Joss Whedon

The Tuesday (May 18) "Glee" is titled "Dream On" and the show has brought in a dream director for it. Joss Whedon ("Firefly," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") is the man behind the camera for this episode of the hit FOX show, which he says is "probably harder to shoot than any show in recorded history, with all the different elements going on."

But directing "Glee" was still a great time for Whedon. "It helps when the show is utterly wonderful, that takes the pressure off ... It’s a different kind of challenge, but ultimately enormous fun."

And what about the special guest-star Neil Patrick Harris as Bryan Ryan, an old rival of glee club director Will Schuester? Whedon and Harris previously collaborated on the Internet musical short "Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog" and Whedon says he is sick of working with NPH.

"I am so tired of that guy. Why do they always make me direct Neil?" Whedon laughs. "Neil is a consummate pro and a dear friend, which is a nice combination ... I feel like he is one of those people who expresses the way I wish I could express myself, he’s like a Muse ... we had such a good time. Always cooperative, always imaginative."

Whedon didn’t want to give too much away about the episode, but he did tease a big song-and-dance number set in a shopping mall. "It’s a complicated ... it’s a big, big number. We were actually able to shoot it pretty quickly. Because of the number of extras and the enormity of the number, people thought it would be more of a bear than it actually was."

He also says the title of the episode, "Dream On," is very apropos to the storylines. "The idea of the episode being ’Dream On’ 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," Whedon continues, "It’s questions about who her real mother was. Artie obviously thinks about if he’ll ever get out of the chair. And these are very, very hard, personal things that they don’t necessarily talk about with other people."

"So I was really lucky because there’s a real phonetic coherence of the episode that brought them all together on an emotional level. For me, it was a just a question that they dovetailed and didn’t feel random and you understood why these three stories were all in the same show."

"Dream On" airs Tuesday, May 18 on FOX. Get excited, Gleeks!