Reviews of Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog: Act I, II and III
Everyone in the news gets to write their own reviews, and after the last act I feel so compelled. Major spoilers below, so if you are going to watch it, watch it before reading. Joss Whedon is better viewed unspoiled. And if you are going to watch it it goes away tomorrow at midnight. So watch it for free at drhorrible.com now.
CAST:
Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible
Felica Day as Penny
Nathan Fillion as Captain Hammer
ACT I
Yes! It's finally here. Opening credits to our first glimpse of Dr. Horrible, dressed in stereotypical mad scientist gear. He's laughing, evil laughing, but it needs some work. Don't worry he's got a vocal coach. He's trying to get in the Evil League of Evil, and his awaiting the response to his application which is especially strong this year. Emails! The first is sarcasm which gets sarcasm in response. Question is where is the gold you said you stole? Oh it's here liquifed in a plastic bag. Doesn't look like gold though; it looks like...yuck. Seems like he's not the best villian out there. But "the world's a mess...and I just gotta rule it." Next email is from Johnny Snow who sets up the explanation of the relationship Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer have. Hammer: hero, Horrible: not, and has a weird concern for kids for a villian. Next email asks about the "her" he's always referencing to. "Her?" Must be a girl...that is was "her"s generally imply. And ooh music! Which means our very first song. It's a ditty about laundry day and the girl of his affections doing it beside him, but how he can't manage to talk to her. But he's show her once he gets his freeze ray online which does not freeze water, but time. The song's okay, but I love Neil Patrick Harris's expressions. "With my freeze ray I will stop..."
Back to the Web Blog and who walked through the door, why it's Moist, the disturbingly sweaty wonder. He brings soggy mail. Boring joke about a date of Moist's, whom I don't care for. But hey Dr. Horrible only a few weeks away from "audible connection" with Penny! In the mail...is it? Yes! It's a letter from Bad Horse, the leader of the Evil League of Evil! And wow...singing cowboys. They sing the letter which basically says do something really evil and you're in. Dr. Horrible sets out to do evil, but stealing the key ingredient for his freeze ray.
Hey it's Penny! She singing, quite prettily, of signing a petition for the homeless. Oh she's one of those. Those goody-goody characters. That is so uninteresting, but I'll give it some time, maybe she has something more to her.
Dr. Horrible in normal attire spies the van from which he wishes to steal. He in a bad CGI-way attaches a control device so he can control the van with his iPhone remote. He's just started the van when AH!!! IT'S PENNY SINGING GOODY_GOODY! Dr. Horrible/(also Billy) is shocked by the girl of his dreams whom he's never talked to until now. Hilarious to Slightly hilarious conversation follows about the homeless, with Dr. Horrible clearly being distracted by his remote control which he claims to be texting on. He gets even more distracted and Penny leaves to bother more people about getting signatures for a new building for the homeless.
Dr. Horrible wonders whether he should go after her, but in the end decides, "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do." New song! He gets changed to his disguise and he's singing but then gets interrupted by none other than: Captain Hammer! From's Captain Hammer's song it appears he's a little (or a lot) full of himself, but his hair looks good blowing in the wind. Also Nathan Fillion good singer, but not great. The van which Dr. Horrible was trying to get to him so he could just pick off what he wanted to steal starts going awol when Captain Hammer smashings the control device. The van careers and is about to hit...Penny! Dr. Horrible sees this and frantically tries to get his remote to work, hitting the brake button. Captain Hammer is there though and pushes, quite roughly, Penny into a pile of garbage. Thanks to Dr. Horrible the van does brake and stops before it hits Captain Hammer, but Penny doesn't see because she has a faceful of garbage. Dr. Horrible accosts Captain Hammer. "You idiot! She could have died!" "Is she blee.." He gets stopped though when Captain Hammer starts strangling Dr. Horrible. Penny gets up and starts singing about her thanks for Captain Hammer. Captain Hammer smashes Dr. Horrible into the van hood on beat. Nice. Captain sings it's okay a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do apparently. Then into a three piece song with Captain Hammer and Penny giving each other moony eyes and Dr. Horrible not believing his bad luck. But it doesn't stop him from taking the freeze ray ingredient: wonderflonium off the van while Captain Hammer's distracted. The song and act ends with a angered "Balls" on beat from Dr. Horrible. Beautiful.
