Horrible Turn is a charming bit of fan fiction with impressive production values. We revisit several of the characters from the original — even Johnny Snow makes a few appearances — and learn the real reason why everyone loves Captain Hammer. Plus, the prequel has its own, all-female version of the Bad Horse Chorus, and reveals the first dastardly deeds of the Evil League of Evil.

Horrible Turn [via Whedonesque]

Dr. Horrible from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Okay, we hate to diss Dr. Horrible, because after all he is us and we are him. He's the little evil guy, just trying to get by and make his way in the world — and we totally identify with him, since the alternative would be identifying with Moist. But still — as evil geniuses go, he's pretty inept. Take the freeze ray he shoots his nemesis Captain Hammer with, which wears off prematurely. Or the death ray, with which he plans to shoot Captain Hammer afterwards — Dr. Horrible gloats too long, and Captain Hammer is able to seize the death ray away from him and shoot it at him. And then the death ray misfires — and Dr. Horrible comes out on top, thanks to his own blundering. Except for poor, poor Penny, killed in the crossfire.

The Monarch from Venture Brothers

Okay, first of all, a butterfly-themed supervillain? Doctor Octopus would cover his face with all four robot arms in shame. The poor Monarch is obsessed with destroying Dr. Venture and his family, but can't even get sanction from the Guild Of Calamatous Intent, let alone recognition as a threat from Venture himself. As series creator Doc Hammer states, "failure, that's what Venture Bros. is all about. Beautiful sublime failure," so it's tough to pick one incident. In Tears of a Sea Cow, after finally winning back Dr. Girlfriend and gaining membership in the Guild, the Monarch still can't keep from arching Venture, despite Guild regulations. He infiltrates Venture's lab and has sex with his guard robot GUARDO. Then Dean walks in on this, and The Monarch insists he's trying to infect the robot with Chlamydia, and manages to convince Dean that if he reports this scheme to his father, he'll be playing into the Monarch's plans.

Brainchild from The Tick cartoon

He gets fashion points, for replacing the upper part of his skull with a transparent dome, to show off his brain. And he succeeds where the other villains have failed — he captures the Tick, transforming him into a two-headed bluebird-Tick who speaks French. While he has the Tick helpless, he tries to auction him off — but this is where his scheme falls apart. Die Fledermaus disguises himself as The Rake, a made-up villain who looks like Die Fledermause, except with a rake tied to his head. And Arthur, meanwhile, frees the Tick.

Syndrome from The Incredibles

This is the classic evil genius over/underachiever problem: He builds a killer robot and programs it to attack the city, so he can defeat it and look like a hero. The only problem is, he makes the robot too smart and it develops a mind of its own, so it defeats its creator with easy. Later, he tries to capture the Incredibles' new baby, but its developing super-powers are too much for him.

The Brain from Pinky and the Brain

His catch phrase ought to be enough to clue you in: "The same thing we do every night: Try to take over the world." A true evil genius shouldn't have to try, and it should only take one night. In one of his most notable blunders, in the episode "That Smarts," the Brain manages to build a super-machine that boosts Pinky's intelligence, so they're both super-geniuses. But Pinky becomes depressed and decides to reduce his intelligence to become stupid again. But Brain, not realizing this, decides they might be better off with Pinky being the smart one and Brain being the stupid one — so he, too, reduces his own intelligence, leaving them both too stupid to operate the brain-adjusting machine.

Cartman from South Park

At first blush, you wouldn't think that Cartman belongs on this list, but just consider his bizarre schemes. In the episode "Go God Go Parts 1 & 2," he's too impatient to wait for the Nintendo Wii to come out, so he puts himself in cryogenic suspension, and accidentally stays frozen until the distant future. Once in the future, he manipulates all the warring factions and changes history using a Time Phone, causing huge suffering just so he can get himself a Wii. Eventually, he gets trapped in a Wii-less time loop, because he keeps going back in time to try and convince himself not to put himself in suspended animation — and the past Cartman never listens to the future Cartman.

Mr. Glass from Unbreakable

Possibly the most elaborate scheme, for the least reward: he orchestrates several episodes of terrorism/mass murder, just to find someone who's invulnerable, so he can create/uncover a superhero to be his nemesis. Final proof that reading too many comic books will make you imagine a fourth wall when there is none. And of course, by so doing, he ensures his own defeat and incarceration.

Doctor Evil, from Austin Powers

This supervillain from the 1960s turns up in our world, unaware that time has passed him by and a million dollars is no longer much of a fortune. His schemes are great: set off all the world's volcanos at once, turn the Moon into a death star, shoot the White House with lasers, create deadly floods, bring back the dreaded Alan Parsons Project — but there's always some crucial flaw. It's hard to believe anything can go wrong with sharks armed with frickin lasers — even a child could make that work! But somehow, he manages to mess it up, again and again.

