Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog!

This might be the best thing I have watched in a long time.

You can watch it now on Hulu.  It is full of win!

Thanks for whatshername for telling me about Hulu.  I swear I not only live on a rock but some days I live under one too!

You can also check out the Dr. Horrible website for the story.

*Update w/ commentary

After reading the discussion from Holly’s post at Feministe, and not being able to comment at whatshername’s place, I opted to dissect it right here.  

DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN IT YET!!!1!Whedon is a friggin’ genius.  He has finally done what he has always seemed to want to and has created the “normal” girl.  She is the strong character b/c she does the right thing w/ the right motives for the right reasons.  She is nice and caring and wants to make an actual difference.  She gets in there and tries.

I read criticism where Whedon is criticized b/c this girl is weak, as in she doesn’t get anything done herself.  That is exactly the point.  She is overshadowed and silenced by the pissing contests of the men around her.  This is the reality that Joss sees for women.  Captain Hammer takes from her what she is trying to do.  He doesn’t stand beside her to accomplish what she sees needs to be done, he takes control and does it for her, to impress her.  It is, after all, all about the sex.  (Make no mistake, the hammer is his penis!)  Women are silenced and the work they do diminished b/c of the war games that men play.

Neil Patrick Harris’ Nice Guy™ is spot on.  He is so busy whining about how the cool guys always get the girl that he fails to take the opportunity to talk to her when she flirts w/ him.  You are meant to like him at first, if not through the whole thing (if you are not aware of the Nice Guy™ you probably will like him throughout the whole show, he is supposed to be sympathetic).  What I love about NPH is that he does the best Straight Guy caricature ever.  He always nails the “I am the epitome of what it means to be a heterosexual man” every time.  Dr. Horrible is too busy scheming and trying to find a way to “win” Penny that he misses all of the opportunities where she genuinely liked him b/c he was genuinely likable.  But, alas, the attention he paid her was all a game to get her to like him.  Now he and CH are playing the same game.

And that is what happened at the end.  Penny’s death is the direct result of a couple of children fighting over a toy until it breaks.  Now, we all know that Joss Whedon has the tendency sadistic fucking need to kill off truly good characters to show the consequences of the other characters.  You can almost always trace the death of a good person to the act of another in his world, a la Fred, or Tara, or Shepherd Book, or even Drogyn.  Just like when I talked about how he explored the consequences that Buffy’s world saving decision had on other people in ways she couldn’t have anticipated, I will point to you how Whedon clearly demonstrates that people die as a result of other people’s wars (think, Simon, River and all the people who died keeping them from the Alliance).  His point is always that good people die while other people play Masters of the Universe, and IRL, that is usually men in power.  That is what happened to Penny, a truly good character caught in a fight between men who were missing the point.

So bravo!  Whedon is a fucking genius again!

I open this thread for thoughtful discussion.  But rules of the Moderatrix apply.

Oh, and BTW, did anyone else catch how it could possibly have been a daydream of DH playing the whole thing out in his head?  In the very last second?