DOCTOR HORRIBLE’S SINGALONG BLOG

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

You guys following this? Joss Whedon’s mini-comedy/drama with Neil Patrick Harris as an overreaching would-be evil-doer squaring off against his arch nemesis, Captain Hammer (a monumentally smug Nathan Fillion). If you haven’t been following it thus far at www.drhorrible.com, then I suggest you wait until tomorrow since Act 3 will be up and you can watch the whole thing in one shot. (Me, I’m wondering if the Doc’s would-be girlfriend turns out to be someone even more evil than he, but that’s just a theory.)
My one quibble? First rule of singalongs: Provide the lyrics. The musical numbers are fine, even catchy, but why call it a singalong if you don’t have the lyrics on the screen, preferably highlighting the words as you go or even–if you want to do it old school–have a little bouncing ball? One hopes that the DVD release will correct this horrible oversight.
PAD

57 comments on “DOCTOR HORRIBLE’S SINGALONG BLOG”

  1. I watched the first five minutes of the first episode, and I guess I just wasn’t in the mood because I lost interest very quickly. I normally love stuff like this, too, which is disappointing. Maybe I’ll try again later today.

  3. It has been lots of fun. It was hard to get Part 1 on the first day, but it was easily accessible on the second day and Part 2 was easy to get yesterday. I just hope I don’t have any problems this weekend for Part 3.
    Neil

  4. One hopes that the DVD release will correct this horrible oversight.
    That is exactly what it was. After all, he does have a PhD in “horribleness” you know.
    But seriously, I found myself singing the tunes for most of the past two days. It would have been nice to be able to “follow the bouncing ball.”

  6. Your thoughts about the lyrics mirror my own, PAD. On the other hand, the characters’ lyrics often overlap each other. That’ll make the lyrics on-screen, well, let’s call it “interesting.”

  7. The “Penny as villain” thing struck me too while Penny and Dr. H were chatting at the laundromat. Maybe it’s too obvious a twist to make, or maybe, like everything else about this remarkable piece, it’s so obvious, it perfect!
    Favourite moment from Parts 1 and 2: When Hammer reveals he recognises Dr H. Perfect. Except then it’s followed up by the most amazing, slow, and incredible transform from frown to evil smile by Dr H. Harris slows once again what a stunning and subtle actor he is, and blows Fillions smug masterpiece out of the water!

  10. It really is awesome. I keep singing Brand New Day from Act II and all the songs from the first act.
    It’s amazing how good Nathan Fillion is at playing an incredibly smug, bullying idiot. I feel like I’m insulting him when I say that, but he’s just really good at it. I love hating Captain Hammer. Neil Patrick Harris seems to actually be trying to take over the world, so he really is a bad guy, but it doesn’t come across that way. It’s amazingly easy to root for the bad guy.
    I’m betting the DVD extras will include lyrics. One thing they’ve talked about is having two commentary tracks. One is a normal one, the other one is a musical commentary. They’re actually writing songs for the commentary track.

  11. I’ll wait until tomorrow, when I can watch the entire saga – I want to see how Nathan Fillion matches up against the one true Captain Hammer, Austin in the Backyardigans (he fought alongside Weather Woman to stop Dr. Shrinky and Yuckyman from stealing the Key To the World – his power was to make anything from anything else, with a tap from his hammer).

  12. I’ve been absolutely loving it. Maybe I’m biased, being huge fans of Neil Patrick Harris, Joss Whedon, musicals, and “Once More With Feeling” (okay.. yeah, I’m biased), but I think it’s just fantastic. I’m enjoying every second of it. I only wish it were longer!

  14. Jonathan,
    Delighted to see that there’s someone else who recognizes the greatness that is the true Captain Hammer!
    TWL

  16. I also eagerly await part 3.
    I do agree with one of the first post-the first few minutes were a bit boring, but when NPH began to sing, I was hooked.
    Dave

  17. I’ll agree that the first few minutes of Act I is slower than the rest. However, it’s still plenty entertaining and it sets up the character wonderfully.
    Plus, it’s very internet-y. Just the fact that he’s making a video blog sets a certain kind of expectation for the video, which is then completely blown out of the water.

  18. I believe that they will have the Sing-Along version on the DVD.
    And I’ve been enjoying it a lot… Wheddon has done one of the best things in the internet right now!

