Thoughts on Dr. Horrible

[thewhitelily]

benpayne has made it "Blog your thoughts on Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog Day", so... well, here I go.

I'm a sucker for musicals. I'm a sucker for superheroes. I'm even more of a sucker for supervillains. I was always going to love a musical about a supervillain made by Joss Whedon. Add in the acting talent on this thing? Be still, my beating fangirl heart!

If you haven't seen it during its limited free-to-internet engagement, you have seriously missed out. Personally, I've seen it um... let's just say enough times that I hope I've got the songs memorised until the DVD comes to Australia. That way I won't have to compromise on my moral objection to giving money to Apple. :P

I'm not going to say it's a searing inditement on the tropes, or an unparalleled parody of the genre. I'm just going to say it was absolutely awesomely rewatchably enjoyable, and I can't sleep because "Slipping" keeps running through my mind, caught like every 3/4 tune always is, and I keep trying to say the line: "Because the world's a mess, and I just need to... rule it" in a way that's even one tenth as good as the original. Not to mention the very fact of introducing the evil plan by means of a love song just warms the cockles of my flowery heart.

There's something delightfully Gilbert and Sullivanesque about some of the rhymes, as well - rhyming words in the middle and then just keeping on going with the line. Nothing quite paralleling their trademark broken words ("... occupied in crime (pied in crime!)") or ridiculous non-words ("I'm plucky and adventury"), so I'm not sure why it's so reminiscent to me - perhaps just the grinningly clever rhymes in there, along with a few unexpected rhyme schemes to keep us on our toes. Nice.

I found Penny annoyingly vacuous, but I think she was meant to be, and it didn't interfere with my emotional connection with Billy's adoration of her. I loved the pie metaphor, which applied just as well to Billy, who was nice on the outside, just a veneer over Dr. Horrible, who in turn was a veneer over the Billy inside who only really wanted to be not a screwup so he could deserve Penny and honestly couldn't have pulled the trigger on the incapacitated Captain Hammer - who exactly was he trying to fool, anyway, with that "no mercy" self-talk?

Regarding the end: there are a number of ways it could have gone. The best alternate theory I think I saw was Penny turning out to actually be Bad Horse. That sparks my imagination with her delivering his rejection from the Evil League of Evil in person (with the chorus around her, of course), and poor Horrible realising that she's just completely out of his league as far as evil goes (no pun intended).

I was horrified, and a little disappointed when the way it would all end became clear. But after walking away with my world rocked, it kept resonating in my head - those last two words from Billy, looking into the camera for the last time, all pride and artifice stripped away. And I don't feel... a thing. Such a brief flash, but... you know what, I think that was the most powerful moment in the whole story.

I guess that's what every artist would wish for.

So be careful what you wish for, kiddies.