Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog Webseries Review
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, the long-awaited webseries creation from Buffy the Vampire Slayer mastermind Joss Whedon, siblings Jed and Zack, and Jed’s fiancé Maurissa Tancharoen, finally hit the Internet last week in a limited release. The initial Act I, first available on Tuesday, July 15th, quickly crashed after 200,000 eager viewers-per-hour flooded the website’s servers. Simultaneously released on iTunes, Dr. Horrible likewise became the top TV download in a relatively short time, and media outlets from USA Today to Variety dubbed the three-part web “mini-series” a monumental event in the short history of Internet video. While the show is no longer available online—with the exception of iTunes—a DVD release is promised, and Whedon has hinted at the possibility of midnight screenings in theaters, similar to how the musical episode of Buffy recently stormed across the nation before legal considerations shut it down.
The webseries—which Whedon describes as “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”—stars Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible, Nathan Fillion (who worked with Whedon on Firefly as well as its big-screen adaptation, Serenity) as Captain Hammer and Felicia Day (potential slayer Vi in Buffy) as Penny. While a musical in style—and both entertaining and comic in nature—Dr. Horrible is actually more detailed and depth-oriented than one might expect; each of the characters evoke a naïve innocence, while the narrative itself explores what happens when that innocence both fades and eventually shatters.
Television Writers Take Their Talents to the Web
When the strike by the Writers Guild of America began last November, many observers wondered if the slew of unemployed scribes would lead to an onslaught of original web content. Compensation for online product was one of the major issues the strike centered around after all, and the idea of writers embarking onto Internet terrain was not out of the question; the Divided Hollywood blog even reported on December 17th that the WGA was considering launching StrikeTV the following month, a website featuring new, original web video created by the union’s members. While at least two workshops were held for interested writers in the Los Angeles area—as well as various blurbs appearing on entertainment websites like TV Squad announcing the project—nothing ever materialized. When the strike ended, it was assumed the plans had died with it.
Regardless of whether watched on a computer monitor, iPod, mobile phone or flat-screen TV, television has risen above the stigma of its early years to become the premier storytelling medium of the Twenty-First Century. From comedy to drama, mystery to fantasy, sci-fi to spy thriller, the former “vast wasteland” now offers something for everybody on a level equal or superior to film and literature. Looking for sci-fi? Try Battlestar Galactica. Medical dramas? There’s Grey’s Anatomy. Epic mysteries? Lost. In the mood for comedy? How about The Office and 30 Rock. All of the above not only entertain, but invoke storytelling techniques filled with philosophical discourses and social critiques that compliment the narrative. Then there’s Burn Notice on USA Network. This light-hearted affair may not raise your IQ level but it is the small-screen answer to 1980s “buddy movies” and firmly establishes television as an equal to film in that genre as well.
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