These are the questions Murphy recently answered about Glee when interviewed by Vulture. I thought it was quite an interesting read:

 

One of the things your critics say is that your shows have a supernova quality. They ignite and everyone’s talking about them, and at some point they inevitably fall back to earth. Then those critics fall all over themselves saying, “Yes! This is what we’ve said all along!”

I suppose I get what that is about because the things that I have done so far in my career seem to have started with a big burst of attention. Magazine covers, awards, nominations — all that stuff that you really can’t create or control. So I get that by comparison the third season of Glee was maybe not as sexy and shiny and red hot as the other seasons. People said the same thing about Nip/Tuck and the fourth season wound up being its highest rated in that show’s life of seven. I guess what I have learned is that people can say what they want to say, and I respect it. Everybody has a right to put people in a box or a niche because that’s their job. I used to do that [as a journalist]. I don’t think that’s true about me, but time will tell.

 

At the beginning of this season of Glee, you said no big tributes, no guest stars. But the truth is, you began doing both in the second half of the season. What happened there? Do you feel pulled in both directions?

I don’t feel that I’m pulled in those directions. And you know, the first season, which now everyone has put a halo on, did exactly that: We had guest stars, we had the Madonna tribute. .. I think the thing about the fan base is you can’t take anything too personal because it all comes from a place of passion. There are some people who love the characters. There are other groups of people who love the spectacle. When you do the spectacle, the people who love the characters get pissed. “f*** them, why aren’t they doing a Brittany and Santana story instead of a Michael Jackson celebration?” Then when you do the opposite they’re like, “You know, where’s the tribute to Frank Sinatra? This is bullshit.” You just can’t win. So I think you try to do the best that you can, and I really do respect the fans, because I think it’s a young audience, and I think it’s a very Internet-savvy audience. We care about the show and we care about the characters and the tributes, but it’s a young, rollicking show by design. I get that sometimes people fall in and out of love with it in the course of two episodes.

 

It’s also hard when you do a show that no one thought would work — even the people who ran the network did not think it would work. Some of the critics thought it was gonna be five episodes then out. And I think that it’s a show that the fans made. They found it, they loved it, they bought the music, they turned it into a phenomenon, they bought the tickets for those concert tours, they created the ability to do multi-platforms, they had a really strong proprietary grasp on it. I think the critics did, too, and I think a lot of the bloggers did. So whenever you have something like that, and then you evolve and you grow and you try different things and you experiment and you risk, [they say] “We don’t like it, go back to what you used to do.” And then you say “Well, we are kind of doing what we used to do, but I understand how you would see it was different.”

 

I will say the story for season four gets back to the underdog status [for the characters] and that will appease people, maybe. Sometimes I feel that you can’t win. It’s just a volatile group of people that watch it, and for that, I like their passion. Anybody who’s ever done a show about youth has told me they went through this exact same thing.

 

What did you think of Fox entertainment president Kevin Reilly saying next season would be a “creative renaissance” for the show at the network’s upfront?

I don’t think that Kevin was particularly a fan of what I was trying to do with the beginning of this season. We did an episode of all show tunes, we did several of them. There was the West Side Story thing that I loved, but I don’t think the audience did. Kevin wants a Glee that’s about Top 40, pop culture, big stars. So I know that he loved the end of this season, and I went and pitched him the next season and I think he loves it because it’s very pop-culture-based. We’re doing a great tribute right off the bat, another Britney Spears episode. Many of the characters will be starting over as underdogs, which is a good thing for the show. I really made an effort, talking to all the regulars about it.

 

What do you mean?

We had a meeting, and you know that we’ve become like a family, and I said to them anybody who wants to stay on the show will stay on the show. I asked all of them, “What do you want to do? What are you interested in doing?” That said, the show next year will have less characters than we’ve ever had and I think that’s a good thing. But I don’t think that you’ll see a show that suddenly you don’t recognize. A lot of people have been writing Dianna [Agron]’s off the show, Amber [Riley]’s off the show — they’re not off the show.

 

You know why they’re saying that about Amber, though. Amber tweeted that she had “closed a chapter” of her life.

I think she was talking about a bittersweet feeling of, "I’ll never be in the choir room with that exact group of people." At least that’s what she told me. When I read that [tweet], I said, "I think people will misconstrue that.” She's excited about where her character is going. They all are. I wanted to do the right thing by all of them. I think that was the problem in the media last year when people thought that I was getting rid of Lea [Michele], Cory [Monteith], and Chris [Colfer] because I couldn’t talk about the spinoff. “Oh, you’re getting rid of my beloved characters? f*** you, I hate you, how dare you.”

 

I wanted the actors to know that if they wanted to have a home, they have a home. If they want to explore new and different things while having a home, that’s also an option. When I told them about the next season, they liked it because they all get to grow and be back to struggling, [wondering] where is my place in the world. I think that the fans of the show will grow up with them.

 

What about Will Schuester? Do you feel like there are more stories to tell for him, especially since he’s about to become happily married?

He doesn’t get married.

 

Spoilers!

[Laughs.] We have really good things planned for Matt [Morrison], and we have really good things planned for Jane [Lynch]. What I like is they will no longer be playing the same stories. Jane needs to get a new enemy and fast. Same for Matt. Matt has to have a new challenge and a new thing. We did not want to repeat the formula we’ve done. The show will be very different, but I think very satisfying.

 

So, Jayma Mays, Mark Salling ... everyone is coming back?

They’re all coming back. Anybody who was a regular is coming back. Everyone said yes. That doesn’t mean everyone will be doing 22 episodes, but everybody wants to stay in our family, in our world. But there will never be a day where you’ll see another Glee tour with all those same people. That won’t happen.

 

What do you think of Glee moving to Thursdays after The X Factor?

I think it’s a really great night of television. I love Britney. I think Britney’s going to bring a lot of eyes to that screen and the flow of a musical show into a musical show is great. It’s always what I wanted. I’d been begging for that for two years. I wanted to be on after American Idol or X Factor just because when I’m watching Idol, and I’m having a fun, young pop-culture experience, I don’t want to watch a hard drama after. Thursday is going to be a night of pop-culture celebration for Fox. There’s gonna be a lot of tie-ins that we’re gonna do. I also love that we’re gonna be at nine, which we were before, because I think we can go back to a little bit more [mature] writing. We’re doing that.

Full interview: HERE

Yay for Amber returning :cheer: Although I have no idea how we could possibly see less of her.