ACT II
The opening credits lead us to a quietly distraught Dr. Horrible. Those seconds we spend on his face are classic Whedon; Whedon has always loved those moments but studios haven't so in this new media uncontrolled by studios, he takes advantage. The music brings us to the first song of the Act. Dr. Horrible stalkishly watches Captain Hammer and Penny on their date...in a homeless shelter, as we see as Penny takes over the song. I loved Captain Hammer's expression of being touched by a homeless guy, wiping the dirt off his shoulder. Hysterically Dr. Horrible takes over as soup man in the background, forgetting to put soup in the bowl. Oh yeah and he's wearing a big black mustace. The nest scene in the song is a continuation of the date, Captain Hammer and Penny eating frozen yougurt on a park bench with the various park birds which his face of disgust is directed towards. Luckily Penny doesn't see him as she's still singing, but now it's a duet with Dr. Horrible. Penny is talking about goodness and light and Dr. Horrible is singing about the "filth and lies." Finally the song climaxes in a split screen with Dr. Horrible on the outside in the dark and Penny in the light. Then cut to black, another love of Joss Whedon. It's a very good song, my personal favorite of the series.
At this point I have to ponder that a relationship between Dr. Horrible and Penny simply wouldn't work. She is too bubble-gum good and his main aspiration in life is to be a villian. Granted he hasn't managed to be a good villian yet, but VILLIAN! I mean come on.'
Back to the Coin Laundry where Penny and Dr. Horrible, aka Billy, are chatting about laundry. Simple chatting on Penny's side, awkward flirting sort of on Billy's side. "Hey I got two frozen yogurts, want one? I know you do, because I know you love frozen yogurt, because of the awesome singing/stalking I was doing yesterday." (Not a direct quote.) They start talking about Penny's date, and when she says she's going to see him again, there is an awesome moment where Dr. Horrible sinks a spork in his leg, Penny mentions it and they have awkward laughing as the spork drives down deeper into his leg. Other great quotes in here.
To the Web Blog! Dr. Horrible is got the Freeze Ray ready with the stolen Wonderflonium, talks about that and they drifts off on a rant about how Penny and Captain Hammer could be "french-kissing." He heads out ready to freeze, and leaves us with "Peace! Well not literally."
Back to the Web Blog and it looks like it did not go Dr. Horrible's way. He's got a bruise over his left eye. His voice here is amazing to me. A voice of a man who just got a car thrown at his head (Thanks Captian Hammer!) and is down. Apparently the police and Captain Hammer watch the blog...oooh that sucks. But he's going...oh wait he's getting a call. Ah...the Bad Horse cowboys are back. They sing he's gotta kill someone now if he wants to get into the Evil League of Evil.
Dr. Horrible ponders whether he can kill someone and Moist offers suggestions. A kid that's going to be president. He can't kill a kid. "Smother an old lady?" "Do I know you?" I'm going to take this chance to say Moist is just icky. And also "I've got a Ph.D in horribleness" is not the best catchphrase. If he took off the -ness it would be slightly better.
Coin Laundry! Penny and Billy are eating frozen yogurt and Billy's talking about this "job" which he knows he deserves. He wants to be an acheiever like Bad Horse. Wait no...he means Gandhi. You see right there is an example of how their relationship couldn't work out. He doesn't want to be good and she doesn't want to be evil. But then I'm given a slight hope when Penny talks abotu being fired. Makes me think maybe she went ballistic and she's really someone interesting on the inside. I just can't beleive that Joss wrote a woman to be so two-dimensional. She makes it worse by singing about hope. The small song almost results in a kiss between Penny and Billy, but no. Penny says Billy may get to meet Captain Hammer. Huh? He's coming over right now. Dr. Horrible/Billy rushes out to avoid his nemesis. My second favorite quote of the Act is here, "Look at my wrist! I gotta go." Neil Patrick Harris manages to handle Whedon comedy really well.
