I never thought I'd say this, but thank God for the strike! During the writer's strike, Joss Whedon set about making a movie for the Internet, completely circumventing the system. The result is Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog. While its not technically TV, I think the combination of Joss Whedon and Neil Patrick Harris places this firmly in our jurisdiction. So if you haven't seen it yet, run to this site to enjoy Act I and then rejoin me below.
Back yet?
Okay. Act I is mainly set-up, introducing us to Dr. Horrible and his world. Dr. Horrible is a supervillain, although not a great one, who has his own video blog. Dr. Horrible is close to achieving his goal of building a freeze ray and taking over the world. However, he has a problem: he's in love with Penny, a girl from his laundromat, and he can't get up the courage to speak to her. These forces collide during an attempted heist, which is interrupted when Penny talks to him. Unfortunately for Dr. Horrible, his heist is also interrupted by his nemesis, Captain Hammer.
To put it simply, I thought Dr. Horrible was glorious. Despite being mainly devoted the introducing everything, the show was incredibly entertaining and hilarious. Neil Patrick Harris is, of course, outstanding. His Dr. Horrible is just an average nerd who happens to be an evil scientist. He also perfectly gets the slightly bored, slightly annoyed tone that most video bloggers adopt, complete with the heavy sighs and awkward pauses. The normally likeable Nathan Fillion is great as the obnoxious Captain Hammer. However, the biggest surprise was probably Felicia Day. I hadn't heard of her before this (although IMDB says she was one of the Slayerettes in the 7th season of Buffy), but she's quite funny and has an excellent singing voice. Speaking of singing, I thought the songs were ridiciously catchy. My favorite was "Stop the World."
All in all, this was a great introduction, I'm really excited to see where Whedon goes from here.
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