  21. You can also get it from iTunes ($4 for the whole thing), which is somewhat the idea of a made for online thing.
    I imagine the screening at ComicCon will be packed. Still suprised it isn’t in a bigger room, but being a late addition they probably didn’t have much choice.
    Lee Whiteside

  23. It is nifty, is it not? And I too just absolutely adore the smugness and hubris that Nathan Fillion radiates as Captain Hammer. I would go so far as to say that this is the best Fillion performance that I’ve seen to date (no offense meant to Firefly/Serenity fans, ’cause I’m one too).
    Chuck

  24. Freakin’ Joss Wheadon! 30 minutes, and I still get so invested in the characters than when he… goes Joss Wheadon on them, it’s upsetting!
    &^$&^$&^$^&%@#@%&^#%!!!!

  25. I just figured that the “sing along” part was supposed to be ironic. *shrugs*
    I enjoyed it!

  26. Well, I liked Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Blog. I’m not completly happy with the ending though. I think I like PAD’s idea of Penny being the villian more then what happened…
    THOUGH, I did like what happened to Hammer. lol. The jerk! Nathan Fillion is a good actor, but I did not really care for the Hammer character that much. I still like Fillion better in Firefly/Serentity.
    As for Horrible, ya, I’m glad he won, but I would have liked to have seen him get the girl too. Or at least have the girl turn out to be just as bad as him. lol.
    Oh well. Overall, a good “series”. Too bad it wasn’t a bit longer though.
    DF2506

  27. PAD I’ll be very interested to see what you think of the finale.
    as was posted above it was a Joss Whedon ending and frankly it’s a cliche for him at this point. 1 month after what he did to Kitty Pryde should we really be suprised by this ending?
    I’m finding it hard to just sit back and enjoy his work anymore because I’m so aware now that any time a character starts getting happy, he’s going to destroy them because he doesn’t do anything else.
    I’m starting to wonder if he knows how to do anything else.

  28. JasonK, I started feeling that way about his work circa season 6 of Buffy….

  29. Patrick so did I. I’ll probably watch Dollhouse, cause I adore Eliza Dushku, but I can;t see myself ever rooting for any of the characters because you know Joss won’t let them be happy for any length of time and you start to wonder why bother to get invested into his show(s) when you know it’s going to go the same way every time.

  30. I disagree. I dislike the shows that keep the status quo going no matter what. Part of what I love about his work is that you never know what he’s going to throw at you, or when. There is so much more of an impact when a character you are invested in dies. Then there are the shows that end each episode with nothing changed. Give me Joss’ style any day over that.

  31. “Part of what I love about his work is that you never know what he’s going to throw at you,”
    Here’s the problem you do know what he’s going to throw at you you know he’s going to destroy every relationship, He’s incredibly predictable.

  32. *********SPOILERS***********
    Sorry, I can’t say this without being spoiler heavy, so please skip if you haven’t seen Act III yet.
    I like that Joss’ work doesn’t reset every episode. However, I do think it goes too far sometimes.
    Seasons 6 and 7 of Buffy were really hard to take. I didn’t watch them at the time, and I’ve still never watched most of season 6 because it was just too depressing. It stopped being something I enjoyed. Actually, it stopped being something the makers enjoyed, Sarah Michelle Geller told Whedon that she felt lost that season.
    Then Fred’s end in Angel felt unnecessary. By that point I was actually okay with Firefly ending. I liked the show a lot, but something told me that if it had lasted long enough, Kaylee would have been raped by season 5.
    That’s where I agree with JasonK. I don’t think that things need to be happy all the time and I don’t think that characters should never die. But Whedon puts his characters through so much crap that it gets to be too much sometimes, almost to the point that it isn’t even a surprise when it happens anymore.
    If Penny hadn’t died, I don’t for a moment think she’d have wanted to be with Dr. Horrible once she knew he was evil. So that relationship was doomed and I’m okay with that. But her death and the general tone made Act III feel like a very different show from Act I. Act I was a nice little comedy about a bumbling supervillain who occasionally bursts into song. Once I fell in love with that, I didn’t really required full-on, brutal reality.
    I’m not saying I didn’t like the ending. It’s a very emotional, powerful ending. But at the end of the first act, I was wishing that things would work out so that Whedon, Harris, Fillion and crew could make more episodes, which they’ve hinted that they’re thinking about. Now I don’t feel that way. Now I feel like the story is done and I don’t really want any more. It was good, it was really good, but I want more of the light, happy show I saw in Act I, and I feel that’s gone now.

