Joss Whedon, best known for Firefly, Serenity, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV Series), does the geek world justice with the three part series Dr Horribles Sing-Along-Blog.  Combining comedy and drama with elements of geek, internet and comic book culture wrapped up in a musical candy-coating, Dr Horrible has to be one of the best productions I have seen since HBO’s Rome.  Click the following link to read the review.

Staring Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser MD), Nathan Fillion (Firefly) and Felicia Day (The Guild), the story begins with Dr Horrible (Harris) recording a video blog post about his plans of evil while at the same time answering blog reader questions.  During this portion of Act 1 his love interest is revealed.  Penny (Day), whom he briefly speaks with at the local laundromat while in his alter-ego persona of ‘Billy’, is portrayed as the typical ‘cute girl next door’, whereas Billy (Dr Horrible) is portrayed as the classic love-struck geek; stumbling over his words as he talks, hiding behind his iPhone as to not get into any deep conversation.  It is also during this first scene in the laundromat that the first “sing along” part of the series begins.

Dr Horrible’s first act of evil is the theaft of a compound that will assist him in making a freeze ray, however, during the theaft the anti-villian/antagonist/all-around-dick, Captain Hammer (Fillion), appears.  Dr Horrible’s theaft has quite the unforseen outcome as it brings together Captain Hammer and Penny.  As the series continues into Act 2 and 3, we learn more about Dr Horrible’s motives.

I went into this series not really knowing what to expect.  The series artwork that appears on the iTunes Music Store has a very 1950s Sci-Fi look to it, but upon sitting down and watching the first act it was quite a different story.  The series reminded me a bit of the old Flash TV series, as well as the old Adam West Batman series, when it came to the comical portrayal of the heroes and villians.

I’ve never been much of a fan of musicals, especially Disney musicals.  I guess comical, or in the case of Disney, cartoony musicals just overloaded on the cute factor more than I could stomach.  Dr Horrible, however, was one of the very few musicals that I could actually sit back, watch and enjoy.

The series has a good amount of “mark out moments”.  I first found myself saying “Hey, isn’t that Doogie Howser?” and then immediatly being surprised that he is actually quite a talented singer.  Following DrH was Captain Hammer who I was REALLY surprised about how well he could also sing.  Penny, however, was the most interesting part for me.  I didn’t really recognize her from anything, as I never watched the Buffy TV series.  When I researched what other works she was in I discovered that she plays the lead roal in the internet-based video series “The Guild”, a fictional story about the real-world players of World of Warcraft.

While the three-part series, as a whole, was quite entertaining I couldn’t help but feel that all of the story elements and plot points had been done before in other movies, TV shows and the like.  What Dr Horrible does, however, is present those elements and points together in a very enjoyable way.  While I did find myself sarcasticly thinking “wow, haven’t seen that plot device before!”, I also found myself pulled into the whole story from start to finish, regardless of the fact that the story is quite brief.

After finishing up with Act 3 and being very much held in suspence for a good 4-5 minutes after the climax, we are treated with the completion of Dr Horrible’s goal.  We are left wondering if there will be any more stories from within this universe that Joss Whedon created.

Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog: Act 1 is available for free from the official Dr Horrible website, and all three acts are individually available on for the low price of $1.99 each.  Every geek should watch this series at least once in their life.  In my opinion, Dr Horrible could be considered, though in smaller ‘bite-sized’ form, a very much modern and geeky take on Phantom of the Opera.