But oh no here's Captain Hammer and he thinks Billy looks "horribly" familiar. The way the word is delivered is in my opinion perfect. They chat, then Penny goes off to get her clothes out of the dryer. Captain Hammer recognized Billy for what he was and knowing he has a crush on Penny (he does watch the blog) tells Dr. Horrible all the things he gonna do to Penny, sex things. And with this conversation comes the best quote, "And these are not the hammer." then Nathan comes back and hilarious deconstructing the joke, "The Hammer is my penis." Moments like these makes love Nathan so much more. Captain Hammer leaves with Penny.
Close up of Dr. Horrible's face, and he's slowly grinning? What? He launches into the beginning of a new song, a rockish song. He's happy because it's a Brand New Day and Captain Hammer made his choice to kill so much easier because he's going to kill the good (sort of ) Captain.
There's one moment in this song which I was disappointed with. He's throwing darts at an unknown source, which I suspected was a pic of Captain Hammer's face, but nothing could be so predictable in a Whedon production. Well yep it was. Not classic Whedon. The song ends with Dr. Horrible as a giant stomping on things, finishing by stomping on a scared-looking Captain Hammer.
ACT III
The last act. For the first time we don't go to Dr. Horrible after the opening credits, instead it's a news broadcast with Buffy writers Marti Noxon and David Fury as anchors. They report about the dedication of the homeless shelter along with a dedication of a statue of Captain Hammer. Oh Captain Hammer, you couldn't resist could ya? Well at least "it's a good day to be homeless" reports Marti-anchor. Music leads us to Dr. Horrible's lair where he's busy working. But then cut to moving men who start the song. The music reminds me of the eighties, but that could just be me. It seems it's a song where lots of different people sing about Captain Hammer and the homeless shelter. Best part of this song are these three Hammer fans with t-shirts chatting about how they have a problem with Penny, but hey some of Hammer's hair! Very nice singing all around. Also David Fury's "Next up: Who's Gay?" makes me laugh every single time. And Captain Hammer's idea that sleeping with the same girl twice means you get to do the weird stuff. Awesome. I'm going to pause to say once again how much I love Nathan Fillion. K. Unpause. Oh but wait it looks like Penny's not completely happy. She's at the coin laundry with two frozen yogurts, but no Billy! No, Billy is his lair writing fake equations on his white board. He won't even answer a call from Moist and this pink pig costumed evildoer, huh? Who's he? We don't find out. Dr. Horrible joins with Penny singing, "There's no happy ending." Well that's not promising. No Brand New Day. Looks like the Stun Guy got modified to a death ray, though I hope he did more to modify it than just put the word "Death" over "Stun" with tape.
Cut to the homeless shelter where the mayor is talking and asks Captain Hammer to come up and speech. He starts off, "I hate the homeless..." Next speech card, "...ness problem." Funny. He then tossing away the cards, and talks about his girlfriend, and goes into a song about how everyone is a hero...in a way. The song is eh. During it though he manages to insult Penny by calling her nerdish and then later tells everyone they had sex. Penny starts to slink away as the song goes on. The song goes on for too long. Nathan like I said is a good singer but just doesn't have the chops for a solo that's interesting, so we're left with boring. The crowd starts waving their arms like in a rock concert. That's sorta interesting. Fortunately the song gets stopped by Dr. Horrible (when Captain Hammer was certain to deliver a forced ugly note) and his freeze ray, which were pretending to be the Captain Hammer statue hidden over a red blanket.
