Glee decides that maybe it has a few too many characters who aren’t in high school anymore

No longer will there be so many alumni of McKinley High hanging around Glee like Trip McNeely coming back to hit on high school girls a year after graduating in Can’t Hardly Wait. Heather Morris (Brittany), Dianna Agron (Quinn), Harry Shum Jr. (Mike), Amber Riley (Mercedes), Mark Salling (Puck) have all been dropped from the cast for the upcoming fifth season. This isn’t exactly a surprise—four of the five graduated at the end of season three, with Brittany graduating with plans to attend MIT (!!) at the end of this past season—and leaves open the possibility that the characters could return as guest stars in a few episodes. But it gives Ryan Murphy and his co-creators more time over the next two seasons to devote to other graduates like Rachel, Finn, Kurt, Blaine, and then all the carbon copies of the previous characters now populating New Directions. And maybe Will Schuester, if there’s time left over.