A Wonderful Week To Be A Geek: New Web Productions From Both Joss Whedon and Heroes

TWO new web series in one week? I may not be able to contain my geekthusiasm! It’s like Christmas morning, when you come downstairs to find the chocolate eggs hidden inside the Jack-O-Lantern. Too…much…goodness!

Is it True? The genius behind Buffy, Angel and Firefly is trying his hand at… musical comedy? Oh, come on – you know you’ve seen the Buffy episode “Once More With Feeling” a thousand times, and what would you call that? Joss Whedon’s latest project is “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” (click the link – you know you want to), and it’s one good thing that came from the Writers Guild picket lines. Mr. Whedon and some other folks (including his brothers Zack and Jed) were talking about how to circumvent the whole studio system to produce something fairly cheap to distribute on their own terms. And here we are – there are three 10-minute Acts to this comedic musical oddity. Each will be released on a separate day during this week (Act One on July 15th, Act Two on July 17th and Act Three on July 19th), but *poof*, they all disappear at midnight on July 20th.

But why do they have to go away? And what the hell is this thing even ABOUT, anyway? Keep your pants on people – you’ll still be able to download the series for a fee, or you can wait to buy the DVD. Joss would actually like to be able to pay some of the crew after all… As for what it’s about – I’ll leave that to Joss: “It’s the story of a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to.” says Whedon. “Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” will star Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible, Nathan Fillion as Captain Hammer, Felicia Day as Penny and a cast of dozens.” (For Whedon’s whole manifesto about the project, click here.)

And NBC’s Heroes starts their first series of webisodes this week, too? It’s true - we may not have to leave the house all week! “Going Postal” is a trilogy as well, starting on Monday July 14th, with new chapters the following two Mondays. We are introduced to Echo De Mille, a mailman who seems to have a Black Canary-like sonic scream thing going on - and Mama Petrelli from the regular show seems to be along for the ride.


While you’re at the Heroes site, check out the web comics they have. There’s a new one posted every Monday, regardless of whether or not the show is airing new episodes. Do these people know how to treat us geeks or what?

Have fun everyone!