Dr. Horrible wastes no time and freezes Captain Hammer and then gives his perfected evil laugh. Nice work Dr. Horrible. Okay now kill him! No? Another song? Well at least it's a good song whose music stylings remind me of Sweeny Todd and Sondheim. He is more than a little scary in this and I'm loving it as you wait on edge to see what he's going to do next. And then he pulls out his death ray and shoots up the ceiling is a part which again reminds me of Sweeny Tood. The lighting goes from blues to reds, so you know something gonna go down. He terrorizes the crowd for a bit (also he makes sure the reporter gets down the "two r's in horrible"), no killing though, and then approaches the frozen Captain Hammer to finish him off. We get a shot of Penny watching and you think she's going to stop him, but instead...the freeze wears off and all that Dr. Horrible gets is a blow to the face. The death ray flies from his hands and hits the ground. Some noises and lights indicate the death ray is broken, though not unoperational looks like. Captain Hammer picks up the defective weapon and put a foot on Dr. Horrible's chest as he points the ray at him. He makes sure to finish that awful note of his song though and gives Horrible the finger. Classy. Even though Dr. Horrible protests, more indicating that he knew the weapon was defective than he wanted to live, Captain Hammer pulls the trigger. The ray explodes into several shrapnel pieces embedding themselves in the wall and hitting Captain Hammer though he looks mostly unaffected, despite the fact he's crying like a baby about the pain. "Oh mama! Someone maternal!" He runs off tail between his legs. Dr. Horrible gets up and surveys the room where he spots something. Oh look it's Penny...sitting against the wall...bleeding just a bit from the load of shrapnel in her chest! Dr. Horrible goes over to her, but since Joss Whedon wrote this she dies, but not before she says, "Don't worry Captain Hammer will save us." Ouch. The hurt in Billy's eyes is tangible. He is so clearly devastated. (Joss Whedon: relationship and people killer everyone. I don't think he gets his jollies unless he kills someone.)
With eyes watering he starts singing about how here's his victory. He did kill someone, accidentally, but it still counts. Reporters accost him as he picks up Penny's body and lays it on a stretcher. I must say Neil Patrick Harris sells the death very well. I thought Felica Day could have been slightly better though. As the stretcher rolls away, Dr. Horrible sings, "He's Fine." Oh oh. Looks like he's going to take his pain and become the villain he always wanted to be. Well that's makes sense. Penny was the only thing keeping him good it seemed. Without her, why bother? Newspapers flash on the screen about how Dr. Horrible killed Captain Hammer's girlfriend, what's her name. We see the news anchors crying and Dr. Horrible going through the motions of a bank robbery with Moist as his henchman holding the loot, or trying to with his trademark slippery hands. Next up is Captain Hammer on a psychiatrist's couch still whining about his pain. Baby. The three Hammer fans have changed loyalties and are wearing Dr. Horrible shirts and the goggles instead. Then sweet! Party! Dr. Horrible strides through the crowd of evil-doers (oh! and the cowboys!) with confidence. He gives us a confident evil smile and cut to him putting on a red scientist's jacket. and black gloves New status means new waredrobe. A door opens and we're introduced to the Evil League of Evil. Yeah, there's a weird looking girl and a man who looks like Thomas Jefferson, and other character and Bad Horse! Who is an actual horse. (Drew Goddard, writer of Buffy and Cloverfield, is the Thomas Jefferson dude.) Dr. Horrible starts singing again and takes his goggles and instead of keeping them on his forehead puts them over his eyes. He looks a fair amount more creepy now. He goes down to sit at his place at the table, and as he does the door closes and he sings, "And I won't feel" Cut to normal attired, sad-looking Billy on the Web Blog. "A thing." The end. He got what he wanted, just not everything.
At first I was angered by this conclusion. I like happy endings, and then I accepted it as the only conclusion Joss could have had, but I'm back to angry. Penny could have been evil and been doing Hammer only to get close to him and then she and Dr. Horrible could have killed him. Everyone's happy! But no. We got stuck with the two-dimensional goody-two-shoes Penny. More than the ending Penny's character bugged me the worst. But I loved Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion so overall I'm quite pleased. Besides Acts I and II more than make up for Act III's ending.
This screams sequel. (This could be Dr. Horrible's origin story.) But with Joss as busy as he is, we'll see if we get anything.