Lex Luthor from Superman

There have been many different versions of the scourge of Metropolis: the mad scientist who's mad at Superman because Superboy zapped his hair off, the business mogul who just wants Superman out of the way, the shadowy politician... but they're all kind of clueless when it comes down to it. Lex Luthor usually has everything you could possibly want — power, prestige, hot babes in chauffeur outfits, even the White House — but he still blows it all going after Superman. His battlesuit is emblematic of the problem: For one thing, it's a hideous green-and-purple color scheme. But also, it often goes wrong in the worst possible way. At one point, Lex gets his own whole planet of people who love him, Lexor, marries an alien princess. But then his battlesuit goes off during a battle and accidentally overloads the "Neutrarod," a spire he'd built to counter the planet's geological instability. And as a result, all of Lex's subjects die, including his wife and kid. He blames Superman, of course.

Doctor Doom

Like Lex, he's almost got it all, including his own country where everybody his his loyal vassal. He builds time machines and robot versions of himself, and even manages to build an Emotion Changer to force scores of supervillains to crash the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm. But every one of his schemes goes metal facemask up, because he over-reaches. At one point, he managed to steal the nearly limitless powers of the Silver Surfer, but lost them because he insisted on challenging the barrier the Surfer's master, Galactus, had put around the Earth. He's lost battles with Luke Cage and even Squirrel Girl, whose squirrels chewed through the wires powering his Doombots.

Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder.

Zack Whedon's one-shot Dr. Horrible comic hits stands on November 18th and will delve into Billy's childhood, his first meeting with Captain Hammer, and his drive to join the Evil League of Evil. Whedon told Newsarama that Penny will make a small appearance, though sadly there will be no singing.

The full seven-page preview is available at MTV and offers some insight into what drove Billy to become Dr. Horrible.

[via Whedonesque]

The fan-made Horrible Turn describes its legal status in the following, appropriately Whedonesque way:

Any similarity to the characters created by Joss Whedon is, like, totally a coincidence. And by 'coincidence' we mean accidental. And by 'accidental' we mean fortunate. And by 'fortunate' we mean intentional. And by 'intentional' we mean unauthorized.

While we're unconvinced that Dr. Horrible needed any backstory in addition to what we saw in the original web series (And, no, that doesn't includes you, authorized comics), we're kind of taken by the trailer for Horrible Turn:

Horrible Turn trailer from Horrible Turn on Vimeo.

Does this mean the movie will live up to its inspiration? We only have to wait until November 10th to find out.

[Horrible Turn] (Via Whedonesque)

Complicated is probably underselling it, though. In every one of Joss Whedon's projects, the central romantic relationship is really deeply messed up. His romantic leads use each other, delude themselves, and often end up in tragedy. But through all of the complexity, these twisted relationships end up feeling more real than any simple rom-com example ever would.

Of course, that extends to sexuality in the context of these relationships. Whedon likes to put his characters into weird sexual situations as well. Sex tends to have unexpected consequences in reality as well as fiction, but in Joss Whedon's world, those unintended consequences are often unimaginable or even disturbing.

Here are a few of the best examples of Joss Whedon's propensity for weird, convoluted romances. (Spoilers for Dollhouse, Buffy, Dr. Horrible, and Firefly!)

Buffy and Angel

In a lot of ways, the Buffy-Angel relationship is Joss Whedon's prototype for messed up relationships. For starters, their story is essentially a supernatural Romeo and Juliet. In a dangerous and deadly way, Buffy and Angel are very much star-crossed lovers. Buffy's sole task is to kill vampires, and Angel is... well, a vampire.

Of course, things are more complex than that; Angel is not just a vampire, but a vampire with a soul. This is what draws Buffy to him. He's got a troubled past and a dark edge, but deep inside, he's essentially as human as her.

And then we get our first very Whedonesque sexual experience with a twist. When Angel and Buffy finally go at it, it is precisely this act of love that causes Angel to lose his soul and revert to the demon he once was. Buffy's feelings for him go from complex to downright wrong (and very dangerous) in a matter of moments.

It's a sophisticated metaphor for the terrible versions of themselves people sometimes become after sex. But it's also a quintessentially Joss Whedon touch: when the couple is at their happiest, things take a turn for the darkest.

Buffy and Spike

And let's not forget Buffy's even more mixed up relationship with Spike. She is repulsed by him for a very long time, seeing him as a symbol of the destructive nature and blood lust inside of herself.

