Tuned In

A Horrible Holiday Gift

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Today is the release of the DVD of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog at Amazon.com, and if there is anyone whom you love this holiday season—yourself, for instance—you should buy it for them. 

Wait!, you may be saying. Yes, I know Dr. Horrible was number four on TIME’s best TV shows of 2008. But I already watched it for free when it streamed at its own website this summer! Or I saw it with a bunch of my buddies, only one of whom paid to download it from iTunes! Ha ha, People Who Try To Make Money By Selling Content In the Digital Era! I have defeated you again!

Not so fast, buddy. Joss Whedon and company have got the drop on you this time. For starters, this ingenious musical comes with the expected behind-the-scenes bits and extras. But there are also a set of brilliant Evil League of Evil application videos, submitted by fans on the Internet, including one from “Tur-Mohel,” the world’s evilest circumcision-performing supervillain. And there’s also not just a commentary: there’s a musical commentary. An entire other musical, in fact, within this musical.

Thirteen hilarious songs, sung by the assembled cast, producers, writers and even extras, one of whom gets her own song about her brief moment in the production: “My path up is steep / My God, Joss is cheap / And doesn’t mind wasting your time.” There’s a showstopping number about the writers’ strike which led Whedon to create the musical, which even manages to find a rhyme for “Nick Counter,” the studios’ negotiator in the impasse. And there’s a suitably egotistical solo number for star Neil Patrick Harris: “Like that showcase for Liza /  It’s Neil With an I!”

And you have to buy the DVD to hear it. Foolish mortal, Dr. Horrible has defeated you again! MWAH-hahahahahahaaaaaa!