'Glee' hits 100th episode with a reunion featuring Heather Morris, Dianna Agron ...

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With one more season to go, series struggles to stay fresh with help from vets Jane Lynch and Matthew Morrison

Matthias Clamer/FOX

'Glee' turns 100 Tuesday and it's starting to look its age.

That happens.

Age has not, however, stopped the show from throwing itself a party to celebrate the 100th episode (Fox, 8 p.m.).

Family and old friends in attendance will include Quinn (Dianna Agron) and Brittany (Heather Morris), who missed the sadder reunion earlier this season for the death of Finn Hudson.

Finn was written out of the show after actor Cory Monteith overdosed last summer - though at times this year, like last week, he has felt larger in death than he did in life.

Expect Finn to be a major presence again Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday, fans can see the listener-voted top 10 songs from 'Glee' shows past, naturally clothed in OMG drama.

Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) has told Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) she's disbanding Glee Club. So the alumni move to save it.

This provides an excuse for a reunion while, ironically, also underscoring one reason 'Glee' has lost so much of its buzz.

This is the 763rd time, more or less, that the Glee Club has been threatened with extinction - and no writer can make that many trips to the well and come back with fresh water every time.

That's not just a critical pronouncement. That's the verdict of the fans. Where 'Glee' averaged more than 12 million viewers at its peak, recent episodes have drawn less than 3 million.

Which is why Fox has already announced that next season, the show's sixth, will be its last.

It might disappoint Gleeks that what happened to 'Glee' is mostly what happens to almost every TV show after a while.

It lost characters like Puck, Quinn, Emma and Brittany, which keeps the salary budget down but drives away some fans.

Losing characters or sending them to separate places also means losing interactions and relationships that worked.

Like that of Will and Emma (Jayma Mays). Or yes, like Rachel, Kurt and Santana, who got new stories in New York, but just weren't as interesting without the 'Glee' version of high school drama around them.

An evolving cast was a bet that new faces would keep the show fresh, and it worked sometimes. Sometimes not.

New storylines, whether about jealousy, romance, the club or Sue Sylvester, at a certain point invariably feel recycled. Insidious rival clubs start to blend together.

'Glee' started as a novelty, and that's not an insult. It was stylized, it was musical, and it worked. But it's also true that while a well-executed novelty can ascend faster and hotter, it can also cool off sooner.

'Glee' has secured its spot in TV history. And all things must pass. Ask Brittany.