Dr. Horrible Sing-A-Long Blog is possibly the single funniest thing I’ve seen from Joss Whedon. I say this as a not-quite-there Whedon fanboy. I’ve seen a few seasons of his biggest hit series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, none of Angel, and all of the underrated Firefly and cult sensation Serenity. Whedon’s sense of humor is playful, crude, warped, and everything one might love from a skewering of superheroes. (And I should also add, Whedon shot this in six days with no budget and released it for free on iTunes last summer.)

A boy (Dr. Horrible, played by Neil Patrick Harris) with would-be powers finds and wants a girl, boy loses girl to arch nemesis Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion), boy plots revenge, and boy finds things end on a pretty bitter and sad note. Or, to put it another way, it’s about the nerdy guy wanting the girl and the beefy upstart with an ego the size of a blimp hogging her for himself.

That’s the gist of it, anyway, but to say this is all Dr. Horrible is about is to do a disservice to Whedon, his collaborator brothers, and his large fan base. This is a musical not quite unlike the Buffy classic “Once More, with Feeling,” only without that pesky feeling that you have to already know the characters or story lines. One is thrust into Whedon’s sharp, laconic, and joyously barbed sense of humor.

At the same time, Whedon is also a hopeless romantic, hopeless in that he can’t seem to put people together without something going wrong, which is the point of all drama one supposes. His tale of Dr. Horrible is told through songs that reveal the characters’ souls, whether heartfelt or totally meat-headed. Catchy songs (far more wondrous than about 99.9% of stuff on the radio now) drive the scenes more so than what little plot there is.

Neal Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion are just about perfect in their roles, as is Felicia Day who plays Penny, the red-headed girl Dr. Horrible meets at the Laundromat. Fillion is especially juicy in a somewhat campy turn where he adds all the heroic qualities of his Firefly character with his darker side.

Dr. Horrible is about as close to romantic-comedy-musical-satire amazement as one could hope for, or maybe not expect, from Whedon, particularly as a free Web series running just about the length of an extremely short feature. Indeed, this may be the best “film” of last year that ran a total of 41 minutes.

DVD Extras: Considering that this was originally free, Whedon and company had to go all out to make fans or curious shoppers pluck down the $20 to actually buy the DVD. It’s well worth it, if only for the meatiest surprise. There are two commentaries, and the first that will grab your attention is “Commentary! The Musical!” where the Whedon brothers, along with the actors, skewer the whole process of a DVD commentary with songs like Fillion’s egocentric “I’m Better Than Neil,” the supporting character Moist (Simon Helberg) singing “Nobody Wants to be Wet,” and even Whedon coming in with a song lamenting fan pressure. (If you’ve seen the episodes already, you should listen to this track right away.) Sometimes the music sounds completely like tasteless, horrible karaoke. But this was probably the point, yet at the same time the songs are performed by all of the actors (and the Whedons) with the same energy, charm, and self-consciousness that made the original Web series so exemplary. The other extras are fine if nothing to really write home about. After the making-of features and the musical commentary, the other, more straightforward commentary pales in comparison. Jack Gattanella
June 7, 2009