Conclusion: Act I is the funniest, Act II is the best musically and my favorite, and Act III is crushing and incomplete.
CAST:
Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible
Felica Day as Penny
Nathan Fillion as Captain Hammer
ACT I
Yes! It's finally here. Opening credits to our first glimpse of Dr. Horrible, dressed in stereotypical mad scientist gear. He's laughing, evil laughing, but it needs some work. Don't worry he's got a vocal coach. He's trying to get in the Evil League of Evil, and his awaiting the response to his application which is especially strong this year. Emails! The first is sarcasm which gets sarcasm in response. Question is where is the gold you said you stole? Oh it's here liquifed in a plastic bag. Doesn't look like gold though; it looks like...yuck. Seems like he's not the best villian out there. But "the world's a mess...and I just gotta rule it." Next email is from Johnny Snow who sets up the explanation of the relationship Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer have. Hammer: hero, Horrible: not, and has a weird concern for kids for a villian. Next email asks about the "her" he's always referencing to. "Her?" Must be a girl...that is was "her"s generally imply. And ooh music! Which means our very first song. It's a ditty about laundry day and the girl of his affections doing it beside him, but how he can't manage to talk to her. But he's show her once he gets his freeze ray online which does not freeze water, but time. The song's okay, but I love Neil Patrick Harris's expressions. "With my freeze ray I will stop..."
Back to the Web Blog and who walked through the door, why it's Moist, the disturbingly sweaty wonder. He brings soggy mail. Boring joke about a date of Moist's, whom I don't care for. But hey Dr. Horrible only a few weeks away from "audible connection" with Penny! In the mail...is it? Yes! It's a letter from Bad Horse, the leader of the Evil League of Evil! And wow...singing cowboys. They sing the letter which basically says do something really evil and you're in. Dr. Horrible sets out to do evil, but stealing the key ingredient for his freeze ray.
Hey it's Penny! She singing, quite prettily, of signing a petition for the homeless. Oh she's one of those. Those goody-goody characters. That is so uninteresting, but I'll give it some time, maybe she has something more to her.
Dr. Horrible in normal attire spies the van from which he wishes to steal. He in a bad CGI-way attaches a control device so he can control the van with his iPhone remote. He's just started the van when AH!!! IT'S PENNY SINGING GOODY_GOODY! Dr. Horrible/(also Billy) is shocked by the girl of his dreams whom he's never talked to until now. Hilarious to Slightly hilarious conversation follows about the homeless, with Dr. Horrible clearly being distracted by his remote control which he claims to be texting on. He gets even more distracted and Penny leaves to bother more people about getting signatures for a new building for the homeless.
Dr. Horrible wonders whether he should go after her, but in the end decides, "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do." New song! He gets changed to his disguise and he's singing but then gets interrupted by none other than: Captain Hammer! From's Captain Hammer's song it appears he's a little (or a lot) full of himself, but his hair looks good blowing in the wind. Also Nathan Fillion good singer, but not great. The van which Dr. Horrible was trying to get to him so he could just pick off what he wanted to steal starts going awol when Captain Hammer smashings the control device. The van careers and is about to hit...Penny! Dr. Horrible sees this and frantically tries to get his remote to work, hitting the brake button. Captain Hammer is there though and pushes, quite roughly, Penny into a pile of garbage. Thanks to Dr. Horrible the van does brake and stops before it hits Captain Hammer, but Penny doesn't see because she has a faceful of garbage. Dr. Horrible accosts Captain Hammer. "You idiot! She could have died!" "Is she blee.." He gets stopped though when Captain Hammer starts strangling Dr. Horrible. Penny gets up and starts singing about her thanks for Captain Hammer. Captain Hammer smashes Dr. Horrible into the van hood on beat. Nice. Captain sings it's okay a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do apparently. Then into a three piece song with Captain Hammer and Penny giving each other moony eyes and Dr. Horrible not believing his bad luck. But it doesn't stop him from taking the freeze ray ingredient: wonderflonium off the van while Captain Hammer's distracted. The song and act ends with a angered "Balls" on beat from Dr. Horrible. Beautiful.