  33. Jason m thank you.
    Here’s the ironic part, I couldn’t really get into it the first time I saw it, couldn’t figure out why. after the shoe dropped. That’s when I realised I was protecting myself against exactly this.
    That Joss was going to pull something and screw it over.
    Now that I’m not emotionally invested I can enjoy the lyrics and the jokes more.
    I think part of what is bothering some people me included is when joss did interviews on this thing he said stuff like
    “A supervillain who just can’t get a break…I don’t want to say he’s a loser, buuuut… It’s the sort of thing that appeals to me – it’s very personal, it’s about loneliness and who we are, but it’s all wrapped up in the skin of silly.”
    So to stick this gut shot in at the end feels like a he did this who bait and switch bit and it’s not particularly honest.

  34. Well written and acted, although Whedon is predictable. Aside from a line here or there, I couldn’t even get into it until the last couple minutes of Act 2.
    A lot of people have been saying how brilliant this was, but I’m not really seeing anything special with it.

  35. *** More Act III Spoilers ***
    Once I fell in love with that, I didn’t really required full-on, brutal reality.
    It wasn’t even reality. I mean, come on. The pieces of the gun just happen to impale her. Fatally. Alone, among all the people in the crowded room, including one unambiguously not-invulnerable person who was about an inch away from it when it exploded. It’s completely ridiculous and over-the-top, much like the forty minutes that came before it. Which make the gear-shift into the extremely depressing ending even more jarring and bizarre. You’re expecting something just as insane to happen as a final reversal to make a happy(ish) ending. That’s how things had been going so far, and it was working out pretty well. No reason to fix what wasn’t broken.
    It reminded me of something PAD said in “Writing For Comics,” about how people will generally accept an unexpected contrived twist at the end if it leads to a happy ending, even if it makes no logical sense. And it’s true. How many one-in-a-million shots or lucky breaks or unexpected changes of heart have resulted in happy endings in stories throughout history? Whedon seems to like turning that on it’s head, using an unexpected contrived twist to bring about a sad ending. That’s nice, in that it gives it an extra emotional punch because no one sees the sad ending coming, but it’s bad in that it’s, well, contrived. People don’t give too much attention to things that work, which is why you can get away with a contrived happy ending, but they will notice things that don’t work, which makes a contrived unhappy ending dangerous. The instinct is to go back and look at what went wrong, and if what went wrong came out of nowhere and makes no sense (the gun exploded, but most of it ended up in one spot twenty feet away. What, did Penny have a magnetic ribcage?), well, that’s just no good. It makes the audience antagonistic toward the story. “Dude, Story, what the hëll?” they think. “What’s with developing your emotional beats in an unnatural fashion that prevents me from accompanying you to an honest catharsis, leaving me perturbed and resentful when the credits roll? Don’t be such a DB.”
    In retrospect, I should’ve watched it as it came out instead of saving it to do it all in one shot. Then I would’ve had more time enjoying it. These Whedon endings have a way of tainting the rest of the production for me, no matter how much I’d been liking it up to that point.