But in Joss Whedon's mind, this man as symbol of self-loathing may as well be a symbol of self-loving; Buffy embarks on a twisted, self-destructive romantic fascination with Spike. The sex scenes between these two always feel a little dirty and more than a little self-destructive on both ends.

And that's not even counting the feather in the demented cap that is Spike and Buffy's relationship: Spike tries to rape Buffy in an attempt to prove to her that she really does love him. It's a strange, dark, twisted scene, but what makes it even more twisted is that this attempted rape really is the first step on the road that eventually leads to Spike's transformation into someone Buffy does love.

This arc is also steeped in metaphor. The two of them, at their darkest moments, turn to each other, and they even help each other become the people they want to be, but not before they help tear each other down to the saddest, most broken people they can be.

Captain Malcolm and Inara

Interestingly, the relationship between Malcolm Reynolds and Inara Serra is probably the most normal of Whedon's leading romantic stories, despite the fact that the two never get beyond meaningful glances and playful flirtation.

From the get-go, Malcolm disapproves of Inara's profession. She's a "companion," which, in the world of Firefly, is a specially trained, deeply spiritual individual who creates meaningful sexual and emotional bonds with their clients. Captain Mal disdainfully refers to this as "whoring."

In fact, the Captain makes it clear over and over that he doesn't respect her profession. But he makes clear, after famously punching out another man who calls her a whore, that he does respect her. In fact, his disapproval of Inara probably stems mostly from jealousy.

I imagine that if "Firefly" had continued, Joss Whedon would have leveraged this hot-and-cold romance into a much more destructive story-line. Whedon and crew have indicated that Inara was on the path to dying if the show had continued, which shouldn't surprise anyone... anything remotely romantically stable isn't destined to last in the Whedonverse.

Dr. Horrible and Penny

While Dr. Horrible remains pretty light throughout its three parts, it does offer us a pretty twisted little romantic storyline.

Billy is a meek man, but his alter ego, Dr. Horrible, seems to count impressing the cute laundry buddy Penny as one of his main goals as a world-dominator. Billy seems to think that he, as Billy, will never impress her, but Dr. Horrible certainly will.

In the end, though, when Dr. Horrible makes his big debut, he accidentally contributes pretty directly to Penny's death. With her last breaths, Penny reaches out to Billy, not Dr. Horrible, and calls instead for the Doctor's nemesis.

It is at this moment that Dr. Horrible realizes that he never had a chance with Penny, that the only way he could connect with her was as Billy. But Billy is gone now, replaced by the villain he thought he needed to become.

In Joss Whedon's hands, a sci-fi musical blog with rom-com elements still ends up a pretty dark romantic tragedy.

Pretty Much Everyone On Dollhouse

Finally, in Whedon's most recent creation, pretty much every romantic relationship has it's twisted, destructive side. For starters, the first real romantic relationship we get is the one between FBI agent Paul Ballard and his neighbor Mellie.

Just when we see Ballard getting comfortable with this woman, Whedon hits us with the revelation that she was only there to spy on him, that the personality that loves him was concocted to do just that and nothing more. The woman he loved is just a shadow in an empty room.

Needless to say, this distorts Ballard's relationship with her. Soon after the revelation, Ballard, frustrated by the fabricated nature of Mellie's love, has some angry sex with her, then runs out on her. She's devastated, yet Ballard knows it's only because she's programmed to be devastated. His relationship with her is a symbol of the depravity he's fighting in trying to shut down the Dollhouse.

But Dollhouse doesn't stop its experimental romantic stories there. The show asks what would happen when the shadows start to linger in the empty room. Could the unimprinted dolls start to develop romantic interests, despite their supposed lack of personality or libido?

The poster-children for this concept are Victor and Sierra. These two gravitate towards each other in their unimprinted state, and they also seem to feel a residual pull towards each other in some of their imprinted states.

By far the most dark and twisted relationship on Dollhouse, though, is that between Sierra and her original handler. Her handler, on multiple occasions, took advantage of the preternatural trust programmed into the otherwise blank Sierra to take advantage of her innocence and rape her.

It's one of the most twisted sexual events Whedon has yet crafted, and it further proves his fascination with strange, unconventional, or even downright disturbingly messed up romantic relationships.

What Does It All Mean?

It's clear that Joss Whedon loves complicated romantic and sexual relationships. Both love and lust are unabashedly large motivating factors for his characters, and this provides a springboard for the most interesting story-lines on his shows.

But it also makes what can sometimes be fanciful and unbelievable circumstances seem much more real. When we see a "happily ever after" story, we sometimes think, ok, but for how long can someone be so uncomplicatedly happy? Joss Whedon's stories provide us with some answers to that question.

