Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog premieres today
Joss Whedon (the wonderful man behind the shows “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Firefly”) is shaking up the TV universe with his silly new made-on-the-cheap miniseries.
The first act of his supervillain musical “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” premieres today on the site drhorrible.com. Act Two will go up on Thursday, and Act Three on Saturday. Each act will stream for free, but all three parts will vanish at midnight Sunday. Eventually, Whedon said, the whole series will be available on DVD.
“Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” came out of Mr. Whedon’s boredom. On the site’s blog, Whedon explains the ennui and kernel of inspiration that led to this project:
“Once upon a time, all the writers in the forest got very mad with the Forest Kings and declared a work-stoppage. The forest creatures were all sad; the mushrooms did not dance, the elderberries gave no juice for the festival wines, and the Teamsters were kinda pissed. (They were very polite about it, though.) During this work-stoppage, many writers tried to form partnerships for outside funding to create new work that circumvented the Forest King system.
“Frustrated with the lack of movement on that front, I finally decided to do something very ambitious, very exciting, very mid-life-crisisy. Aided only by everyone I had worked with, was related to or had ever met, I single-handedly created this unique little epic. A supervillain musical, of which, as we all know, there are far too few.”
The series stars none other than Neil Patrick Harris as the titular villain.
Horrible works out his master plans in his shoddy lair (his basement), but he’s continually foiled and beaten up by Captain Hammer (Whedon regular Nathan Fillion). Can Horrible overcome his insufferably cocksure nemesis? Can he reach world dominion? Can he finally talk to the cute girl at the laundromat without being awkward?
The quasi-revolutinoary way Whedon is distributing his series aside, early buzz for ‘Dr. Horrible’ is great. And for us Whedon worshippers out there, a new Whedon project is a cause for joy no matter how we see it.