  36. It wasn’t even reality. I mean, come on. The pieces of the gun just happen to impale her. Fatally. Alone, among all the people in the crowded room, including one unambiguously not-invulnerable person who was about an inch away from it when it exploded.
    Well, now, to be fair, that’s not true. The room wasn’t at all crowded. The majority of the people had fled, and the few who remained–such as the Cpt. Hammer groupies–were hiding behind chairs. The only bystander out in the open was Penny.
    Further, the film really did have a happy ending; it was just a horrible happy ending. Billy had aspirations to be a supervillain, to crush his nemesis, and to have the girl of his dreams. He achieved two of his three goals, and the third was precluded by the first two. The irony was, of course, that he had to tell himself that he was dead inside in order to enjoy his success, except we’re left wondering whether he’s telling the truth about that or if he’s lying to us or to himself.
    The only way he could have achieved it all is if, as I suggested, Penny was truly Bad Horse. The fact that so many people immediately said, “Yeah, I was thinking that, too,” suggests it would have been the wrong way to go, because if that many people thought of it, then it’s predictable. And that’s no good.
    I’m reminded of when I took Gwen to see the DeCaprio/Danes version of “Romeo & Juliet,”and the theater was filled with teens who had apparently never taken a single literature class, or had just slept through it if they had. And they were flabbergasted when the leads died; they had expected a happy ending. But would R&J really have been memorable if they had lived happily ever after?
    The tragic fact, my friends, is that there is no such thing as happily ever after. What part of “Till death do us part” is unclear? Every relationship ends sadly because, sooner or later, one of the partners dies, leaving the other bereft and abandoned. The only relationship I can think of in the whole of literature in which the couple remains together eternally is the myth about the couple who made the gods promise they would never, ever be apart. When it came time for them to die, they were transformed into trees and their branches intertwined. Thus would they remain, forever, which is kind of sweet until you figure that at some point some áššhølë came along, chopped them down and turned them into kindling.
    In my humble opinion, the ending made perfect sense. If you want realistic, then the realistic take is that no goal worth having is ever achieved without sacrifice. In this case, Dr. H’s goal was to become a truly feared villain, and the sacrifice called for was the girl he loved. He managed to get what was important to him, and the true Whedonesque twist was that he was left wondering whether his priorities were out of whack. Well, that, and the fact that Bad Horse was really a horse, which in retrospect had me saying, “Yeah, should have seen that coming. After all, a horse is a horse, of course, of course.”
    What pìššëd me off was the newspaper headline at the end that referred to the “Heroes Girlfriend”–the plural form–rather than “Hero’s Girlfriend,” which would have been the correct singular possessive. What, Joss couldn’t take thirty seconds to proofread the dámņëd prop?
    PAD

  37. Plus it was written and done as a self-contained one-off. It’s been rather successful and there might be more but it tells a story itself. I wonder how much of the disappointment with the episode stems with people hoping to have spent more time with these characters as they were in Act 1. It’s also a fairly traditional supervillian origin story – horrific incident involving a hero turns antagonist evil.

  38. SPOILERS FOR ACT III
    I’ve been thinking about the Death Ray explosion and the improbability of Dr. Horrible surviving it. I don’t think that it was random chance at all. Dr. Horrible fired it several times during his musical number and it fired without problem. He’s got a history of fights going wrong with Captain Hammer and I think that he predicted that the Capt. (or someone else) might get the Death Ray away from him. I think that the gun was bøøbÿ trapped so that if anyone besides Horrible tried to fire it, it would explode (in such a way that the pieces would avoid the target). Either that, or the forces of tragic irony made sure that the only person hurt in the blast was the one person Horrible would have rather died than to see killed. But I like my explanation better.

  39. PAD, I agree that the “Penny is Evil” ending wouldn’t have been a good idea. It’s really too easy for Penny to end up with Billy because of a last second revelation. I also see the drama of the the ending. He’s trying to do be evil, that requires killing people, sooner or later someone he cares about is going to get hurt. That’s why I called the ending realistic, not because of the mechanics of where the shrapnel flew, but because there’s no way a villain could love an innocent without seriously hurting her eventually.
    But that’s not the problem I had. I had a problem with tone. You mentioned Romeo and Juliet. That was a tragedy, and it was a drama that clearly builds to being a tragedy right from the beginning. Well, I don’t always want to watch a tragedy. Sometimes I want something lighter. Watching Act I of Dr. Horrible, I thought I had something much lighter.
    Take the show Scrubs, for example. There’s actually a lot of death in that comedy. They even killed a recurring character and took several episodes to explore that. But it didn’t massively change the tone of the show. Even while people mourned, it still kept the same light tone it always had. If they killed Eliot and the next five episodes became so dramatic that the show would be better described as a tragedy, that would feel wrong.
    Dr. Horrible had that kind of shift. I can’t say I didn’t like the ending, because it certainly was powerful. But I had problems with it. Yet when I say that, it might be that the beginning was what I had problems with. If the beginning had felt more like the end tonally, if things had been a little less silly and fun, I might have sat back and enjoyed a good tragedy.
    I don’t always want Romeo and Juliet, especially if I thought I was getting Kim Possible.

