Joss Whedon

Glee: Season one, episode 19

Guest director Joss Whedon and guest star Neil Patrick Harris arrive to sprinkle magic all over the show

SPOILER ALERT: This weekly blog is for those who are watching Glee on E4. Don’t read on if you haven’t seen episode 17 – and if you’ve seen more of the series, please be aware that many UK viewers will not have done so …

Called into Principal Figgins office, Mr Shue is dismayed to learn that the Glee is under threat of closure. Again. This time, by an old nemesis: Bryan Ryan (Neil Patrick Harris) an ex-Glee Clubber who has come to audit the school’s budget, and shut down any worthless programs.

Ryan feels bitterly that giving kids big dreams that never come true is wrong. Mr Shue then reminds Ryan how much he loves to sing, and encourages him to try out for a local amateur production of Les Mis, for which is also auditioning for. Though Shue gets the part, he gives it up to Ryan in exchange for the Glee Club. Ryan also has "angry sex" with Sue Sylvester along the way, but let’s not speak of that.

In other news, other dreams are examined – namely Rachel’s dream of meeting her mother, and Artie’s dream of one day walking (and dancing). Programme notes

For anyone not following Neil Patrick Harris’s career, he’s gone from much-mocked child star in Doogie Houser MD, to recent glory in Whedon’s Dr Horrible’s Singalong Blog, star of How I Met Your Mother and all-round golden boy. The man can do anything, it seems – and he always seemed like a perfect fit for Glee. And in my opinion, he was, too.

The only problem is that with so much going on, I can’t imagine that we’ll see him back again soon. The same with Whedon, who seemed to have a strong idea of what makes for a perfectly balanced episode of Glee.

In other news, though, if I can stop squeeing about NPH/Whedon for a second, it was also good to have a second and third-string story that worked as well as the primary story arch. We finally got a pay-off to the question about whether Jesse St James is a plant from Vocal Adrenaline. He is, but not for the reasons we suspected – he’s doing it for Shelly because yes, the older, sassier Rachel Berry lookalike/soundalike IS Rachel’s mother after all. Where this goes from now, however, I’m intrigued to find out. And the Artie/Tina storyline managed to be touching, rather than mawkish, and may have made some viewers cry every single time I – sorry, ahem THEY – watched it. Moments of Glee

The flashback to early-1990s Ryan and Shue? Brilliant. More please.

Ryan’s story of his fall from Glee-grace: "I was a featured soloist at King’s Island, in Doodledy-Doo Musical Review ... Nine years later, I woke up on a urine-stained mattress in a West Lima crack district. Then something amazing happened. I was introduced to Jesus. My Honduran social worker"

From one of Bryan Ryan’s Glee Club Survivor Support Group members: "Whenever anything bad would happen, I would just say ’Let’s put on a show.’ Well, guess what? Puttin’ on a show about your father’s prostate cancer will actually just make him more depressed about the situation."

And one of Ryan’s own confessions: "I’m living a lie ... Every year I sneak off to Broadway and catch a bunch of shows. I have a box of playbills hidden away in my basement, Will. Like PORN." Set list

Daydream Believer, The Monkees; Piano Man, Billy Joel; Dream On, Aerosmith; The Safety Dance, Men Without Hats; I Dreamed a Dream, Les Miserables; Dream a Little Dream, Ozzie Nelson (orig — but many others, including The Mamas & The Papas, Ella Fitzgerald etc) Top of the hit parade

An almost impossible call. The Bryan Ryan/Mr Shue duets were ace, but the utter joy of seeing Thriller suddenly pop into Artie’s big dream/dance routine. I say Safety Dance for the dancing, and I Dreamed a Dream for the breathtaking vocals (and the fact that I might now hear that song again without thinking of SuBo). Anyone say any different?