season 4 is not a given. Why make Chord a regular and put aside a character in Blaine Anderson who made Season 2 tolerable for a lot of viewers jaded by little to no development in the major characters (aside from Kurt and Santana)? I know they tried to make Sam Evans something of a nerd under the exterior of a surfer but in a primetime TV period where there were lots of nerds on parade, his take never felt authentic.
I actually thought the reality show initially prefaced on the spot being for the role of Mercedes BF was just a ruse but now there may be something to that. Then again, I thought Chord was a guest-star to begin with.
BTW, the Glee Live has a skit with Kurt imploring Blaine to join Glee Club. At first it just seemed fan-servicing but I got to wonder what Chord thinks of that skit now.
I guess they ran out of big mouth and Bieber jokes… #sucks
Never got into GLEE but the two prime time hot blonds Chode Overstreet GLEE and Trevor Donovan 90210 are ripe for the picking. If a TV show about Ken and Barbie come out Trevor Donovan can be Ken and Chode Overstreet can be there nephew from Florida Dougy
I read the headline wrong and it scared me. I thought it said they were getting rid of Darren Criss. Now that would have been awful. If it’s just Chord I won’t be too heartbroken. I know friends of mine liked him though. I don’t mind him and would say they should keep him, but I’m not too upset if they don’t.
Damn. I feel bad for the guy. They bring him in with all this pomp and circumstance then waste his time by basically having his character do nothing. Maybe if Murphy hadn’t spent all that air time on freakin Gwyneth Paltrow, they could have done more with Sam.
so agree – the Paltrow episodes were the worst.
So agree, a waste, no one cares about her and her stupid relationship with Matthew Morrison! And sadly, I heard she will return next season. God I hope not. A waste of air time!
Initially this seems crappy, but I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Sam. The article says that Mike has been “upgraded” to series regular status, meaning he wasn’t a regular this past season. And I felt like we saw plenty of him (much more than in season 1, for sure).
I think this is a blessing in disguise. This season had so many recurring characters, with both the kids and returning adults, that a lot of people got shafted, or were awkwardly shoehorned into episodes their character didn’t need to be in. By cutting down on the number of series regulars (and people that are therefore going to be paid whether they are in the episode or not), the writers are freed from the burden of trying to insert characters not organically involved in the story and can also save some money.
Yeah, let’s throw out the one character who was sweet, who has morals and ethics… taking care of his young siblings, trying to help his family… being a good influence. We don’t want to show anything like that on Glee, No… we only want to showcase whatever pushes our liberal agenda… so people of moral character must go!
seriously? go away tr*ll
You know, Glee can trumpet it’s progressive cred all it wants, but Chord Overstreet was treated like a piece of meat on that show. It was as sexist as old jiggle television was to women in the 70’s. Every episode he basically appeared shirtless, was given little to do, and all comments about his character were about his appearance. Let’s hope the arrival of an actual writing staff can do better.
That’s it. Punish the black girl. Seriously..Mercedes finally gets some lovin’ and not only do we not get to see it, her man gets the boot? Guess you can just keep throwing her in to belt the notes. Give her a real story arc. She can act, sing, and it wouldn’t hurt to have some people of color on the show actually pull the focus for a bit. Goodbye Trouty Mouth – we hardly new ya.
I for one am v disappointed if Chord is not coming back. Disappointed enough to stop watching. Yeah I said it.