Glee is the one show on TV where you’re as likely to bust a gut as bust a move. It is that rarest of rarities in network prime time: an absolute original, an authentic musical comedy that’s as outrageously funny as it is irresistibly tuneful.

After a long summer of hype, whetted by May’s sneak-peek presentation of the pilot (repeated twice last week, once with Twitter commentary), Glee finally presents its second act tonight. And yes, it was worth the wait. (The news gets even better. In two weeks, during network TV’s official “premiere week,” an instant-classic episode titled “Preggers” blows the roof off the joint, and not just because the climactic production number involves the entire football team prancing around the field mid-game to Beyonce’s Single Ladies.)

Glee is a show of extremes, never playing it safe whether it’s aiming for a belly laugh (many of which are provided by the stupendous Jane Lynch as conniving cheerleader coach Sue Sylvester) or a shocking (and sometimes ludicrous) plot twist or even, just when you least expect it, an authentic lump in the throat. The clashing tones can be jarring, but the overall effect is that of a reckless symphony of creative energy and jubilation.

At heart, the show is a classic underdog story of a struggling show choir of misfits at an underfunded Midwestern high school. (As a former show-band geek at a small Indiana high school, who played at many a half-time game and once marched proudly at an Orange Bowl parade, I identify all too well with these kids.) The glee club’s leader, “Mr. Shue” (short for Will Schuester, played by Broadway’s Matthew Morrison), still remembers back to 1993 when the show choir was all that and a bag of trophies, when his group won nationals. He dreams he can bring the club back to glory, but it won’t be easy. Not given the raw materials he’s working with, including a staggeringly unpopular diva named Rachel (Lea Michele), and her unwitting crush Finn (Cory Monteith), an insecure quarterback-turned-lead singer who’s always trying to do the right thing. (There’s a great moment tonight when he tells Rachel that her singing touches his heart, but he points to the wrong side of his chest. Funny, and yet Finn still comes off as something more than a dumb jock.) They’re the kind of characters you root for even as you pity them. (And in the case of Rachel, you’re not sure you could really stand to be around her for long, though her pipes are awesome.)

Things aren’t much easier for Mr. Shue at home, where his harpy wife (Jessalyn Gilsig in a thankless role that is Glee’s one glaring achilles’ heel) is constantly making such needy demands on his meager salary and stretched-thin patience that it’s little wonder he finds himself drawn to the neurotic guidance counselor, Emma (Jayma Mays in a carefully modulated comic performance).

The characters are broadly yet sharply drawn, and exec producer Ryan Murphy (who created the stylized WB high-school comedy Popular before making the lurid Nip/Tuck) isn’t afraid to make them do and say unquestionably bizarre things as he pushes the plotting into melodramatic excesses. Example: When Sue suggests hobbling the glee members who trespassed onto her turf, she’s just getting started. (In the “Preggers” episode, she gets a side gig as a TV commentator whose positions go so far beyond the politically incorrect, you can only smile.)

And then there’s the music, show-stoppers one and all, ranging from hip-hop to Broadway ballads to that Beyonce explosion on the football field that goes on for such a long time it lands squarely in the ridiculous column. And I mean ridiculous in a good way. It’s such an audacious moment that it forces you to either embrace or reject the show wholly.

And that’s the glorious risk of Glee, such a bold and wild piece of work that it’s as likely to alienate as many as it fervently attracts. There are no half-measures in a show like this. It fearlessly aims and swings high, and the payoff is about as much fun as you’re likely to have anywhere this season.

By pairing Glee with the first-ever fall run of So You Think You Can Dance, as compatible a lead-in as you could imagine, Fox has made Wednesdays a destination night for those who like having their socks knocked off. Those who prefer cold feet have plenty of other options.

Glee airs Wednesdays, 9/8c, on Fox