More to the point, Whedon uses supernatural and science fictional elements to take complex, realistic romantic and sexual tension and inflate them to near mythic proportion. At the risk of going too far with the Whedon love, it's the kind of thing that Shakespeare so excelled at. In his works, gods and ghosts often became the engines for deeply affecting tragedy, helping his stories bridge the gap between intimate realism and giant mythology.

Whedon's stories do the same thing for his fans. We know life isn't simple, that there's something disingenuous about a television show that portrays all romantic stories as cut from the same simple cloth. Whedon offers us all the intricacies of our own romantic and sexual development writ large. It's the kind of thing that appeals very strongly to a select audience and will hopefully someday get the wider appreciation it deserves.

NPH's episode, "The Mayhem of the Music Meister" premiered at Comic Con, where it wormed its catchy way into our hearts. UK and Canadian fans have already seen the episode in its entirety, but those looking to catch it on Cartoon Network in the US will have to wait until October 23.

[via Topless Robot]

Congrats on the Outstanding Special Class - Short-format Live-Action Entertainment Programs win guys, you deserved to have a category created just so you could win.

Ray and Summer:

In today's conference call with reporters, Whedon explained exactly what Wise (the devil from the show Reaper) and Glau would be doing when they appear in the season's sixth episode. Wise is the head of another Dollhouse — sort of a counterpart to Adelle DeWitt, with whom he'll be butting heads. And Glau is the other Dollhouse's programmer — so she's the counterpart to Topher. And Glau's part is "eccentric" and totally different from anything you've seen before. The writers worked extra hard to make her character "pop" because they knew what Glau was capable of, said Whedon. And yes, this new Dollhouse will be much cooler than "our" Dollhouse, thanks to Wise and Glau.

And you can expect the new season to have a slightly more Reaper-ish feel because Reaper co-creators Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters have joined the show as show-runners, replacing the first season's Sarah Craft and Elizabeth Fain. Joss says Fazekas and Butters have a slightly different set of obsessions, but the show will still basically have the same concerns.

So why does Joss always work with the same people?

There's actually a deathmatch between Firefly and Battlestar Galactica as to which show will get more of its castmembers on Dollhouse, Whedon joked. (BSG's Tahmoh Penikett is a regular on the show, and Jamie Bamber is putting in an appearance in the season opener, while Firefly's Alan Tudkyk, plus Glau, have put in appearances.) Whedon added that he tried to avoid working with actors he already knew in season one, so the show could forge its own identity — but going forward, he'll be a lot less worried about that. So you can expect to see lots of familiar faces.

The first episode will still be newbie-friendly.

The show is no longer trying to make every episode stand alone, and the second season will be much more "arc-y" than the first season was. We'll keep delving into the workings of the Dollhouse and how it's affecting these characters. But Whedon added that the first episode contains enough of an explanation of what the Dollhouse is, and what it does, to bring in new viewers. At the same time, he's become convinced that you have to keep moving forward — even if you move slowly enough at first to provide a jumping-on point. And the show's opening credits have been retooled to be more explanatory.

No flash-forwards at first

Previously, Whedon had promised that the season opener would include some more glimpses of the terrible post-apocalyptic future we witnessed in the unaired finale, "Epitaph One." But it turns out his script for the season opener was too full of other stuff, and there just wasn't room for all the future visions as well. Now, it's looking like we won't be revisiting that dystopian ruined world until towards the end of the first block of 13 episodes this fall.

The Dollhouse's technology gets more complex

But that horrific future will continue to inform the episodes set in the present, and we'll start to see all the weird and disturbing uses the Dollhouse's technology can be put to. "We're going to stretch the tech fairly heftily," said Whedon. "A lot of it has to do with the different ways this tech can be manipulated... There's more that can be done (with this brainwashing technology), and the excitement and the danger of that is a big partof this season."

Doctor Horrible Lives Again!

Whedon confirmed that he and his co-conspirators are working on another installment of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, but they haven't yet decided whether it'll stay an indie shoestring project, or get bigger and involve a studio or more people. Either way, though, they know what story they want to tell and they're just waiting until it gels.

Challenges ahead for the Dolls

Echo will be dealing with the fact that she's had all of her personalities downloaded into her brain at once (in the episode "Omega") and she'll be able to access those personalities even when she's in her blanked-out "Doll" state. She'll be using them to reach her objective, which is to get her own original personality back, and to help the other Dolls get their own personalities as well. Victor and Sierra won't be able to keep their hands off each other, which will cause hilarity as well as some consternation. November, aka Mellie, will turn up early in the season — which means there's more pain ahead for her. And although we'll only see Whiskey (aka Dr. Claire Saunders) in three episodes this season, those will be intense, mindblowing issues that deal with her discovery that she's a Doll as well.

