How about the fact that Bad Horse was an actual horse? The groupie line "We do the weird stuff" was one of the best lines. Who new Nathan Fillion could play such a jackass? Poor Penny.

Anyone get the feeling that Bad Horse was a nod to Bad Wolf?

Anyone get the feeling that Bad Horse was a nod to Bad Wolf?

Act III really won me over -- as I suspected it might. I wish they had put this up as one long video; it really would've gotten a better reception from non-whedonites.

So watched all 3 eps of Dr Horrible ... it was pretty good. Joss writes great dialog and the songs were awesome. The "origin" of Dr. Horrible from wanna be villain to genuine player was well done, but I find myself with mixed feelings ultimately.

(Spoilers Ahead... don't read if you haven't watched all 3 episodes...)

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So the thing about "killing off" the girl friend. This was certainly unexpected from a musical comedy ... at least initially. But, I found that I really wasn't surprised beyond the initial shock of it. As a device the character's death was functional. And based upon the last few stories we've seen from Joss, this was par for the course. That was the part that bothered me ... this whole, the death of the girl friend was an expected ending ... because it was Joss ... and Joss has become the "I must kill off an important character to create drama" boy. It's one of his patterns. My problem is I am coming to expect this pattern from Joss. So, it was ... "Oh! No! the girl friend..." for like half a second ... and then quickly became ... "Oh, of course ... the girl friend..."

Now, within the context of the story it really isn't about the effect of the girl friend's death on the audience. It's that effect on the protagonist (Dr Horrible.) But, I was upset that I have become jaded towards the Joss "death device" to the extent that I practically rolled my eyes in response.

Maybe I'm expecting too much from a little "free be" webisode thing that Joss wrote for fun. But my expectations for greatness are not misplaced with Joss Whedon, because Dr Horrible is great ... "free be" webisode thing or not ... it's great. I just wanted to share my reaction to the whole, "must kill the girl friend" thing ... to ask if it's just me, or if others have had the, "Oh, that's just Joss ... he does that." kind of reaction.

Regards,

Erus

I'm not even that familiar with Whedon's work, and I also thought everything about the girlfriend was a cliche. He sometimes succeeds in subverting some cliches when it comes to the two guys, but he doesn't seem to know what to do with Felicia Day's character so she's stuck as a cookie-cutter cardboard cutie. A little disappointing coming from a guy who has such a strong feminist track record.

It was enjoyable as a whole though, and I'd gladly watch blogs containing the origin stories of any of the villains sitting at the ELoL table. Yes, even Bad Horse.

Yeah, the fact that Bad Horse was an actual horse totally cracked me up. That, and "we do the weird stuff."

The death took me by surprise, but only because I let myself forget it's Joss Whedon we're dealing with here. But it's the only thing that could really cement Billy's turn from wanna-be bad guy into Dr. Horrible.

Love the songs, especially Act III. Yep.