Dr.
Horrible planned to stop the world with his freeze ray and Joss Whedon
stopped presses in July when he released Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along
Blog; a wonderful, quirky, bizarre piece of darkly humorous fiction on
the internet, via www.drhorrible.com.
The website created an instant pandemonium in the fan world, which was
not horribly surprising. What was surprising was the attention the
online event got from perfectly normal, everyday people who had never
heard of Joss Whedon, or watched Buffy, Spike and Angel slay the bad
guys week after week on TV. (See, if you don't know who I refer to,
you're still part of that normal, mundane group, but we like you,
anyway.)
Joss and
his cohorts planned to stage a little entertainment revolution by
producing a high quality, low budget telnet event, which was free for
the first week, and each week of each new episode, through July 20,
2008. You could also download it from ITunes for a nominal fee, to
watch it at home, on your laptop, in line at the check out, or where
ever the urge to see Neal Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion overwhelmed
a fan. You can still download all three episodes on ITunes, for the
nominal fee of $4.99. You could also get your fix for free, or
experience for the first time, on the Horrible website. They have
posted it, using Hulu, with a brief commercial break for Hungry Man
(which seems sort of appropriate for a musical featuring Captain
Hammer, but I digress….) According to the website, a DVD with lots of
wonderful extras will be forthcoming. I can only wonder how long it
will be before live action Horrible casts, ala Rocky Horror Picture
Show, begin popping up around the country in theatres and conventions.
I'll be there, ready to sing along.
The next
step in the grand plan devised by the Whedon brothers and Mutant Enemy
Productions hit the airwaves Tuesday, September 2, 2008. The soundtrack
for the musical can now be downloaded from ITunes; ironically, for
twice the cost, at $9.99. However, having the songs on one disc,
cleanly delivered, was worth the one time download fee. In my humble
opinion, the cost for getting this legally is well worth it, too. This
has given fans the ability to listen to Dr. Horrible sing about loving
laundry while doing their own laundry. Joss Whedon has given something
to the world of fandom; a wonderful gift, that's not a death ray or an ice beam; it's not a shiny new Australia, either, but it's pretty horrible….yeah, horrible is the new terrific.
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