More importantly, Echo will be trying to gain allies — and Paul Ballard will be the first person she reaches out to. But she'll also reach out to others, and she'll be trying to create the kind of family that we wished we could have seen in the Dollhouse during the first season. (In other words: Scooby gang?)

Stop wondering who else is a Doll!

Since we're heading for a dystopian future where everyone — Doll or otherwise — can be implanted with a canned personality in a moment, I was wondering if this meant the distinction between Doll and "regular" person would become meaningless soon. But Whedon said that in the present day, the distinction between Doll and non-Doll is very, very important — and the prospect of being erased, losing your selfhood and becoming a non-person will continue to loom as the show's greatest horror for the characters who aren't Dolls.

And Whedon doesn't plan to reveal that a bunch of characters we've already met are Dolls — that kind of revelation should be done sparingly, since otherwise we end up just watching a bunch of Dolls interacting with each other and there's no longer anything at stake. Explained Whedon:

Everybody is not a doll, because it would be very easy for us to pull that trick over and over, and ultimately shoot ourselves in the foot... I'm not saying never, i'm not saying we won't question reality every now and then, [but] we're taking the people we have, and pushing them around. We're keeping them grounded, so that there is something at stake [for these characters]... If we just make people dolls willy nilly, it's the rabbit hole and nothing means anything.

Dollhouse premieres on Friday, Sept. 25 at 9 PM.

Whedon told SciFi Wire that, yes, a sequel is on the cards. Maybe the longterm cards, but still:

We're all extremely busy, but we're all really motivated. This is just ... yet another moment of going, "My God." This is the kind of thing, you know, that is, ... just the effect is snowballing. And, in a way, it makes you a little skittish. It's like, we don't want to do a Horrible that's horrible. You know? We don't want to blow it... it's like, yeah, it could be great, or it could be Arthur 2. We don't know. But at the same time, it motivates me, not only to do more, not only work in the Horrible realm, and also, just, who doesn't want to play with those guys? But just generally, I'm very anxious to do more stuff on the Internet, either with other people or just in my own small capacity. You know? Just to keep testing the models. Just to keep it fresh and keep surprising people, including myself. Because none of what has happened has surprised anyone more than it surprised me.

He also offered up a tongue-in-cheek reason why we haven't seen the sequel already:

I'd be doing it more, but Fox forgot to cancel my show... Very awkward. They looked and said, "Oh, this is our bad. We forgot to cancel your show. You're going to have to make more."

Cue "Fox is trying to stop Joss from making more Horrible" rumor in three... two... one...

Joss Whedon on Emmys, Dr. Horrible and the future [SciFi Wire]

Sadly, NPH won't actually be playing Dr. Horrible, since that would probably fracture the space-time continuum. Instead, he'll be playing the Music Meister, an amalgam of various DC Comics villains, who uses his ability to create music to dominate the world. Or something. He's a former band camp nerd who's become a megalomaniac. Mostly, the episode's plot is "just an excuse to have everyone sing," says producer James Tucker. Oh, like the Buffy musical episode then?

Here's your first look at NPH's look as a Batman villain:


[TV Guide Magazine]

Of course, Neil Patrick Harris might have got the job because he's a talented, charismatic actor with a string of Broadway credits in both dramas and musicals, including Assassins, Proof, and Cabaret. I suppose that's possible.

But as far we're concerned, he deserves the gig based solely on the strength of his work in Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog. Just check out the clip - that's some virtuoso acting and singing right there, and I don't even really like musicals:

Here's hoping his entire performance as host is just singing the entire Doctor Horrible soundtrack, maybe with some dramatic readings as Colonel Carl Jenkins from Starship Troopers mixed in for good measure. Throw in a climactic showdown between Dr. Horrible and former Tony Awards host Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and we might just have the superhero event of the summer on our hands.

Whedon told Sci Fi Wire that "we've talked about doing an actual studio film" of Dr. Horrible as the follow-up to the web serial. And his brother and co-writer, Jed Whedon, says "The story we've talked about is pretty big, so it may end up being longer" than the original three-part series. Adds Joss Whedon:

Well, we don't want to be beholden to anybody. We want to do the product the same way we did the first one, which is out of our hearts, and then go to people [and say], 'OK, if you're interested in this, this is what it is.' Besides, it could be something theatrical. It could be something on the Internet again, where it's done on the fly and it all comes from us. We don't know how we want that to be. The best thing to do is to write it. Then we can start deciding a business model based on the script.

