After a fantastic, award-winning season, “Glee” better step up rather than rest on its laurels.

That’s because starting next week the Fox sensation will go head-to-head with ABC’s superhero series, “No Ordinary Family.”

 The “Glee” team realizes it faces a challenge because it has no ordinary episode planned for next Tuesday – the Britney Spears episode.

 But before it goes there, “Glee” opens its season at 8 tonight with an episode that introduces two new singers. They are played by international pop star Charice (yeah, I never heard of her, either) and Chord Overstreet (who certainly has a musical name).

 Charice and Chord are part of the Team of Rivals dynamic of the show. Charice plays a newcomer out to steal Rachel’s (Lea Michele, see above) musical thunder, Chord plays an athlete who is out for Finn’s role (Cory Monteith).

 Dot Marie Jones plays the third newcomer, the ironically-named new football team Coach Beiste.

 It’s a lively, good-humored opener that seems to have a few more songs than usual and a few more contemporary songs at that. Last season, I seemed to know most of the old tunes featured in the episodes. This time around I wish I had a teenager or Ryan Seacrest around to name every tune but the highlight – Michele singing “What I Did for Love” from “A Chorus Line.”

 The opener initially changes the contentious tune between Sue (Jane Lynch) and Shue (Matthew Morrison) and has the cheerleading coach and Glee Club coach forming an alliance.

 That’s no fun.

 Eventually, the episode returns to its roots with a lesson on the importance of accepting people for who they are that is worth cheering.

 Rating: 3 stars out of 4

 “Glee” is the lead-in for two Fox comedies that are getting good buzz even though their quirkiness almost assures them of getting a limited audience.

 At 9 tonight, “Raising Hope” is a comedy from the creator of “My Name is Earl” about a 20something guy, Jimmy (Lucas Chance), who is unprepared to raise a baby after the serial killer mother heads to prison.

 How unprepared? Jimmy thinks giving a baby a bath is “a weekly thing.”

 The cast includes Martha Plimpton, Garret Dillahunt (“Deadwood”) and Cloris Leachman, who have a ball with the absurdist humor. However, it seems to be a very limiting premise and the off-the-wall humor may get so old fast that it is hard to envision this series as a weekly thing.

 Rating: 2 and a half stars out of 4

 However, it is better than “Running Wilde,” a 9:30 comedy in which Will Arnett plays a spoiled rotten, filthy rich tycoon who has avoided growing up until he is reunited with the pretty, caring daughter (Keri Russell) of his family’s former housekeeper.

 The show just as easily could have been called “Raising Wilde.” I’m not wild about Arnett – who seems to play the same character over and over – or the absurdist humor. But Russell makes it watch-able and at least worth a second look. 2 stars

 ABC also premieres the Michael Imperioli (“The Sopranos”) cop series, “Detroit 1-8-7” at 10 tonight. Forget those promos that make it sound like it will be attractive to for fans of “NYPD Blue” (even though “Blue” star James McDaniel is in the cast). The opener is more likely to appeal to fans who haven’t missed an episode of Fox’s “Cops” over the years.

 Imperioli plays a cop, Detective Louis Fitch, with terrific instincts who initially is followed around by a documentary crew.  “He’s like Yoda with a badge,” suggests a fellow cop.

 The reality is his character hates people almost as much as cell phones. And Detective Fitch’s risky behavior in the climactic scene is so silly and stupid that Yoda might even laugh.

 In the end, 1-8-7 is a watchable but routine, by-the-numbers cop show save the detrimental film crew conceit – which reportedly has been eliminated.

 2 and a half stars

pergament@msn.com

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