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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.

IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: April 20, 2010

PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: Glee, “The Power of Madonna” (Season 1, Episode 15) [Watch on Amazon Prime]

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: The first season of Glee was a rollercoaster. (So were all the other seasons of Glee, but by that point, we all knew what we were in for.) The tone, narrative, and quality of season-one Glee swung so wildly, to all corners of the map, that it’s a wonder more viewers didn’t end up with whiplash.

By the time we got to “The Power of Madonna,” Glee had given us serious episodes, funny episodes, soapy episodes, a real pregnancy, a fake pregnancy, Kurt coming out to his dad, Kristen Chenoweth, Eve, and sectionals. But “The Power of Madonna” managed to be Glee‘s first concept episode, with the entire plot and song list revolving around the Material Girl theme.

As an episode, “The Power of Madonna” is all kinds of iffy. Like a lot of bad Glee, there’s a whole lot of characters-speak-the-episode’s-theme-outright. Have you heard that Madonna is about empowerment? You will. Of course, a spectacle like Glee-takes-on-Madonna was never about the storylines. Those were probably made up on the fly after the cameras were turned on. This episode was a delivery system for Glee Madonna covers on iTunes. The results … varied.

The Good:

The Bad:

The … Award Winning?

Yes, this was the episode that Jane Lynch submitted for Emmy consideration the year she won. Which means this truly bizarre moment in TV history is an award-winning one. We did it, America.

[You can watch “The Power of Madonna” on Amazon Prime.]

Joe Reid (@joereid) is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. You can find him leaving flowers for Mrs. Landingham at the corner of 18th and Potomac.

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