Video Saturday at Scarlett Letters

[scarlettina]

Why is it Video Saturday? Mainly because the Web today is full of awesomeness.

First, with thanks to solcita for the tip: Dame Shirley Bassey sings Pink's "Get This Party Started." She wipes the floor with every pop singer who's ever claimed to "sing."

Remember the cartoon video of the cat trying to wake up its owner? Turns out that it's part of a series being done by an artist in the UK and there's more feline goodness! The series is called "Simon's Cat"and there are two more videos that must be seen. You can see them all here.

Lastly, I'm going to voice my no doubt unpopular opinion about Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. I watched the first two parts yesterday and the third part today. I thought it was terribly clever, and it is terribly clever all the way through. It did make me laugh in many, many spots. And then I saw where it was going -- and it went there. All the way to the end.

Here's what I liked: Neil Patrick Harris playing a villain. Nathan Fillion poking fun at hero stereotypes. Bad Horse and everything about Bad Horse, including -- perhaps especially -- the fact that Bad Horse is a real horse. Clever dialog and lyrics, though we expect nothing less from Mr. Whedon.

Here's what I didn't like: Bloodless, repetitive, forgettable melodies. Weak-ass vocals. (One could argue that, as a parody, the weak-ass vocals are part of the joke. Sure. Okay. I'll buy that.) A story that ultimately didn't work for me because everyone is basically doomed. Yeah, everyone's basically doomed in Hamlet (and I'm using an extreme here; I don't think Whedon was aiming for Shakespearean drama -- and maybe that's a problem, too), and yet Hamlet's far more satisfying. Dr. Horrible isn't. In Dr. Horrible, our lame superhero ends up emasculated, our benign heroine dies, and our nebbishy anti-hero ends up being an effective villain -- who seems to regret losing his humanity after working so hard to do just that. He gets concretely what he wants in the abstract and ends up numb -- the end. I'm sorry; this just doesn't work for me. There's no redemption or consequence of any sort. Dr. Horrible doesn't pay a price for Penny's death. It all ends up, as stannex put it, to be a bummer. If I wanted to be bummed out, really, I didn't need 45 minutes of clever to get there.

So let me try to approach this a different way: It was supposed to be fun -- it was set up to be fun -- and the end just wasn't. I don't feel like the author kept his promise--or that he did, but the nature of the promise had built into it that it wasn't going to satisfy anyway. It either needed to be more over the top than it was, or it needed to go in a different direction entirely. One way or the other, the end felt abrupt to me, as though the writer didn't know where to go from there, had written himself into a corner. We're laughing all the way to tragedy, which is an uncomfortable place to put an audience. We're put into the position of cheering for the guy who kills a woman and destroys a man, also an uncomfortable place to put an audience. I don't think it's bad to make an audience uncomfortable; I think it's good and if you succeed--you make your audience think. But I feel like this example of that idea is not well-executed. If that's what Whedon intended, he used the wrong vehicle. For me, the end overwhelms everything else accomplished, which is a problem.

I've said much more than I intended to. Maybe that's a sign of sloppy thinking; maybe it's a sign of more of a gut reaction than an intellectual one. It's Saturday and I kind of don't care, frankly. I just feel like . . . there's a lot of Joss worship going on over this piece, and I think he's being cut way too much slack for a work that doesn't deserve the praise it's receiving. In the end it is, in my opinion, a mildly entertaining failure.

Comments

[lisamantchev.livejournal.com]

I loved part one, two far less so and by the end of the third I was perturbed by just about everything--the music, the ending for all the characters, the last two seconds. There's arguments to be made that it's a prologue to a longer piece, that Joss made his decisions to set up a truly conflicted character, but the ending was just so MEH. I was really honestly bummed by Penny's lack of character development. I wish they'd given Felicia more to do.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Penny's basically a cipher. And the end was much more than just meh to me; it just didn't work. I'm glad to know I'm not alone in feeling that the quality of the material deteriorated step by step. The first part had a lot of promise. Unfortunate.

[pixxelpuss.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Felicia Day did what she could, but they could have done so much more with her than just this hollow love interest.

[lisamantchev.livejournal.com]

Oh... yanno what would partially redeem it? RADIATION FROM THAT CHUNK OF DEATH RAY (embedded in her stomach) turning HER into a kickass superhero! Then she and Doctor Horrible come up against one another later.

*goes to inform Joss*

[pixxelpuss.livejournal.com]

That would have been great. That would be awesome.