Whatever business design they agree on, Bad Horse better get a cut of the profits.

Meanwhile, Maurissa Tancharoen, their collaborator, says they're considering bringing the love interest Penny (Felicia Day) back from the dead. She's definitely dead, but there are lots of ways to resurrect her or return her to the story. Just as long as she doesn't spend hours moping about how she was in Heaven.

Dr. Horrible pumpkin design from Pink Raygun. [Sci Fi Wire]

In an interview in Rolling Stone that went up a week or so ago, Whedon admits that his experience making Dollhouse has convinced him to ditch the tube for keeps. He says he's got a deal in the pipeline with an unnamed Silicon Valley company to create web content. But he also just signed a deal with a "very, very sort of profitable maverick company" that's starting a "genre portal" and wants a Whedon show for it.

Whedon says he approached these companies with three options. One was Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog, which he knew the companies wouldn't go for, and which he ended up making on his own. But he still plans to make the other two ideas.

Whedon talks about the webseries that blew him away and made him want to do his own, including Felicia Day's The Guild. And he has especially nice words for the Star Trek: The New Voyages/Phase II webseries:

It was probably the best episode of the original Star Trek I'd ever seen. The only [bad] part of it was that the special effects were a little too good. Apart from that they really aped the camera work, the acting, the story structures and the over-quoting of Shakespeare. And it worked tremendously.

Even though I've been loving Dollhouse, I'm happy at the thought of more quirky experiments like Dr. Horrible, and I welcome the idea of the brain of Joss without any network interference in the way.

On the other hand, it also makes me a little nervous. Whedon has a huge, rabid fanbase, who will mobilize like the National Guard for him. But when Whedon starts creating content for the web, he'll be much more reliant on that fanbase than ever, and have a much harder time reaching casual fans. He could find himself having to cater to his die-hard fans, some of whom don't seem to have embraced the dark, challenging Dollhouse. Any time an artist starts creating stuff with his/her most ardent fans in mind, it's a possible recipe for creative stagnation. Let's hope Whedon's new business partners have ideas on how to reach a more diverse audience. [Rolling Stone via Axiom's Edge]

Variety reports that the first four shows announced for April's 26th William S. Paley Television Festival are Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (which isn't actually a television show, but, you know, Joss), Fringe and True Blood. I promise you, we haven't taken over the programming committee for the festival.

Joss Whedon will be present at both the Dollhouse and Horrible panels, along with further cast and crew from both shows, yet to be announced, talking about the behind-the-scenes process required to bring us the goods on a regular basis. Cast and crew from Fringe and Blood are also expected to appear during the festival's April 10th through 23rd run. All we need to complete the set would be appearances from Ron Moore, talking about Battlestar Galactica, and Bryan Fuller showing the unseen final three episodes of Pushing Daisies, and I'd be flying down to start waiting outside the ArcLight Cinemas' Cinerama Dome with my sleeping bag for the next two months.

'Dr. Horrible,' 'Dollhouse' do Paley [Variety]

It's difficult to separate an actor from her character, especially when the acting is of high caliber. Of course, actors deserve to have private lives just like all other creative professionals, and if some of them don't read the Lord of the Rings trilogy every year (like Dominic Monaghan), well, that's just who they are. But it's a special gift from actor to fandom when the people who play beloved heroes turn out to be more than a little like the heroes themselves. They might not fight caped evil in their daily lives, but these eight actors possess that crucial bit of understanding that keeps them from phoning in their roles — and convinces their admirers that they're worth every jaw-drop and swoon.

Kristen Bell
After three years as teenaged noir super-sleuth Veronica Mars, Kristen Bell had to move on to something different — and she chose Heroes. Having watched the show since day one, Bell told the minds behind the show that she was a huge fan; the rest, as you know, is history. She's living proof that part of being a great actress is having a deep personal investment in the story you're being paid to tell. Audiences appreciate the hell out of that. And in a fantastic interview with the A.V. Club, Bell further showed her respect for her fans:

The bottom line is, everyone's a loser in their own right. Here's why I like geek culture: People like what they like because they like it. They're not trying to fit into any mainstream likes or dislikes. You want to dress up like a Star Wars character and go to Comic-Con? Do it, if that's what makes you happy. People might look at you as super-weird, but if that's your obsession, go for it.

Damn straight, Kristen! And I expect to see you in our next cosplay round-up.

