I never expected I would be singing the praises of Fox's new summer series, "Glee," a comedy-drama about the trials of being in a high-school glee club.

But after watching the pilot, I see I was gleefully mistaken. This quirky, charming hour comes off as a slightly satirical take on the "High School Musical" phenomenon. It premieres May 19 at 8 p.m. on KSTU Channel 13. Surely by design, the premiere follows the penultimate episode of another singing sensation, "American Idol."

The glee club at Ohio's McKinley High School is the "sub-basement" of the school's social strata, according to the cheerleading coach.

When the club's original teacher is yanked from the group, Spanish teacher Will (Matthew Morrison) anxiously asks to take over the group, convincing the principal that he can take it to the regional championships with the right training.

So Will posts a sign-up sheet, and the students who apply are anything but normal.

They include a fiery girl with a gospel sound, a guitarist who uses a wheelchair, a musical-theater fan (think Sharpay's brother, Ryan, in "HSM") who spends his school days stuffed into garbage cans by bullies, an overzealous girl with big dreams of singing on Broadway (think Sharpay herself) and the quarterback who's forced to participate in the club or fail in school.

It turns out Will was in the glee club when he attended high school, and he soon realizes that running the singing group is the only teaching assignment that makes him happy.

While this small class of singing sensations may be loaded with stereotypes (half of the class, after all, feels like characters from "High School Musical"), they're a likable bunch who probably will remind viewers of someone they knew in school.

Best of all, "Glee" is part musical as well as part drama. And for audiences who aren't used to characters suddenly lapsing into song, these singers don't break the reality barrier by doing that. Instead, the music starts naturally within a scene. "Glee" covers well-known music -- the pilot uses, for example, Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" -- as opposed to original tunes.

I like "Glee" less as a tour down high-school memory lane than as a musical with bits of comic relief. Then again, I'm a sucker for a good musical if it can put a smile on my face and a song in my heart. And this glee club knows how to do that better than any high-school choir I've ever heard.

Vince Horiuchi 's column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be reached at vince@sltrib.com or 801-257-8607. For more television insights, visit Horiuchi's blog, "The Village Vidiot," at blogs.sltrib.com/tv/. Send comments about this column to livingeditor@sltrib.com.