dr horrible's sing-a-long blog

Kevin Quan

Tim Posada

Freshman Writing

Blog

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along-blog

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along-blog is a short internet series that features an unsuccessful evil doctor trying to win the heart of a girl, Penny, he sees regularly at the Laundromat. However his attempts to flatter Penny are often thwarted by a hero named Captain Hammer, who also has feelings for her. Dr. Horrible narrates this blog and we see the series from his perspective. There are certain instances in this series when Penny was showing legitimate interest in Dr. Horrible and reached out to him. Oddly enough, at those instances Dr. Horrible is always in the middle of working on his gadget to gain Penny’s attention when she was a bit interested in him all along.  What he does not realize is that Penny has already been flocking over to him but he never gave her a chance. He was so caught up in being the most evil villain in the world to impress Penny that he was blind to her interest in him. At the end of the series, Captain Hammer starts to boast about this relationship with Penny and she, embarrassed, begins to quietly leave. However, before she leaves, Dr Horrible appears with a Death Ray and shoots at Captain Hammer. The Death Ray misfires and injures him slightly but stabs Penny in the stomach, killing her. This is interesting because think of what might have happened if Dr. Horrible hadn’t tried to invent the Death Ray. If he had let his angry feelings subside, he would not have made the evil invention and barged in, stalling Penny’s exit. It boils down to Dr. Horrible’s reaction to certain things. Even with the heroic and handsome Captain Hammer wedging himself between him and Penny, eventually she would leave him. Because of the arrogance he demonstrated towards the end of the series. If Dr. Horrible had not let vengeance control his life, he would have developed self control as well as avoiding the loss of Penny and developing a close relationship with her.

Music is an important factor in this blog series. Every time during or after an important scene, one of the characters would begin singing a catchy song that emphasizes what’s going on in the scene. For example, Dr. Horrible sings “My Freeze Ray” when he’s in the Laundromat and becomes nervous because he is next to Penny. He then begins to sing how his freeze ray would improve his status with Penny; it can stop time and find the words to tell her how he feels. Not only is the tune of this song catchy, but it also has meaning behind it. That meaning is his earnest desire to impress the girl of his dreams, even by ridiculous means such as stopping time. The use of songs is very supportive and helps drive home the key idea in the story.

It’s no secret that this Internet blog series was on a low budget to work with. Captain Hammer’s dull grey shirt with a plain hammer is a dead give away that the producers were being frugal with the money. Also the scenes are in pretty simple places such as a Laundromat, an banquet room, and some random streets, all of this points back to a low budget. However this certainly did not hinder the series from success. In fact, it was a big hit and gained critical acclaim. Time Magazine named it #15 in top 50 Inventions of 2008 and it also won the People’s Choice Awards. In total it won 7 awards and 1 nomination, which is very impressive, considering the directors were shooting for a simple yet There’s also a sequel in the works which may come out in 2011 and I’m curious to see what Dr. Horrible will do after he has become a member of the evil villain league.

I thought this series as a whole was excellent because it was clever, funny and was not too complicated. The show was split into 3 episodes totaling into 42 minutes which is not long at all compared to weekly shows that total in the same time. The show has a lot of themes that can be discussed and I really appreciate that. At first I thought it was purely entertainment and did not think much about it. However in freshman writing class, we, as a class, had to dig deeper into the underlying message to see what the show was trying to explain. By doing this, it had turned something I viewed as entertaining into something with a much bigger and deeper meaning: vengeance does not solve anything. I truly hope the sequel to Dr. Horrible will have just as captivating songs, themes, and laughs as did the first Dr. Horrible.