Wil Wheaton
The man you know as Wesley Crusher just might be the poster boy for actors-in-fandom. Whether or not you like his Star Trek character, you have to admit that his subsequent work as a blogger has made the lives of many geeks, nerds, and fans very happy. He's written extensively and thoughtfully on his experiences in the world of Star Trek and in real life, producing three books: Dancing Barefoot, Just a Geek, and The Happiest Days of Our Lives. He currently blogs at Wil Wheaton dot Net in Exile.

David Tennant
Nobody had to explain Gallifreyan customs to David Tennant when he took the role of the Tenth Doctor on BBC's Doctor Who. He'd already been watching the program for years. In fact, he is a self-described "Doctor Who junkie" and once cherished a Tom Baker action figure. Now an action figure himself, Tennant took us through the production history of the show in a memorable episode of Doctor Who Confidential entitled "Do You Remember the First Time?" — and by the way, it turns out that pretty much everyone on the team these days was a childhood fan.

Felicia Day
You may know her as Dr. Horrible's lost love Penny or a Potential Slayer from Sunnydale, but it turns out that Felicia Day's geekiest — and awesomest — work yet is the creation of the online web series The Guild. Her tribute to gamers is adorable, hilarious, and subtitled in Chinese, Japanese, Italian, French, and German. Yeah, she's one of us.

Nathan Fillion
One of the hallmarks of devoted sci-fi fandom is allowing a fantastic story to become your reality. So Nathan Fillion, who played Captain Malcolm Reynolds on Firefly, endeared himself to me forever when he started making posts to internet fan forums and signing them "The Cap'n." The Serenity star is my kind of man: He devoured comics as a child, holds frequent Halo tournaments as an adult, and has this to say about his experience as the leading man of a sci-fi western (from Firefly: The Official Companion):

I put on my costume in my trailer and took one last look in the mirror. They called me to the set and I remember coming right from my trailer to inside the door of the set. When you walked into the studio, the ship was just to your left with the big open cargo bay door looking at ya. I remember walking up the cargo bay door for the first time in costume. I believe it was David Boyd, our director of photography, who turned and saw me walking up and turned back around to the crew and said, "Captain on deck." Some people clapped and it was kind of neat. It was a reception I will remember always.

David Duchovny
Nothing says commitment like writing two episodes of the show you star in, directing three others, and contributing to the story of five more. He may have left The X-Files a bit too early for some of our tastes, but Duchovny and creator Chris Carter were very much in cahoots as far as this celebration of unexplained phenomena is concerned — and that demands some respect. As Duchovny told the Los Angeles Times, it's an honor to be part of sci-fi culture:

The X-Files was said to be the first Internet show. We had chat rooms and fan sites and all that. Look, I'm usually five or six years behind whatever is hip. So it was around 2000 that I started doing e-mail and finally started understanding what all that was about. ... My initial response — and I still hold this to be true — is that it takes the place of some of the functions of a church in a small town: A place where people come together, ostensibly to worship something. But really what's happening is you’re forming a community. It's less about what you're worshiping and more about, "We have these interests in common." Someone has a sick aunt and suddenly it's about that, raising money to help her or sharing resources to make her life easier. That's what it was about with The X-Files on the Internet.

Ben Browder
Ben Browder's starred in the much-loved Australian-American series Farscape and American-Canadian series Stargate SG-1. Other actors in his position might bitch about being pegged as a sci-fi actor, but not Browder; he was heavily invested in both series, and seemed to have as much fun making them as people did watching them. He snagged a story credit for SG-1 and wrote two episodes of Farscape. As you can tell from the panel recording below, Browder learned his stuff while doing it: he says, "when people tell you that some long arc show which is five years in making is planned in every detail from the beginning, they are full of it!"

Simon Pegg
Simon Pegg will be Scotty in the J.J. Abrams Star Trek film, and is one of the creators and stars of the tongue-in-cheek sitcom Spaced — he plays a sci-fi enthusiast and aspiring comic book writer. He certainly brings a lot of talent to both sides of the screen, and when he guest-starred in Doctor Who, Pegg told the BBC:

Doctor Who was a big part of my childhood ... I'd got into Doctor Who just before Jon Pertwee regenerated into Tom Baker, and as a kid I never remember the special effects being as primitive as they were. It scared the hell out of me but I loved it. I particularly recall monsters like the Sontarans, who had very strange heads; the giant insects in "The Ark in Space" and in one episode, Julian Glover tearing his face off to become this one-eyed creature.

He's speaking, of course, of alien menace Scaroth, who manipulated human history for his own ends in the serial "City of Death." If that brilliantly campy special effect impressed Pegg, he had to have been totally immersed in the story, and that is true sci-fi cred any day.