ACT II
The opening credits lead us to a quietly distraught Dr. Horrible. Those seconds we spend on his face are classic Whedon; Whedon has always loved those moments but studios haven't so in this new media uncontrolled by studios, he takes advantage. The music brings us to the first song of the Act. Dr. Horrible stalkishly watches Captain Hammer and Penny on their date...in a homeless shelter, as we see as Penny takes over the song. I loved Captain Hammer's expression of being touched by a homeless guy, wiping the dirt off his shoulder. Hysterically Dr. Horrible takes over as soup man in the background, forgetting to put soup in the bowl. Oh yeah and he's wearing a big black mustace. The nest scene in the song is a continuation of the date, Captain Hammer and Penny eating frozen yougurt on a park bench with the various park birds which his face of disgust is directed towards. Luckily Penny doesn't see him as she's still singing, but now it's a duet with Dr. Horrible. Penny is talking about goodness and light and Dr. Horrible is singing about the "filth and lies." Finally the song climaxes in a split screen with Dr. Horrible on the outside in the dark and Penny in the light. Then cut to black, another love of Joss Whedon. It's a very good song, my personal favorite of the series.
At this point I have to ponder that a relationship between Dr. Horrible and Penny simply wouldn't work. She is too bubble-gum good and his main aspiration in life is to be a villian. Granted he hasn't managed to be a good villian yet, but VILLIAN! I mean come on.'
Back to the Coin Laundry where Penny and Dr. Horrible, aka Billy, are chatting about laundry. Simple chatting on Penny's side, awkward flirting sort of on Billy's side. "Hey I got two frozen yogurts, want one? I know you do, because I know you love frozen yogurt, because of the awesome singing/stalking I was doing yesterday." (Not a direct quote.) They start talking about Penny's date, and when she says she's going to see him again, there is an awesome moment where Dr. Horrible sinks a spork in his leg, Penny mentions it and they have awkward laughing as the spork drives down deeper into his leg. Other great quotes in here.
To the Web Blog! Dr. Horrible is got the Freeze Ray ready with the stolen Wonderflonium, talks about that and they drifts off on a rant about how Penny and Captain Hammer could be "french-kissing." He heads out ready to freeze, and leaves us with "Peace! Well not literally."
Back to the Web Blog and it looks like it did not go Dr. Horrible's way. He's got a bruise over his left eye. His voice here is amazing to me. A voice of a man who just got a car thrown at his head (Thanks Captian Hammer!) and is down. Apparently the police and Captain Hammer watch the blog...oooh that sucks. But he's going...oh wait he's getting a call. Ah...the Bad Horse cowboys are back. They sing he's gotta kill someone now if he wants to get into the Evil League of Evil.
Dr. Horrible ponders whether he can kill someone and Moist offers suggestions. A kid that's going to be president. He can't kill a kid. "Smother an old lady?" "Do I know you?" I'm going to take this chance to say Moist is just icky. And also "I've got a Ph.D in horribleness" is not the best catchphrase. If he took off the -ness it would be slightly better.
Coin Laundry! Penny and Billy are eating frozen yogurt and Billy's talking about this "job" which he knows he deserves. He wants to be an acheiever like Bad Horse. Wait no...he means Gandhi. You see right there is an example of how their relationship couldn't work out. He doesn't want to be good and she doesn't want to be evil. But then I'm given a slight hope when Penny talks abotu being fired. Makes me think maybe she went ballistic and she's really someone interesting on the inside. I just can't beleive that Joss wrote a woman to be so two-dimensional. She makes it worse by singing about hope. The small song almost results in a kiss between Penny and Billy, but no. Penny says Billy may get to meet Captain Hammer. Huh? He's coming over right now. Dr. Horrible/Billy rushes out to avoid his nemesis. My second favorite quote of the Act is here, "Look at my wrist! I gotta go." Neil Patrick Harris manages to handle Whedon comedy really well.
