Act III of Dr. Horrible
July 19th, 2008 by screenwriterguy
If you haven’t seen it yet, get to www.drhorrible.com TODAY, because it goes away on Sunday. (Come back and read the rest of this post only after you’ve watched.)
OK, so what did everyone think of the ending? To me, it was a punch in the gut, but if you rethink, realizing that this is the origin story of a supervillain, it’s pretty. I loved the art of the last shot of Billy in street clothes. After all, he’s honest when he blogs, and he does it as who he wants to be. Is Batman the mask, or is Bruce Wayne?
Neat cameo for Whedon nerds in the appearance of Marti Noxon and David Fury as news anchors. The pair were executive producers on Buffy and Angel, respectively, and were singers in the musical episode of Buffy. (”It isn’t right, it isn’t fair. There was no parking anywhere. …” and “They got… the mustard… OUT!”)
Want to get even nerdier? Two of the members of the Evil League of Evil were also Buffy writer/producers. Doug Petrie is credited as “Professor Normal,” and Drew Goddard played “Fake Thomas Jefferson.” Hey, it was during the writers’ strike. They had time.
For a moment, temporary dissatisfaction at the ending left me thinking a sequel inevitable. After all, the credits do say, “Introducing the Evil League of Evil.” You can imaging loving the exploits of such a group. And with someone like Liz Vassey (The Tick, CSI) playing such a tiny, non-speaking part, one imagines perhaps some real deliberation went into casting the League, a prelude to more. But then I realized her appearance probably owes to the connection that Petrie now works on CSI. No doubt one can reverse engineer most of the involvements back to a degree or two of separation from Whedon’s rolodex. After all, Felicia Day and Nathan Fillion have done Whedon projects before. And Alyson Hannigan from Buffy is now on How I Met Your Mother with Neil Patrick Harris…
Well, congrats to all involved. And Joss, way to make great art again, all while giving the studios the finger. A hundred years from now, some history book on the birth of so-called “new media” will undoubetedly list Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog as a historic milestone in the merging of internet and television.
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Jul 19th 2008 at 8:16 pm
Dr. Horrible, in addition to being fabulous in its exploitation of the ‘net attention span, also perfects the rock-video schemes that we basically grew up watching (anyone else remember the launch of MTV?) The format is really spectacular for this time in media - we go online, we watch (for free), fall in love, and then buy the dvd and the tshirt. It’s a stunning way to meld the media, and of course, Joss would do it in a way that winks at hardcore fans and pats new ones on the back.
It’s a totally sympathetic look at the villain, while upholding the cynical modern “there is no true hero” notion, both of which I think are interesting American concepts. But to make it a musical on top of it all, and add a love story ala Les Mis, hey, it’s the ultimate in internet joy joy!
I do hope that there’s more to follow, but even if there isn’t, I’m sure some studious geek will make an RPG for it before the month is out…(And we’ll probably play it!)
I’m not sure I buy the historic merge of internet and television bit, unless there’s a planned televised release *after* the net release, which would be a novel turnabout. I would say that it’s a perfectly executed web serial, which advertised itself in clever and novel ways, and which will show that people will watch new content on the net if someone takes the time to do it well.
So, keep crashing the server! Raising the bar is good, good, good!