  40. I think that the gun was bøøbÿ trapped so that if anyone besides Horrible tried to fire it, it would explode (in such a way that the pieces would avoid the target).
    No. Watch it again. It’s clear that what’s happening is that the Death Ray is malfunctioning, just as the Freeze Ray did. When Captain Hammer is aiming it at Doc, Doc isn’t looking at Hammer so much as he is at major short circuiting occurring within the barrel of the gun. While Hammer is talking, Doc is saying, “No,” not out of fear, but because he’s trying to warn Hammer about the danger if he pulls the trigger. But Hammer is oblivious to the warning and fires the gun. With the location of the malfunction, it’s obviously the equivalent of a blockage in the front of a shotgun. The force is directed back and out–pretty much anywhere except at its intended target. That’s why the Doc is untouched: The shards of the gun are blown every direction except down.
    You mentioned Romeo and Juliet. That was a tragedy, and it was a drama that clearly builds to being a tragedy right from the beginning.
    Except, aside from the prologue in which we learn early on of their tragic fate, it’s not a heavy handed drama to start. There’s action (a brawl in the street), comedy (Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech), light-hearted and passionate romance. The tonal shift doesn’t really begin until the death of Mercutio (which the Zeffereli version craftily played for laughs, with Mercutio horsing around more than anything else; his fatal stabbing is clearly an accident and a shock to all) and Romeo’s subsequent killing of Tybalt. Likewise the tonal shift in “Dr. H” which occurs when the Doc resolves to kill Hammer.
    To me the most interesting contrast between the two is that Doctor Horrible, when he had Captain Hammer completely at his mercy, was paralyzed by indecision. But Captain Hammer, with Doctor Horrible at HIS mercy, pulled the trigger with no remorse and no second thought. The bad guy couldn’t kill; the good guy didn’t hesitate.
    PAD

  41. Here’s how you do the sequel and make everyone happy: The brilliant doc invents a way to stop Penny’s death, but it means losing to Captain Hammer and incurring the wrath of Bad Horse and the League. He does it anyway. Penny lives, and the fact that Captain Hammer has saved her life again makes her set aside the qualms she was clearly having about his character. Her relationship with him is more solid than ever.
    Moreover, she now knows Billy is evil. And her boyfriend’s nemesis. Life for the Doc is tougher than ever. But he accepts it, knowing the world without Penny is worse.
    Then, you get back to the hilarity.

  42. No. Watch it again. It’s clear that what’s happening is that the Death Ray is malfunctioning, just as the Freeze Ray did. When Captain Hammer is aiming it at Doc, Doc isn’t looking at Hammer so much as he is at major short circuiting occurring within the barrel of the gun.
    Ack! You’re so right. Back to the forces of tragic irony, then. Too bad, because I liked the thought of Horrible’s own bøøbÿ trap being what killed Penny.
    The bad guy couldn’t kill; the good guy didn’t hesitate.
    I really liked that dichotomy as well. It’s perhaps the best illustration of the contrasts that both characters have between their motives and their methods. Horrible wants to make the world a better place, but sees the only way to accomplish that is him being in total control. So he becomes a villain bent on world conquest–for our own good. Hammer, OTOH, is obviously only in the whole hero business as means of self-aggrandizement. He’s shallow and doesn’t care about anything or anyone but himself, but he’s learned to put on a pleasing face so that he can get good headlines and hot chicks. Of course that’s pretty much obvious from his first scene when he lets an out of control van go careening through the streets so that he can chat up some fans.

  43. PAD: “Except, aside from the prologue in which we learn early on of their tragic fate, it’s not a heavy handed drama to start. There’s action (a brawl in the street), comedy (Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech), light-hearted and passionate romance.”
    I’m not a big Shakespeare fan, but I love the Queen Mab speech. So you’re right, there is more than just drama at the beginning of Romeo and Juliet.
    However, it still seems vastly different than Dr. Horrible. Despite there being some comedy in Romeo and Juliet, it still got across that there was a serious problem coming to a head between the two families. Dr. Horrible got across the idea that nobody had ever really gotten hurt before, that Billy had never tried to really hurt anyone and Captain Hammer had thrown a car at his head which only gave Dr. Horrible a bruise. I stick by my assertion that Act I is a lot more like Scrubs and Act III is a lot more like Romeo and Juliet.
    It’s not a game killer for me. I understand why he did it and I see it as a valid choice. I just think there are other endings I would have enjoyed more, even some where Penny ran screaming from Billy.

