Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog

[Cognitive Gear]

Here's the short of it:

The story of a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to.

Joss Whedon has written another musical. It is being released online in three acts. On the 20th of this month, it will disappear (legally for free) from the internet.

Starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, and Felicia Day.

Act 1 is up. Act 2 releases on Thursday, July 17. Act 3 releases on Saturday, July 19. THE WHOLE THING GETS TAKEN DOWN ON THE 20th.

They want to attempt to generate revenue in a new way, by selling it via download and dvd sales after they take it down.

Warning for use of a swear word or two.

http://www.drhorrible.com/

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Yes, the preview looked great but only Americans can view the real thing! (boo hoo)

[Fish and Chips]

That was wonderful.

And aside from the pilot episode(s) of Firefly, I'm not all that familiar with Joss Whedon's work actually.

[ShiroiHikari]

Dude, Fish, you need to watch the rest of Firefly. Excellent stuff.

Also the server for Dr. Horrible appears to be overloaded or something because I can't get the page to load. D:

[Cognitive Gear]

Yes, the preview looked great but only Americans can view the real thing! (boo hoo)

Oops!

From whedonesque.com:

Dear... I want to say friends...

I Can't tell you what a thrill it was for me and Jed and Zack and Maurissa to gather round the comp-fire and await the launch of our musical... and find out it wasn't playing in many many places. And get slammed. And slammed. Yay team! Team of slamming!

The fact is, we're dealing with big companies that have moved more quickly on this venture than they've ever had to. We've always been clear about getting this out to everyone, but that just isn't as simple as we'd like. (At the last minute we found out about a Canadian restriction involving it having to be in French simultaneously...) We (well, mostly Jed) have worked to the point of delirium getting this out to you guys, and yeah, we're experiencing technical difficulties. Bear with us. We're (well, mostly Jed) trying to make this work for everyone as soon as we can. It's not thoughtlessness, or jingoism, corporate evil or scurvy. It's just new. We'll get you there.

For those of you who HAVE seen it, isn't it dreamy? Thank you for all your comments. They buoyed us much. Sadly, we really just phoned in the next two eps, so it's all downhill. Jestage!
And now, I fly! (Coach.) xoxo -j.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Works now!
Great stuff.

[Cognitive Gear]

Act 2 is up.

Sexual jokes warning, language warning.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Loved the 2nd part even more so than the first.

I'm so in love with Felicia Day! The girl has the looks, the personality, the singing voice and a great quirkiness. Sigh.

That's true Cognitive Gear.
If it were on TV it would probably get a PG rating.

[Kkun]

This is excellent. NPH for president.

[ShiroiHikari]

I'm impressed.

[uc pseudonym]

Various people have been mentioning this to me and I finally decided to look at it today. The first two acts were enjoyable, suitably whimsical overall.

[Raiden no Kishi]

I watched the first part.

The production was well-done, but I wasn't terribly entertained. It just fell somewhat flat for me. Maybe I expected too much?

.rai//

[Monkey J. Luffy]

Quite entertaining, and I simply love the songs. I found it quite good.

[ShiroiHikari]

I watched the first part.

The production was well-done, but I wasn't terribly entertained. It just fell somewhat flat for me. Maybe I expected too much?

.rai//

Yes. You fail. XD

I was really blown away by the quality of the songs. I wasn't expecting them to be any good but they're quite nice.

Have you ever seen any of Whedon's stuff before, Rai?

[Kawaiikneko]

Haha, I heard about this, but I forgot to look until now... So clever and hilarious! I can't wait for the final act.

[Raiden no Kishi]

Yes. You fail. XD

I was really blown away by the quality of the songs. I wasn't expecting them to be any good but they're quite nice.

Have you ever seen any of Whedon's stuff before, Rai?

Haha, the songs were well-done. And no, I haven't seen Whedon's other works. I've seen bits and pieces of Firefly on YouTube (clip collections, bloopers, etc.) and really want to see it. I really want to like this, too. It's just falling a little flat for me. Maybe part II will change my mind, now that the characters and setting have been introduced.

.rai//

[Sheenar]

Just watched Part II. Man, I like that last song. It's catchy.

Well done.

[uc pseudonym]

Maybe part II will change my mind, now that the characters and setting have been introduced.

I'd urge you to give it a try, though I can't guarantee you'll enjoy it. The reason I say this is that I felt the quality increases drastically as it develops. I thought the beginning was very weak, started to warm to things with the cowboy chorus, became mildly interested by the end of the first Act, and then truly enjoyed Act II (the music is much better, in my opinion).

[Raiden no Kishi]

Just finished Part II. I really like it now. XD Much more fun.

.rai//

[Cognitive Gear]

Part 3 is up....

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

So sad, but all the better for it (in a way).
Shows there are consequences to our actions. We may get all we want but in the process destroy what we want most.

