Rubber Ducky Review #1: Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog (SPOILERS)

So now that Dr. Horrible Act 3 has been released and has been out for about 24 hours now, I thought it would be cool to kind of go over the series really quick in a full review. Suffice it to say, I’m a big fan of Joss Whedon and Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog did not disappoint.

The Format

Dr. Horrible was released in 3 short acts done in similar fashion to the Buffy episode "Once More With Feeling." The first act length is 13:49, the second is 13:08 and the last is 15:29. They are available for streaming off www.drhorrible.com until midnight July 20th. After that they’ll be available for download and there should be a DVD coming soon. Personally, I just downloaded them off iTunes for the nominal fee of $1.99 per episode (yes I paid full price, but there you can grab all 3 for $3.99). Profits are going to the cast and crew involved in the project.

Spoilers!

If you haven’t seen the episodes, stop reading right now. I mean it. Just stop, because if you keep reading this post you’re going to ruin it for yourself and I’m just not going to tolerate that sort of thing in the comments. There are spoilers and plot summaries ahead. You were warned.

The Characters

Dr. Horrible / Billy (Neil Patrick Harris): A wannabe super villain / geek trying to get by in the world and be recognized by the Evil League of Evil. He’ll do anything it takes, but usually gets his butt kicked by non other than…

Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion): The cheesiest superhero imaginable. Captain Hammer feels no pain, is super strong and likes to beat the crap out of Dr. Horrible and take his stuff. This brings us to…

Penny (Felicia Day): The woman of Billy’s dreams. She’s shy, a bit lonely and geeky, and pretty much embodies the only other reason Billy does what he can to make Dr. Horrible a credible villain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Act I ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This act gets off a little slow, but it’s pretty funny and a great introduction to the characters. We see Billy and his predicaments. How he wants nothing more than to do two things: talk the girl of his dreams (Penny) and get into the Evil League of Evil, which requires Bad Horse’s approval.

To do this he needs to defeat Captain Hammer and set up shop taking over the world. You know, upset the status quo, get the power to change hands. His heist is successful at the expense of accidentally letting Captain Hammer save Penny (even though it was Dr. Horrible who stopped the van) and thereby watching them fall for each other.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Act II ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is a pivotal act and it’s my favorite. I actually had to re-watch it a couple times because I kept finding things I missed. Essentially Captain Hammer and Penny are getting along swimmingly, but on the bright side Billy and Penny are now talking to each other. On the down side, since the freeze ray failed, Bad Horse requires that Billy kill somebody to get into the Evil League of Evil.

After a chance meeting at the Laundromat (and interesting song detailing some of Penny’s past and inner thoughts), Captain Hammer pretty much taunts Billy with Penny and sets up our hero’s resolve. Hero? Wait a minute, you mean anti-hero right? I mean, we’re cheering on the bad guy here. Oh, whatever. We’ll call him the protagonist.

The end number of this act is catchy and since I watched it right before going to bed, I had verses of it floating through my head all day long.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Act III ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So I forgot to mention how important the homeless shelter was. Well, it comes back for round three and sets up the big confrontation between Captain Hammer and Dr. Horrible. Captain Hammer pretty much comes off as an egotistical ass in this act. Even more so than in the other two acts. This kind of brings up an interesting question later on.

Dr. Horrible is a man obsessed with killing Captain Hammer once and for all. This culminates in an epic monologue / battle.

And this is where it hurts.

After watching the first couple acts a few times over and over, I kind of grew attached to the characters and kind of hoped that there might be a funny and happy ending at the same time. But on further examination it really had to end this way. Every element of the battle conspired to transform Dr. Horrible into a full villain.

There was a special on the History Channel a few days ago talking about Batman and how he differed from the villains in the comic books. It boiled down to this: A hero can be born by going through tragedy and coming out the other side and saying to him or herself “I will make sure that no one else has to go through that again,” thus dedicating their life in the pursuit of an ideal. A villain on the other hand goes through a tragedy and asks “How will the world repay what it took from me?” And since this is the story of a villain, you can only guess how it ends.

Penny dies in the battle, still a little delusional that Captain Hammer is going to save her. Captain Hammer on the other hand has experienced pain for the first time and runs away crying (requiring heavy doses of therapy). Dr. Horrible is implicated in the death of Penny. He gets his dream of defeating Captain Hammer and getting into the Evil League of Evil. He goes out and becomes the super villain he dreamed off.

And yet, beneath it all, there is Billy, buried in the persona of Dr. Horrible, still holding a knife of sadness in his heart with the name “Penny” engraved on the blade. This is the real tragedy of the story.

This act messed me up emotionally. I want to laugh, I want to cry, I think I did both. And I’m not sure why. I mean, the characters are all fictional, but this just touches off a nerve somewhere.

Inevitably, when good guys and bad guys do battle in the comic books, it’s those around them that pay the price. Which leads to the question: Would the status quo have eventually led to Billy getting Penny instead of becoming a real villain?

I’m inclined to think it might have given how much of an ass Captain Hammer turned out to be. Another thing to consider is that Penny is kind of Dr. Horrible’s conscience in a way throughout the acts. When she dies, she takes a part of him with her, even though they weren’t that attached, his obsession with her takes a heavy toll on him when she dies. This is classic comic book villain 101 here.

The Verdict

Performance wise, all the actors did a great job. Neil Patrick Harris nailed the part of Dr. Horrible, Felicia Day did a great job and I think her status as an actress is going to get a serious boost by this (also, go check out The Guild), and Nathan Fillion is awesome as always.

Overall, I’m going to give Dr. Horrible 9.5 out of 10.

I laughed a lot, I cried a bit, I mean for me, watching the last couple minutes of Act 3 is painful (in a good way). And I think they did a superb job of the entire thing. I do kind of wish there were more acts, it would have been interesting to see how the characters developed further, but overall, I am very impressed by this and hope that Joss will continue to do other online projects in addition to his regular work.

P.S.: Here’s the Evil League of Evil: Bad Horse (the Thoroughbred of Sin), Professor Normal, Fake Thomas Jefferson, Tie-Die, Dead Bowie, Fury Leika, and Snake Bite.