  44. The two things that leaped out at me were, as others noted, this was an utterly typical “supervillain origin story” that sneaked up on us.
    The other was that Joss has always said that his philosophy is to give the viewers not what they want, but what they need. With Dr. Horrible, we see why he does this — Billy gets what he wants most of all, and in the process loses that which he needs most of all.
    Gut-punched by Joss. It’s practically a way of life.
    J.

  45. That was great!
    I hadn’t seen or even heard of this until your blog entry yesterday. It was a Whedon ending.

  46. The bad guy couldn’t kill; the good guy didn’t hesitate.
    The other bit I noticed was that the “good guy” Cap. Hammer was wearing black while the “bad guy” Dr. Horrible was wearing white. At least until Penny, his true love, died, and Doc switched to blood red and black.

  47. After watching it way too many times, there are some great bits…
    1) Billy blogging at the end (the only time he’s not Dr. Horrible while blogging, because Billy is now who he wants to be)
    2) Watching NPH switch between Billy and Dr. Horrible throughout… when he’s blinking, he’s Billy, it’s wonderful…
    3) Billy’s choices and their consequences. He chooses Dr. Horrible over Penny every time… he blows her off during the heist, he doesn’t tell her Capt. Hammer’s plans (instead using them as justification to fulfill his ELE duties), and he shows up blowing holes in the homeless shelter *SHE* worked on, in order to strike at Capt. Hammer… he deserved to lose her, even though none of us wanted him to. 🙁

  48. PAD: What pìššëd me off was the newspaper headline at the end that referred to the “Heroes Girlfriend”–the plural form–rather than “Hero’s Girlfriend,” which would have been the correct singular possessive. What, Joss couldn’t take thirty seconds to proofread the dámņëd prop?
    On the other hand, the type-o could be attributed to the “MSM” not caring a whit about their own accuracy or Penny at all (maybe someone thought she was another Hero groupie, thus the plural). Even if it’s the former, it remains a small but subtle language dig at our media’s accuracy standards. Such a reading is a possibility, given the vapid TV anchors portrayed earlier. That was certainly — well, let’s say hopefully — a satirical exaggeration.
    AD

  49. PAD: “To me the most interesting contrast between the two is that Doctor Horrible, when he had Captain Hammer completely at his mercy, was paralyzed by indecision. But Captain Hammer, with Doctor Horrible at HIS mercy, pulled the trigger with no remorse and no second thought. The bad guy couldn’t kill; the good guy didn’t hesitate.”
    Yeah, the good guy who’s really bad and the bad guy who’s really good is a neat thing. I’ve never rooted for the bad guy so much.
    However, when I think about it, this may be a twist on storytelling but it isn’t a twist on reality. I’ve run into cops who were complete áššhølëš, jerks who became cops because they could act like bullies and get away with it. That’s Captain Hammer.
    Then there are groups like PETA, the radical elements of which think they’re making things better, but they often employ tactics that aren’t far from super villainy. Is Dr. Horrible’s quest to improve the world by ruling it much different?
    BTW, I wouldn’t say that Dr. Horrible was “paralyzed by indecision”. He hesitated for a second or two, no more. I’d say he didn’t really get to the point of making the final decision of whether or not to pull the trigger. So even he doesn’t know what he would have done if the freeze ray hadn’t stopped working. Either way, he didn’t actually kill anyone. If there’s ever a sequel, I’m betting it will start with Dr. Horrible feeling like a fraud.

  50. On the other hand, the type-o could be attributed to the “MSM” not caring a whit about their own accuracy or Penny at all (maybe someone thought she was another Hero groupie, thus the plural).
    A nice No-Prize explanation, but I have to think that was the wrong moment in the film to introduce a withering commentary on the nation’s deteriorating standards for spelling. I think it far more likely that the newspaper for “Dr. Horrible” was typeset by the same prop people who, in the substantially higher budgeted “Iron Man,” had a magazine cover that read, “Tony Stark Takes the Reigns.”
    PAD

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