NOTE FROM MATT: Hey everybody, so what do you know, supposed off-day Friday actually doubles your pleasure with two guest reviews. Thanks again to Max for the previous music review, and here we have a bit of a black sheep, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog, reviewed by second-timer Ben. I categorized it as a TV review, but a shiny penny goes to someone who can really pin down what to call this one. See you all tomorrow!
I admit it: I am a Joss Whedon fanboy. It truly is hard to deny; I’ve enjoyed just about every project he’s ever made. He manages to take truly outrageous concepts, such as a cheerleader fighting vampires or cowboys in space, and turn them into intelligently written, entertaining character plays. All his TV shows would certainly be classified as dramas, but they pack as much of a comedic wallop as any sitcom out there. Based on Whedon’s creative tendencies (including his attendance of Wesleyan University), I would imagine that he got picked on a lot in high school, because even his shows about adults still explore insecurities that the outcasts always have for the cool and popular kids, who Whedon, of course, always ends up cutting down to size.
So when I heard that Joss & Company had created a 45 minute webisode in response to the boredom of striking, I felt intrigued. Then I found out it was a musical. Most of you probably know that most TV-length attempts at musicality are abysmal. Scrubs’s attempt at a musical episode was mildly entertaining at best, thanks to its 3-minute song about feces (cleverly using the word “poo” in just about every line) and Dr. Cox’s ranting song, which, although relatively clever and enjoyable, is simply a blatant theft of “Modern Major General.” Also complicating matters is the reality that, like most TV casts, the actors on Scrubs CANNOT sing. Despite this cloud of doubt, I found myself optimistic about this project, because Whedon had already succeeded once before in making a musical. His 6th season episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, entitled “Once More With Feeling”, was easily the high-point of the series, and featured half a dozen songs that to this day I still find myself humming absent-mindedly. Sure, it helped that many of the cast members could sing, and that he could explain away the sudden singing by the appearance of a demon that, you guessed it, causes people to sing (a mild benefit of having such a ridiculous TV universe to begin with). But Joss spent a year writing the 50-minute show (well, a year teaching himself to play the guitar and then writing the music and lyrics), and the effort showed. This new project, entitled Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog, was done in half that time, without an existing universe of characters to build off of.
The three acts feature Dr. Horrible, a wanna-be super-villain who is always thwarted by his nemesis, Captain Hammer (or “Captain Hammer: Corporate Tool”). Meanwhile, he is unable to work up the courage to talk to a girl at the laundromat that he has a crush on. Neil Patrick Harris is absolutely brilliant in this role, bringing out his characters goofiness and determination as he works to defeat Captain Hammer and win the girl of his dreams. Of course, Dr. Horrible is the protagonist of this story, as Whedon’s spin on the typical superhero vs. bad guy dynamic is anything but typical. Horrible honestly believes, “The Status is not quo. The world is a mess, and I just have to rule it,” while Captain Hammer seems less concerned about the helpless & homeless and more about his hair and his “hammer.” Their struggle is, expectedly, played as a love triangle with the lovely lady, because in Whedon-land, everything is a love triangle.
The first few minutes of the episode feature Whedon’s usually sarcastic writing as Dr. Horrible riffs on just about every cliché of the superhero universe (trans-matter rays, freeze rays, Wonderflonium, and applications to the Evil League of Evil), spotlighting Harris’s impeccable comedic timing. In a summer with this never-ending onslaught of superhero flicks, it’s nice to get some perspective on how ridiculous some elements of the comic book shtick can be. Then the music kicks in.
The songs are truly fantastic throughout this show, and quite noticeably parallel those in “Once More With Feeling”. The first song features a short, bouncing chord before the protagonist launches into the lyrics – venting their insecurities while performing a mundane task, which of course draws attention to how out-of-place both the character, and the singing, really are in this scene (an example of Whedon’s ever-present self-deprecation). Harris has a great voice, as does Felicia Day in the lead female role. Nathan Fillion is really in the show solely for his ability to play a hilarious, overbearing asshole, and he fakes his way through his songs with intense bravado and half-decent tone. The songs themselves (there are a good dozen or so) bounce their way from haunting slowness (in “On The Rise”) to power chords (in “Brand New Day”) to light and catchy (in “Freeze Ray”), but just about all of them are quite enjoyable.
In any review of Dr. Horrible, special praise should go to Neil Patrick Harris. Every subtlety of his performance is spot on, from his eye-twitch when he says, “Putting the power in…different hands” to his delivery of “crazy random happenstance.” His delivery of “On the Rise” is also a show-stopper, and it’s the song I keep singing to myself when I’m bored. I hope he gets more mainstream roles after his return to power with this and Harold and Kumar. Nathan Fillion plays a one-dimensional part one-dimensionally, but he owns that one dimension of absolute dickishness. And Felicia Day (she and Nathan are 7th season Buffy veterans) contributes a simple but very pleasant performance as Dr. Horrible’s love interest. Also throwing his two cents in is Simon Helberg (of Studio 60 “fame”) as Moist, making him (I think) the only actor to have done TV work with both of my favorite writers, Whedon and Aaron Sorkin. By the way, look for Joss’s brother and co-writer Jed as a member of the “Bad Horse Chorus.”
The Dr. Horrible character is sympathetic, but I found myself unsure of the third act the first time I watched it. I got through the first two acts and enjoyed them immensely. However, I had forgotten that this was Joss Whedon, not just a hilarious YouTube video. The third act, featuring perhaps the best songs of the show, reminds the audience that Whedon meant Dr. Horrible as a full story, one that is supposed to actually make you care about the characters, as opposed to simply using them as gags to set up punch-lines. The final shot of Dr. Horrible in the third act, after his final triumph, is downright haunting. Even during Penny and Billy’s first interaction when Billy can’t really pay attention to her, Whedon portrays the ultimate conflict in Dr. Horrible’s life between the girl and his dream of being a feared super-villain. We know from the beginning that he can’t have both, because Penny is nice and probably wouldn’t look kindly on a life of crime and villainy. With the first few lines of “A Man’s Gotta Do,” the audience can see that Dr. Horrible’s ultimate priority is in his life of crime; he’s locked into playing the part of the bad guy, just as Captain Hammer has to play the cocky foil to his plans.
Bottom line is that everyone should watch this. It’s proof that great filmmaking can be done with a small budget, some extras, frozen yogurt, a fake mustache for Neil Patrick Harris, and an ability to write good songs. Buy it on ITunes for $4 if you want or wait for the DVD (it was available for free download for a few days, but apparently Whedon has dreams of paying his crew and his actors), but please give it a chance. It’s 45 minutes of pure entertainment, and it doesn’t really have a slow point. I know that some of Whedon’s projects seem cheesy at first, but they turn out to be totally sweet. Sometimes television is layered like that – there’s something totally different underneath than what’s on the surface…like with pie.
I Ate My DVD Collection 
Nicole Catá said
I wonder if Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog also has three distinct layers.
iTunes is also categorizing it as a TV show… I’m going to dub it a webisode-turned-TV-show and demand a shiny penny.
Tip-top review, Ben!
justanotherjen said
Excellent review. I caught the whole thing as it was released (and watched the first Act before they crashed the servers later in the morning on the 15th). I immediately bought the season pass on iTunes.
But you can still watch it free at hulu.com or at drhorrible.com (streaming from hulu) or at myspace.com. Joss & company are advertising the free viewings from their myspace. I’ve been watching it every day and find myself humming bits and pieces of the songs all day long.
Can’t wait for the DVD with the singing commentary.