Salutes all around for these glorious nerdy thespians! Now — who'd I miss?

Thanks to tipsters Heather, Sarah, Ellen, and Lily!

Image from Adventures in Time and Space.

Talking to Sci Fi Wire, Neil Patrick Harris' disappointment about that fact rivaled even your own:

Oh, God, I wish I could say there was going to be a Dr. Horrible sequel, but I know there's so many people involved in the creation of it that have a lot of other stuff going on right now... Mainly, Joss [is doing] Dollhouse, and he has another movie, Cabin in the Woods, that he's doing at the same time. So I don't know that anything would happen soon. But everyone has been super-enthusiastic about it, and I think that means that hopefully something will come.

That hasn't stopped Harris from wanting to work with Whedon on something else, however:

I'm in CBS' corner right now because of How I Met Your Mother, so I don't know that I'd be able to [appear on Dollhouse], but I think it's produced by 20th Century Fox, so, you know, they're sort of cousins... That would be fun! All right. I'll ask Joss! I like being a cousin in the Whedon family, so, whatever he wants me to do. Except porn.

Wait, the Whedon family makes porn together? I'm not sure how I feel about knowing that.

Harris Eager For Horrible 2, Dollhouse [Sci Fi Wire]

Joss Whedon and his co-conspirators on Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog asked fans to submit their own video applications to the Evil League of Evil, promising that if applicants could win over the likes of Fake Thomas Jefferson, Dead Bowie, and Bad Horse, their video would earn a place of honor on the Dr. Horrible DVD.

A review of the DVD at CliqueClack TV mentions three standouts among the fan-made applications. Above is Tur-Mohel, an actual Jewish Mohel fond of puns (that's his "Minyan" standing behind him) and foreskin-themed crime. Below is Mr. Terrible, whose application takes an appropriately Gilbert and Sullivan-esque turn. Terrible assures us that he's far more evil than Dr. Horrible, but still takes time out to talk to his mother:

The Evil League of Evil gets a legacy candidate in Lord Stabbington, a polite British chap who was more than a little ambivalent in accepting his ancestral duty of patricide:

The rest of the highlighted applications will be on the DVD, due out this Friday, December 19.

[via CliqueClack TV via Whedonesque]

Writing on the Whedonesque blog, Whedon offers the following sales pitch:

Is it worth fifteen hard-earned dollars? Absolutely. In fact, I can say without reservation that the Dr. Horrible DVD is worth $15.23 EASILY. More, if your dollars weren't the hard-earned kind, just the kind you have lying around in your mom's purse. God knows WE'VE worked hard to earn 'em. "Commentary! The Musical" is the most painstaking and exhausting piece of whimsey I have ever mistaken for a good idea. It has nearly twice as much music as Dr. Horrible itself — since you can't really talk that much during a commentary musical or it sounds like a regular commentary. (Which we also have, with the stars and writers, plus making-of's, ELE applications, and a few items left lying around by a notorious Bunny...) I can say without hesitation that I hesitate to say it's great. And by great I mean ridiculous. It's sophmoric, solopsistic, silly and the most fun I've had being exhausted since the fabled Mushortio itself. And everyone sings beautifullly. Which enrages me. I a little bit hate my friends now.

And, as the saying goes, that's not all:

I just want to say "thank you" to everybody who has supported this venture. We've been able to pay our crew and all our bills, which means a lot. What means more is proving that completely independent ventures can muscle their way through the blizzard of big-budget behemoths. (A blizzard of behemoths? Back to writing school, alliteration-junkie!) All that rhetoric about the future of entertainment that flew about during the Strike is still entirely true. We need to find our own way of producing entertainment. A lot of people are watching Dr. Horrible to see if it's any kind of model — way more people than I expected — and it means everything to me to help pave the way for artists to start working and making a living from the ground up. There are a couple of real pioneers in this that I know personally: Felicia Day, I'm thrilled to say, and choreographer Chris Elam are both looking far ahead in terms of monetization and interactivity. Me, I'm more like Jimmy Stewart in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", but at least I'm out there. Thanks, he finally summed up, to you.

Amazon claims the DVD is due December 19th; Whedon is "hoping Amazon is just playing it safe and we can beat that date."

[Whedonesque]

Should you be deemed evil and worthy by the E.L.E., then you will be eligible for a spot on the extras of the Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog DVD (rumored to be released this July). And with the way this world is going, I bet you're also offered three different webisode deals in no time.

Songs are not required in this submission, but they're a plus, so says the E.L.E.

The submission deadline is October 11, so you'd better get your minions in shape. Oh I hope if you get in, you're notified by a singing group of cowboys.

[Evil League of Evil]