Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog Takes Internet Camp To The Top!
If you haven’t yet had the chance to view Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, you might want to do it soon before the site crashes again. The first episode went up Tuesday at midnight and by six a.m. there were already reports of viewers that couldn’t access the site.
As of this morning, I was crushed because I STILL couldn’t get DrHorrible.com to load, but fortunately http://doctorhorrible.net/ provided an alternate link that you can find here!
And, yes, it WAS even better than I expected…which is saying something considering that I consider Joss Whedon to be a god in mortal’s clothing. Besides the fact that I admire Neil Patrick Harris for being an out and proud gay actor, it turns out he has one hell of a singing voice too. He does a great job playing the evil, but not quite evil enough, Dr. Horrible. Felicia Day - who was one of the potentials in the last season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and is famous for her YouTube series The Guild - plays her role as his sweet and clueless laundry-mat love interest with touching sincerity. Actually, truth be told, she’s so sweet you could go into a diabetic coma watching her act…which adds greatly to the delicious campiness of the short film.
Both actors are so earnest playing their roles that you tend to forget that most people don’t actually burst into song in the middle of the day (with full orchestra accompaniment no less!). Whedon pulled that feat off once with Buffy’s Once More With Feeling, but I would never have believed that lightening could strike twice.
Oh, and there’s Nathan Fillion too as the good (but not a good person) superhero, Captain Hammer. His swaggering arrogance makes the perfect contrast to Dr. Horrible’s frustrated ambition. Plus, I have to say, he looks really, REALLY good in a tight black t-shirt.
Seriously though, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog presents an interesting twist on the traditional superhero/villain, good versus evil relationship. In a typical whedonesque twist, neither character is as simple as they seem. Dr. Horrible really isn’t all that horrible. In fact, a lot his ideas make sense, but his methods are terribly misguided. Captain Hammer on the other hand, does all the right things and everyone adores him, but he’s a totally self-centered prick. Wow, that sounds like a lot of people I’ve met in real life…well, sans costumes at least. Sometimes the best people aren’t always the ones we admire.
My adoration for Joss Whedon aside though, the first episode has been #1 on iTunes since its release and has made the front page of twitter.com, the front page of LA Times, and is generating an internet buzz like crazy. Trust me, I’m not the only one raving about the high production values and great storytelling of Joss Whedon’s little “low-budget internet experiment.”
If you’re serious about camp, then you have to check out Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog for yourself! And, go quickly, the second episode airs tomorrow and all three episodes will only be available for free until midnight Sunday July 20th. After that, they’ll be taken off the website and will only be available via iTunes download until the DVD comes out.
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