But oh no here's Captain Hammer and he thinks Billy looks "horribly" familiar. The way the word is delivered is in my opinion perfect. They chat, then Penny goes off to get her clothes out of the dryer. Captain Hammer recognized Billy for what he was and knowing he has a crush on Penny (he does watch the blog) tells Dr. Horrible all the things he gonna do to Penny, sex things. And with this conversation comes the best quote, "And these are not the hammer." then Nathan comes back and hilarious deconstructing the joke, "The Hammer is my penis." Moments like these makes love Nathan so much more. Captain Hammer leaves with Penny.
Close up of Dr. Horrible's face, and he's slowly grinning? What? He launches into the beginning of a new song, a rockish song. He's happy because it's a Brand New Day and Captain Hammer made his choice to kill so much easier because he's going to kill the good (sort of ) Captain.
There's one moment in this song which I was disappointed with. He's throwing darts at an unknown source, which I suspected was a pic of Captain Hammer's face, but nothing could be so predictable in a Whedon production. Well yep it was. Not classic Whedon. The song ends with Dr. Horrible as a giant stomping on things, finishing by stomping on a scared-looking Captain Hammer.
ACT III
The last act. For the first time we don't go to Dr. Horrible after the opening credits, instead it's a news broadcast with Buffy writers Marti Noxon and David Fury as anchors. They report about the dedication of the homeless shelter along with a dedication of a statue of Captain Hammer. Oh Captain Hammer, you couldn't resist could ya? Well at least "it's a good day to be homeless" reports Marti-anchor. Music leads us to Dr. Horrible's lair where he's busy working. But then cut to moving men who start the song. The music reminds me of the eighties, but that could just be me. It seems it's a song where lots of different people sing about Captain Hammer and the homeless shelter. Best part of this song are these three Hammer fans with t-shirts chatting about how they have a problem with Penny, but hey some of Hammer's hair! Very nice singing all around. Also David Fury's "Next up: Who's Gay?" makes me laugh every single time. And Captain Hammer's idea that sleeping with the same girl twice means you get to do the weird stuff. Awesome. I'm going to pause to say once again how much I love Nathan Fillion. K. Unpause. Oh but wait it looks like Penny's not completely happy. She's at the coin laundry with two frozen yogurts, but no Billy! No, Billy is his lair writing fake equations on his white board. He won't even answer a call from Moist and this pink pig costumed evildoer, huh? Who's he? We don't find out. Dr. Horrible joins with Penny singing, "There's no happy ending." Well that's not promising. No Brand New Day. Looks like the Stun Guy got modified to a death ray, though I hope he did more to modify it than just put the word "Death" over "Stun" with tape.
Cut to the homeless shelter where the mayor is talking and asks Captain Hammer to come up and speech. He starts off, "I hate the homeless..." Next speech card, "...ness problem." Funny. He then tossing away the cards, and talks about his girlfriend, and goes into a song about how everyone is a hero...in a way. The song is eh. During it though he manages to insult Penny by calling her nerdish and then later tells everyone they had sex. Penny starts to slink away as the song goes on. The song goes on for too long. Nathan like I said is a good singer but just doesn't have the chops for a solo that's interesting, so we're left with boring. The crowd starts waving their arms like in a rock concert. That's sorta interesting. Fortunately the song gets stopped by Dr. Horrible (when Captain Hammer was certain to deliver a forced ugly note) and his freeze ray, which were pretending to be the Captain Hammer statue hidden over a red blanket.
