A haunting sense of loss pervades the first few episodes of the musical dramedy's fifth season, due to the sudden and untimely death of actor Cory Monteith on July 13, 2013. The season's third installment, "The Quarterback," serves as a fitting tribute and a heartbreaking farewell to both Monteith and his character, Finn Hudson. As the season progresses, the storylines alternate between the gang at McKinley High and the alumni who have moved to New York City. Several cast members, including Heather Morris, Amber Riley, Mark Salling and Harry Shum Jr., cease being regular players in Season 5 but still appear occasionally as guest stars. The main cast includes Matthew Morrison, Lea Michele, Jane Lynch, Kevin McHale, Darren Criss, Jenna Ushkowitz, Chord Overstreet, Chris Colfer, Naya Rivera, Jacob Artist, Melissa Benoist, Blake Jenner, Alex Newell and Becca Tobin.

Seen on ABC's Wonderful World of Disney, this $12-million production is the only musical Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote for television. The CBS-TV original, with 21-year-old Julie Andrews in the title role and Edie Adams as the Fairy Godmother, played on live television March 31, 1957 to TV's largest audience ever to that date (107-million viewers). That historic production, captured on kinescope, can still be seen today on library monitors at the Museum of Television & Radio in New York and Los Angeles. Hammerstein died in 1960 and did not get to see 18-year-old Lesley Ann Warren as Cinderella in the February 22, 1965 restaged production, repeated annually on CBS until 1977 and later made available on videotape from CBS/Fox Video and Facets Multimedia. Added to the 1965 show was "Loneliness of Evening", a song actually written for South Pacific but cut before the Broadway opening. Running a half-hour longer, this third interpretation premiered November 2, 1997. Filmed over a 28-day period, it stars Brandy Norwood as Cinderella and Whitney Houston as the Fairy Godmother, with Bernadette Peters as the Stepmother, Whoopi Goldberg as the Queen (wearing $60 million worth of borrowed Harry Winston jewelry), Paolo Montalban as the Prince, and Jason Alexander as the Prince's steward, Lionel. Scripter Robert L. Freedman provided a rewrite of the original Oscar Hammerstein book, and three other Richard Rodgers songs were added to the existing score: "There's Music in You" (from the 1953 movie musical Main Street to Broadway), "The Sweetest Sounds" (a Brandy/Montalban duet), and "Falling in Love with Love". Originally set in motion as a follow-up to the highly successful TV Gypsy (1993) with Bette Midler, this 1997 multicultural version (sometimes referred to as the "rainbow Cinderella") was years in the making, since it was initiated in 1994 when Houston joined executive producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (the team responsible for the TV Gypsy).

Season 5 of the supernatural drama, based on the novels by L.J. Smith, begins with Elena (Nina Dobrev) and Caroline (Candice Accola) moving into a dorm at nearby Whitmore College and looking forward to a normal freshman experience. Unfortunately, things quickly go sideways when their third roommate, Megan (Hayley Kiyoko), is murdered at a frat party by a vampire, and Elena learns that Megan had a connection to her late father. Meanwhile, Katherine (Dobrev) struggles adapting to being human again after 500 years as a vampire and asks Damon (Ian Somerhalder) to help her now that she is vulnerable to her many enemies. At the top of that list is Stefan's evil doppelgänger Silas (Paul Wesley), who is holding Stefan in a locked box under the sea. Katherine is also disturbed to meet a mysterious young woman named Nadia (Olga Fonda), who reveals to her a secret that dates back to 1490 Bulgaria. As for Bonnie (Kat Graham), she remains trapped on the Other Side and can only communicate with the recently resurrected Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen). But unbeknownst to them the Other Side itself is in danger of imploding.