K-Squared Ramblings

Dr. Horrible

Caught the last episode of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog last night. It didn’t quite deliver on the promise of the first two episodes, though there were some great bits in it, and the resolutions for Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer were fitting. There was a twist that Katie had predicted that I thought would have been really cool, but it turned out to be wrong.

I think I liked the middle act best.

Anyway, I checked the site again right after midnight, when the free streams were supposed to come down, and they’d already gone to iTunes at $1.99 an episode. (Personally I think that’s a bit high, when they add up to the same length as an “hourlong” i.e. ~40-minute TV show, which you can usually get for $1.99 total)

For those who hadn’t already heard about it: Written by Joss Whedon, his brothers, and his future sister-in-law. Starring Neil Patrick Harris as the mad scientist villain Dr. Horrible, Nathan Fillion (Firefly) as his nemesis Captain Hammer, and Felicia Day as the girl at the laundromat on whom Dr. Horrible has a crush. Campy take on the super-hero genre, from the point of view of a D-list villain trying to make it to the big leagues. Structured partly as a video blog and partly as narrative. The songs remind me of a cross between the Buffy musical (naturally) and Moulin Rouge. (Stylistically, I mean.)

Dark Angels

Two bits of news on some of the less conventional “Angels” of comics.

Writer Jeff Mariotte reports that Joss Whedon and Fox have approved a second Angel comic book miniseries to come out late this year, which may interest fans of the show who want to know what happened after the final episode:

While The Curse is strictly an Angel solo story with the other characters just showing up in flashback, this one will include most of the gang (those who survived NFA, anyway)—although some of them in unexpected ways. More than that I will not say. It’s the only approved, official continuation of the TV series, though

Meanwhile, Peter David has confirmed that the new artist on Fallen Angel is J.K. Woodward, and posted this sample of his art style. This isn’t just a cover—this is what the interior art will look like!

No Serenity in April

Slightly old news, but worth a post for people who (like me) hadn’t already seen it. Apparently the marketroids at Fox have decided to delay Serenity until Fall [archive.org], scheduling it to open September 30, 2005.

The good news is that, according to Joss Whedon, it’s purely scheduling. (The original release date put it barely three weeks ahead of Star Wars: Episode III, after all.) “There’s no reworking the end, no reshoots, no ‘does it have to be in space?’”

The bad news: the wait time just doubled. There’s already too little Firefly as it is. Then there’s the question of a Farscape feature film: conventional wisdom has it that studios will be watching to see how well Serenity does before committing to anything. This will probably further delay anything on that front.

*Sigh* Serenity was the main movie I was looking forward to next spring.