[Raiden no Kishi]

Wow. That was an unexpected end. It really changed the tone of the whole thing. Well done.

On an unrelated note, I want gloves like Captain Hammer's. Even if he was a jerk, he had cool gloves.

.rai//

[Sheenar]

So sad, but all the better for it (in a way).
Shows there are consequences to our actions. We may get all we want but in the process destroy what we want most.

Exactly. That was an excellent ending (though unexpected). Songs were great (and I love Dr. Horrible's costume at the end).

[minakichan]

I'm a sucker for musicals. This one was very cute, and the songs are seriously catchy.

I laughed a lot, but by the end I was kind of like "...am I supposed to be laughing or crying?" I thought the end was good, just very unexpected.

"I have a PhD in horribleness!"

[uc pseudonym]

I am disappointed. Part III did not do it for me and it makes me suspect that some of the things I thought were funny satire in the previous sections were actually taking themselves seriously. What I loved about this was how ludicrous everything was and I think the drama falls flat. Nice to see Bad Horse, though - greatest moment of Part III in my opinion.

Yeah, yeah, he gets what he claims he wants by losing what he truly wants, succeeding as a supervillain but deadened as a human being. Come on, that's exactly what you'd expect. It panders to the postmodern viewer in a mundane fashion (I really hope I don't have to explain that comment, though I mean it with utmost seriousness).

Plus, they really didn't do anything with the social issues they brought up. It's fine as an ironic note concerning the titular character's ambitions (also funny), but they went further and then let it sit there.

[Tsukuyomi]

I'll have to watch all of them one of these days ^^

[Saint Kevin]

I definitely have to second UC's opinion that the second episode has the best songs. It's really the only one I've bothered to watch more than once.

Great series overall. I'm impressed that they are releasing something of this quality for free, and I hope other filmmakers will follow Mr. Whedon's model. Making content for free, releasing it to create a buzz, and then selling DVD's and merchandise later worked for Red Vs. Blue, and it may well work for Dr. Horrible.

Intellectual properties are incredibly valuable when people take a liking to them because of the merchandising, movie, video game, and advertising potential that good characters and stories have. The enormous spin-off potential of a good intellectual property is the biggest reason I believe that the "content for free at first" model can be successful.

Who knows - maybe you'll even be able to get some Dr. Horrible action figures some day, or see a feature-length film come out of it.

[Fish and Chips]

I can forgive Act III because "Give my regards to Saint Peter...or whoever has his job, but in Hell" is basically the best one liner ever written.

A plot like Dr. Horrible's is difficult to wrap up. You can't have Captain Hammer win, since American society has a habit of disliking jerk jocks while promoting them anyway, but Dr. Horrible is also in a no win scenario. A sympathetic villain is still a villain. Not sure they could have ended it much differently than they did.

Though they could have also gone the Monty Python route and ended it with SWAT teams cutting the scene short by arresting the doctor.

[minakichan]

A plot like Dr. Horrible's is difficult to wrap up. You can't have Captain Hammer win, since American society has a habit of disliking jerk jocks while promoting them anyway, but Dr. Horrible is also in a no win scenario. A sympathetic villain is still a villain. Not sure they could have ended it much differently than they did.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Predictable ending is predicable, but what's the alternative? (Actually, I didn't really expect the series to take such a dark twist, even if it was all still in parody.) The ending also doesn't really have a lot of closure; it looks as if Whedon and co. wanted to experiment and leave the possibility of an extension if it's successful. It's a guess; I wouldn't know, but I could see a Part IV, I suppose.

[uc pseudonym]

Several days after watching Part III, I find myself feeling more charitable. Perhaps the ending is predictable, in part, because it is consistent with the rest of the story. Overall it did have a solid thematic feel, and while I can critique that theme it isn't a large mark against the quality of the story itself.

But they definitely had a variety of options for the ending...

The Reverse Ending: He fails as a villain but ends up with the girl. This one was really very possible until near the end, as Penny would have seen Captain Hammer being a jerk and Dr. Horrible can't actually bring himself to fire the Death Ray.

The Farcical Ending: Things go exactly according to the stereotype (villain fails, hero gets girl) but it's executed in a forced and ridiculous fashion. It's be the stereotypical happy ending, yet obviously not happy at all, giving everything a sickeningly sweet feel.

The Surprise Ending: The bum Captain Hammer said was a hero too? Yeah, it turns out he actually was. He defeats them both and saves the city.

The Showstopper: As the final battle approaches, every character from the entire series shows up and they launch into a massive song and dance number. This escalates to ridiculous levels and there's never a resolution at all. That's be a great ending as far as I'm concerned.

The Dark Ending: Things continue whimsically until the last few minutes, where Dr. Horrible turns truly and irrevocably evil, slaughtering everyone in the room and blowing up the city. Fine, there's no way they'd have done that, but you have to admit it'd be awesome.

Those are the ones that come to mind quickly, anyway.