[lisamantchev.livejournal.com]

I just wrote up my other thoughts, which include her kicking Captain Hammer's ass.

*hee*

[anghara.livejournal.com]

Ditto, ditto and ditto. There were moments, to be sure - but they kept on getting separated by wider and wider gulfs of "dear god he isn't going to do THAT...waitaminit he did it".

Yes, there was supposed to be a poking of fun at stereotypes. But this wasn't going to work anyway - antiheroes are fine (Mal was an archetypical antihero and that worked well in the Firefly universe) but you send people in identifying with an arch-villain and then have him ACT AS THE ARCHVILLAIN in the end - no redemption, no regret, no price paid for anything at all, really, and don't give me that "without Penny it all means nothing" schtick, Dr H wanted to be part of the evil cabal all along and he got to do that, with or without Penny.

And oh dear GOD was she wasted. What was she supposed to be a mewling little nothing who runs off into teh deep dark woods and oh look she tripped and sprained her ankle - or died, or something - oh well, she was a girl. In other words, OH, JOSS, NO. There was a lot that COULD have been done with this... that wasn't.

Oh well.

As a marketing exercise it worked spectacularly well. I wish I could viral MY work like this...

[lisamantchev.livejournal.com]

Doctor Horrible's arc actually worked all right for me, because I can buy that the hero in this piece wasn't all heroic and the villain wasn't all that bad. Mess with that stereotype all you want (Joss) but do the same with Penny. She had her moment of "gawd, this guy is awful" and sneaking offstage during Captain Hammer's song, but then we get her crouching behind a chair and then we get her dying and still thinking Captain Hammer was going to save her.

Now, I realize Joss has a need to impale people, but why couldn't she have touched Billy's face and told him she wished they'd gone to the laundromat that morning and had frozen yogurt?

[pixxelpuss.livejournal.com]

When you say weak-ass vocals? I mean, Felicia Day did well enough in my opinion (I tend to be charitable), but she wasn't by any means a vocal powerhouse. Nathan Fillion had fun with the role, but his vocals also left a teeny something to be desired in a couple of places. But I thought that NPH rocked out.

But I'm totally agreed on the ending/arc issues.

Personally, it bugged me. They'd already introduced a freeze-time ray. How much harder could a reverse time ray be for a comic book super villain?

[kistha.livejournal.com]

I totally agree, and I just don't get the "Joss" worship. The only thing he's ever done that really, really worked for me (in the supposed classic gut wrenching 'Joss' way) was the end Fred arc in Angel. But this? This really ended...lame.

Dr. Horrible was awesome, and his singing for me was the best.

[solcita.livejournal.com]

I felt like it ended way too abruptly, also.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

Heh. I like your two cents. i may have to steal them. :-)

[solcita.livejournal.com]

Feel free, darlin! :) I modified a base I found somewhere (just changed the background color).

[neutronjockey.livejournal.com]

On a non-Dr. Horrible note: you may remind me about lady vocalists anytime!

I totally forgot anything about Dame Shirley Bassey. How could I?! (cause brain no workie sometimes damnit)

Thank you!

[dianora2.livejournal.com]

Don't you know that Joss Whedon is perfect and walks on water? ;P

I actually liked the ending, though I do agree it was abrupt. And I can also completely understand how people would hate it, too. The music was certainly nothing to write home about.

Speaking of music.... Enjoy Ms. Bassey.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ofp4ls

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I ended up thinking a lot about the nature of evil and who I choose to cheer for in geek vs. jock conflicts as a result of watching Dr. Horrible. That could be more me than the inherent quality of the material, but it is one point of data. And it did take me a day of thinking to get to this point, but for me a touch of bitter disappointment makes the rest of the light confection that much sweeter.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed your comments on Dr Horrible, though I find myself putting my analysis (insofar as I can analyze it) in brief phrases: 'cheap shots' and 'boy stuff'. I don't see much substance there. And the theme is one that Joss Whedon loves and which I dislike: stories about dorky, awkward men failing to get the girls they want.

On the other hand, I tend to like looking at Nathan Fillion. On the other hand, I have the feeling that the whole thing is making fun of people like me who like to look at Nathan Fillion.

Hmm.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

Oh, listen, I'll never object to spending time looking at Nathan Fillion -- on this matter, we're on the same page. :-)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Looking at Nathan Fillion is a fine hobby which I should spend more time practising. (Excuse me while I go polish up my Firefly DVDs. Mmm.)