“But, happenstance has been a major theme for Whedon for awhile now, and he goes the distance to make his characters suffer. I think people unsatisfied with the end might be missing its subtlety; it wasn't Horrible's attempt to kill Hammer that caused Penny's death, it was his hesitation to kill. That's got to be one monumentally bitter pill to swallow.”
“You are all aware of Joss Whedon's new mini-epic, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, I'm sure. If not, get over there now…it's only freely available until Sunday night.
All I can say is that it is about time someone made a sympathetic, musical tribute to supervillains. Now I'm wondering, though…the ending is not satisfactory. I want more. Whedon cannot simply stop here with a single 3 part event. I want a weekly series on the internet!
“I guess that means we should actually pay for these episodes, as encouragement.”
PZ Myers
I’m a Joss Whedon fanboy. Perhaps I’m not as rapidly fanboyish as some – I don’t subscribe to every Joss-related forum, website and newsletter – but whenever I hear about a new project from Mr. Whedon, I automatically start to salivate. I’ve been looping Acts I and II of his smash-hit web serial Dr. Horrible all day today. I simply can’t get enough of this show, its clever and witty lines, and contagious music.
Joss also has a new project called Dollhouse scheduled to debut for the 2009 spring season on Fox. The fears from a lot of Joss’s fans is that Fox will do to Dollhouse what they did to Firefly – cancel it before it can really get going. According to an interview with Joss, however, there’s a good chance that Dollhouse will get a fair shake this time around:
Joss Whedon, creator of Fox's upcoming midseason SF series Dollhouse, told SCI FI Wire that he's OK returning to the TV network that canceled his beloved Firefly after mishandling it.
"These are different people," Whedon said in an interview in Santa Monica, Calif., on July 14, part of the Television Critics Association summer press tour. "They didn't do to me what was done to Firefly."
Source
Joss has this uncanny knack for finding some of the best people to work with and to work for him, and I’m excited to see both the conclusion of Dr. Horrible and the debut of Dollhouse.
I don’t believe Joss Whedon knows how to write a bad script – or a bad song, for that matter. If you haven’t already, head on over to Dr. Horrible and check out Act I of Joss’s latest project. It’s a witty, hilarious story about a wannabe super-villain, the girl he wants to find the nerve to talk to, and his somewhat flighty nemesis. Acts II and III will be showing up on Thursday and Saturday, respectively. There are some really great quotes in this first act, and the tunes are extremely catchy. So, go check it out and support the project by downloading the eps from iTunes!
Also, be sure to check out the blog for the project and subscribe to the RSS feed for all the latest news.
What’s this fascination our culture has with zombies, anyway? I mean, if you’ve read one zombie story, you’ve read them all – the undead come back to life, looking all gross and scary, with no minds of their own, their only desire to eat your brains. But everyone lately seems utterly enthralled by the topic – movies, books, short stories, artwork, discussion threads about what you would do if zombies took over your town. Personally, I’ve always found zombies to be gross and, well, kind of boring. It’s one of the goriest subject matters in horror fiction, and I’ve yet to see what’s so interesting about them. I think the closest I ever got to enjoying something zombie-related was one episode of Angel where they had to defeat a shaman who was using dead cops to create a zombie army. And even then, as much as I like Joss Whedon’s stuff, I was glad when the episode was over. I was, as stated previously, pretty bored with the topic. Zombies just aren’t that interesting to me.
So, perhaps someone who does find them interesting and fascinating could explain to me why, ‘cuz I’m really not seeing it.
Earlier this week, my wife and I were finally able to get through the last few episodes of the final season of Angel. I’ve been a big fan of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer for years now and have been systematically collecting each season on DVD. I was never able to catch the shows on their original air dates, so I forbade anyone from spoiling any details of seasons I hadn’t seen yet. Fortunately, I was able to get my wife hooked on the shows, as well, so together we’ve gone through all seven seasons of Buffy and all five seasons of Angel.
I’ve always loved Joss’s conceptions of the Buffyverse. The shows were dark and forbidding, but Joss could always take you from this end-of-the-world moment of doom and gloom and slip something funny in that would take viewers completely by surprise. It was interesting to me the way he built the world of vampires and demons, of witches, warlocks, and metaphysical beings. He had with him an incredible staff of writers, all with a great sense of wit and humor. It was a lot of fun to watch through the shows and see what would happen next to these characters that viewers have so come to love.
I was incredibly happy with the way Buffy ended. It couldn’t have been a more poetic ending that opened up a world of possibilities to her. I knew Angel would have a less than satisfactory ending. After all, the show did get canceled before Joss was ready for it to do so. I can respect Joss’s choice of endings, though – I might have done much the same, leaving things open-ended in the event that a return could be made to this universe.
One thing about Angel that I found interesting, though, was the philosophy behind it. In the end, the team of Angel Investigations determined that evil would never be vanquished, that it would always be around, even long after humanity ceased to exist on the earth. The conclusion, then, was that the only thing to do was to continue to fight the good fight, because even if it only caused evil a minute pause in their wicked plans, then it was surely worth it. A very bleak and depressing outcome, if you ask me, and had it been one that I had come to, I’m not sure that it would ever have been enough to keep me going. In the end, there must be the promise that good will triumph, that all the pain and suffering now will ultimately come to a good end. But I suppose that the philosophy in this show is at least somewhat representative of the world, because I see that same philosophy mirrored in the worldview of many of the people around me.
I’m not quite a Joss Whedon fanboy, but any projects that he has his hands in have my immediate attention. I’m a huge fan of Firefly and Serenity and am mildly bitter with Fox for canceling that show after such a short run. They obviously didn’t know what they had when they had it. I doubt we’ll ever see that universe expanded by Joss himself; I heard rumor that he’s sworn never to work with Fox again. But I will continue to enjoy his work and hope that he will be able to land another TV series soon. There is a wealth of creativity and inspiration trapped in that mind of his, and I look forward to seeing what else he can produce.