The character is portrayed by actor and dancer Harry Shum Jr., and has appeared on Glee since the fourth episode in the first season, "Preggers", first broadcast on September 23, 2009.

He is introduced as a football player who joins the club together with a few of his teammates, and quickly shows himself to be an excellent dancer, being the best ones in the group along with Brittany Pierce.

He dances to "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" by Beyoncé with Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer) and his fellow high school football players, and subsequently decides to join the New Directions glee club with his friends and teammates Matt (Dijon Talton) and Puck (Mark Salling).

[9] After he receives an "A−" on a chemistry exam, his father (Keong Sim) is upset by this "Asian F" and the danger it poses to his chances of attending Harvard, and insists that Mike focus more on his studies and give up glee club and his girlfriend, who has been helping him improve his singing.

[10] Mike begs for one more chance and promises to meet with a tutor, but later decides to follow his dreams and auditions for the role of Riff in West Side Story, performing "Cool".

Following his break-up with Tina, they meet again when he and Mercedes Jones (Amber Riley) return at Artie's request to help run auditions for Grease.

[10][17] Mike was slowly developed from a football player who "was afraid to dance outside [his] room"[3] to a confident and highly skilled dancer and performer.

[24] Though Raymund Flandez of The Wall Street Journal and the Houston Chronicle's Bobby Hankinson also commented positively on the song, the former thought that Tina's sung interjections became annoying and the latter called it "far from the best of the evening".

[27][29][30] The Wall Street Journal's Raymund Flandez said Mike's singing "wasn't so terrible", but while Lee said his is "not, by any means, a wonderful voice" she also said "he still pirouettes with the kind of easy grace that makes each move a joy to watch.

"[31][32] Erica Futterman of Rolling Stone wrote, "He's got the smooth dance moves down ... but, most impressively, his slick vocals are on point, hitting nice rises and falls at certain moments but mostly staying 'real cool', as the song calls for", and Berk gave the performance five of five stars.

The Washington Post's Jen Chaney characterized it as "cute and buoyant" and gave it an "A−", and HuffPost TV's Crystal Bell called it "absolute perfection".

[35][36] While Michael Slezak of TVLine praised their "sweet vocals", he wondered why their "rare moment in the spotlight had to serve as a backdrop to the Artie-Sugar-Rory triangle" and gave the performance a "B".

[44][45] Amy Reiter of the Los Angeles Times felt the entire song "seemed kind of tacked on", both the dancing and Santana's solo.

Abby West of Entertainment Weekly said Shum "really showed his acting chops", and Samantha Urban of The Dallas Morning News thought the "plot worked well", though she heaped scorn on the notion that "any college would consider glee club a detriment" in an application.

[52] The Atlantic's Kevin Fallon characterized it as "a standout scene": "the performer dances out his life frustrations, pirouetting-as-catharsis until he realizes that the only place he feels happy is on stage.

[29] Lesley Goldberg of The Hollywood Reporter lauded the subsequent scene in the studio with his mother as the "most touching part" of the storyline, and more than one reviewer admitted shedding tears, including Reiter.

[58] However, Votta gave "kudos to Glee for sticking with Mike's story this season as he figures out his path", and West wrote that Shum "played it well", while Robert Canning of IGN said it and the later scene with his mother "were mighty effective, if a bit stereotypical".

[57][60] After "Hold On to Sixteen", Sullivan, who was enthusiastic about Shum, who he said had "emerged as a crux of the show", was not happy with Mike's "forced storyline" in the episode.