Where I won't make an obvious horrible pun

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is an Internet-only musical created by Joss Whedon during the writers' strike. Here's a link to the first part. Altogether it's about 40 minutes and great for lunch hour entertainment.

We went to the world-premier of the first professional mounting of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. I guess there's been a smattering of high school productions but this was the first one that was properly licensed. The creator had to phone Joss Whedon to get the deal going and in fact they didn't have anything set up for stage licensing so they had to whip something up.

Was it good?

There were very good things. They did a great job casting the singing part of the roles. Even the background singers like Hammer's fanboys were solid.

The actor who plays Dr. Horrible has a great voice, easily the best in the cast. My favourite songs, Everything You Ever and Brand New Day, from the musical are Dr. Horrible songs and he did them justice. In fact the last scene of Dr. Horrible sitting in front of his webcam was executed very well and was a good piece of stagecraft.

But there were a few questionable things.

The set is simple and I think there wasn't enough money because there was a huge cast to pay. There were even choreographers, two of them! And this is a minor complaint but the set could have used another coat of paint. I know we saw the play at the end of its run but there chips on a lot of the painted props. Also, the lighting was strange especially on the Bad Horse chorus. The actors would peek around the walls of the set but weren't lit at all so it was difficult to see.

My one major beef was with the actor who plays Captain Hammer. He is just too unlikeable. He comes off creepy when the character is meant to be just this endearing side of smarmy. You should be able to see why Penny would like him. In fact, he ruined "the hammer is my..." by pitching it to the audience and not Dr. Horrible.

I'm not complaining about the $44 ticket. It was enjoyable and Whedon gets a cut. Hopefully he'll realize that people still love this musical and that he should start on a sequel soon.