'Glee' sneak peek :: Joss Whedon teams (again) with Neil Patrick Harris

I am so tired of that guy! Why do they always make me direct Neil? Why the pain?" said Joss Whedon of directing Neil Patrick Harris in this week's episode of Glee, which airs tonight on Fox at 9/8c. Of course, Whedon, speaking late last week during a Fox press call, was joking about the out and proud Harris, who he has worked with before in the Dr. Horrible web sensation.

Turning more serious, Whedon had nothing but positive things to say about the multi-talented (and seemingly everywhere) Harris. "Neil is a consummate pro and a dear friend, which is an ideal combination...my only complaint was that I wanted to shoot even more of the kids than I got to; that and certain craft service issues about not having caviar," he joked again.

Great work ethic

n tonight's episode, Glee director Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) is threatened with the end of glee club when a former high school nemesis (played by Harris) shows up and, now working for the school corporation, seems to be looking for a new way to show up the earnest Schuester and use cutting budgets as an excuse to again squash Schuester's dreams. Whedon spoke to the fact that Morrison and Harris already know each other and that familiarity helped create the tension between the combative characters. "The sort of rivalry/affection between them just informed the whole thing so much. We had such a good time."

Whedon was also impressed with the work ethic of the Emmy-nominated Harris, who he said, "came in the day after the Oscars [and] the day before How I Met Your Mother. He fit this into his schedule in the most bizarre fashion. I even got him and Jane Lynch (the out - and newly engaged - actress who plays sinister Sue Sylvester) to come in late on Friday night after finishing How I Met Your Mother, just so that we could knock a scene off because the schedule was so hard for him. Always cooperative, always imaginative; Neil's the man."

Whedon, who created such iconic television as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its spin-off Angel and the recently cancelled Dollhouse, is no stranger to guest-directing a hit show (he also directed an episode of NBC's The Office) but said that the challenge with taking on Glee is "a little tricky. You're living in somebody else's house and you have to make sure that you're fulfilling their needs. It also takes some of the burden off you. You don't have to be the guy who sees the big picture. You just take what they give you and make sure that you're servicing it as best you can. Having said that, Glee is probably harder to shoot than any other show in recorded history, with all the different elements going on and whatnot; it's a different kind of challenge, but ultimately enormous fun."

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Watch this feature on the filming of the "Dream On" episode of Glee featuring Neil Patrick Harris:

Tapped into something primal

Asked what it is about the high school show genre that works for his talents and he simply stated, "I like high school shows. Needless to say, I think they tap into something very primal. When you have some elements that take them to the next level, whether it's physical or musical, it's the kind of thing that completely jazzes me. To work with a troupe of people who are still young, and fresh and excited to be doing the work, you can't beat that."

Tonight's Glee episode is entitled 'Dream On' and while it may be the Aerosmith cover that Harris and Morrison duet on the show, it also serves as the theme of the episode's stories. "The idea of the episode being 'Dream On' really was 'let's take the things that are at the core of what people are.' With Will, it's his desire to perform and what he may have given up. With Rachel (Lea Michele), its questions about who her real mother was, and Artie (Kevin McHale) obviously thinks about if he'll ever one day get out of the chair. These are very, very hard personal things that they don't necessarily talk about with other people."

Whedon, who only directs the script (which was written by co-creator/executive producer Brad Falchuk), voiced his pleasure with how the theme was interwoven throughout the episode. "I was really lucky because there's a real fanatic coherence to the episode that really brought them all together on an emotional level. For me, it was just a question of making sure they dovetailed and didn't feel sort of random, but they all came together and you understood why these three stories were all in the same show."

While Glee has definitely brought a unique musical element to prime time series television, Whedon, who will next direct the big screen version of The Avengers, has used music in many of his projects including the infamous musical episode of Buffy as well as Dr. Horrible. Glee, he said, wasn't too far of a stretch. "I think it was just a very comfortable place for me [and] I think, ultimately, it didn't really occur to me until later, the process is actually a little ground breaking just in terms of how it made people who would not normally embrace this kind of show, various people singing and dancing spontaneously...to songs from every different era possible, it sort of brought them in."

On the flipside of comparing it to other projects, Whedon also shared that during his experience he realized that "Glee is different from anything else period. Every show is different. I would just say that the enormous amount of work that everybody is doing at all times on that show kind of spun my head around. It's not an easy show to make and the kids, the whole cast works so hard and are busy working on every episode...you've got a different aesthetic, an old-fashioned aesthetic in the lighting and the camerawork is very classical. It's not edgy in that sense. The edge comes from taking a very comforting milieu, the comfort, and ease of set, and then putting something rather kind of shocking. Either shocking because it's so snarky, or dirty, or funny, or because it's just so open hearted in the middle of it."

Any other shows that Whedon would like to direct outside of the television series he creates? Obviously he's been asked this a lot recently. "I'm going to just go ahead and make a blanket statement," he exclaimed. "I don't want to direct the shows I'm a fan of anymore. It means I always have to read the episodes that come before it. It's like a giant slew of spoilers that quite frankly is not fair. I would say after Glee, Friday Night Lights is probably the show that blows me away the most. But, I definitely don't want to direct one of those, because I'm still on Season 2."

While the show has yet to wrap up its first blockbuster season, the recent TV Land Awards awarded the show with the Future Classic Award and Whedon didn't see anything wrong with putting that label on Glee. "This very serious issue of inclusiveness and identity in school that you're dealing with [on Glee] is something that kind of sneaks up on you while you're having a great time. I think that it does a lot of good and it has a legacy that's more than just the fact that it's super entertaining."

Glee airs Tuesday nights on Fox at 9/8c. Episodes also are available to watch at