Dr. Horrible wastes no time and freezes Captain Hammer and then gives his perfected evil laugh. Nice work Dr. Horrible. Okay now kill him! No? Another song? Well at least it's a good song whose music stylings remind me of Sweeny Todd and Sondheim. He is more than a little scary in this and I'm loving it as you wait on edge to see what he's going to do next. And then he pulls out his death ray and shoots up the ceiling is a part which again reminds me of Sweeny Tood. The lighting goes from blues to reds, so you know something gonna go down. He terrorizes the crowd for a bit (also he makes sure the reporter gets down the "two r's in horrible"), no killing though, and then approaches the frozen Captain Hammer to finish him off. We get a shot of Penny watching and you think she's going to stop him, but instead...the freeze wears off and all that Dr. Horrible gets is a blow to the face. The death ray flies from his hands and hits the ground. Some noises and lights indicate the death ray is broken, though not unoperational looks like. Captain Hammer picks up the defective weapon and put a foot on Dr. Horrible's chest as he points the ray at him. He makes sure to finish that awful note of his song though and gives Horrible the finger. Classy. Even though Dr. Horrible protests, more indicating that he knew the weapon was defective than he wanted to live, Captain Hammer pulls the trigger. The ray explodes into several shrapnel pieces embedding themselves in the wall and hitting Captain Hammer though he looks mostly unaffected, despite the fact he's crying like a baby about the pain. "Oh mama! Someone maternal!" He runs off tail between his legs. Dr. Horrible gets up and surveys the room where he spots something. Oh look it's Penny...sitting against the wall...bleeding just a bit from the load of shrapnel in her chest! Dr. Horrible goes over to her, but since Joss Whedon wrote this she dies, but not before she says, "Don't worry Captain Hammer will save us." Ouch. The hurt in Billy's eyes is tangible. He is so clearly devastated. (Joss Whedon: relationship and people killer everyone. I don't think he gets his jollies unless he kills someone.)
With eyes watering he starts singing about how here's his victory. He did kill someone, accidentally, but it still counts. Reporters accost him as he picks up Penny's body and lays it on a stretcher. I must say Neil Patrick Harris sells the death very well. I thought Felica Day could have been slightly better though. As the stretcher rolls away, Dr. Horrible sings, "He's Fine." Oh oh. Looks like he's going to take his pain and become the villain he always wanted to be. Well that's makes sense. Penny was the only thing keeping him good it seemed. Without her, why bother? Newspapers flash on the screen about how Dr. Horrible killed Captain Hammer's girlfriend, what's her name. We see the news anchors crying and Dr. Horrible going through the motions of a bank robbery with Moist as his henchman holding the loot, or trying to with his trademark slippery hands. Next up is Captain Hammer on a psychiatrist's couch still whining about his pain. Baby. The three Hammer fans have changed loyalties and are wearing Dr. Horrible shirts and the goggles instead. Then sweet! Party! Dr. Horrible strides through the crowd of evil-doers (oh! and the cowboys!) with confidence. He gives us a confident evil smile and cut to him putting on a red scientist's jacket. and black gloves New status means new waredrobe. A door opens and we're introduced to the Evil League of Evil. Yeah, there's a weird looking girl and a man who looks like Thomas Jefferson, and other character and Bad Horse! Who is an actual horse. (Drew Goddard, writer of Buffy and Cloverfield, is the Thomas Jefferson dude.) Dr. Horrible starts singing again and takes his goggles and instead of keeping them on his forehead puts them over his eyes. He looks a fair amount more creepy now. He goes down to sit at his place at the table, and as he does the door closes and he sings, "And I won't feel" Cut to normal attired, sad-looking Billy on the Web Blog. "A thing." The end. He got what he wanted, just not everything.
At first I was angered by this conclusion. I like happy endings, and then I accepted it as the only conclusion Joss could have had, but I'm back to angry. Penny could have been evil and been doing Hammer only to get close to him and then she and Dr. Horrible could have killed him. Everyone's happy! But no. We got stuck with the two-dimensional goody-two-shoes Penny. More than the ending Penny's character bugged me the worst. But I loved Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion so overall I'm quite pleased. Besides Acts I and II more than make up for Act III's ending.
This screams sequel. (This could be Dr. Horrible's origin story.) But with Joss as busy as he is, we'll see if we get anything.
Conclusion: Act I is the funniest, Act II is the best musically and my favorite, and Act III is crushing and incomplete.