Whedonesque : Comments on 16926 : 'Dr. Horrible' diagnosis: It's a big hit online.

This will be today's Dr. Horrible review/article thread. Please post anything that you find here and we will add it to this post.

zeitgeist | July 17, 05:34 CET

I'd really like to hear more from Jed and Maurissa. Especially given their elevated status in the Whedonverse since they're joining Dollhouse. But I'm highly interested in hearing how they work as a writing team (which they are, yeah? I'm correct on that?).

Anyhoo, nice article, a few new quotes. Good to see Horrible getting some big publicity.

Jobo | July 17, 05:34 CET

"Joss has a lot of crazed fans."

Beg pardon?

jcs | July 17, 05:39 CET

Crazed - with joy. Not crazy. 'Cos that would be a silly thing to say.

And this: "We love the characters. We've done some cool things, and we think there's more to do with them" makes me very happy, having just watched Act II a few times . . .

SoddingNancyTribe | July 17, 05:41 CET

I'm crazed. I have no problem with that.

The One True b!X | July 17, 05:45 CET

SoddingNancy...I was just going to quote the same thing. This gives me hope that this might not be the last of it! The fact that they're getting 1000 hits a second is also a huge accomplishment.

[ edited by phoenix1023 on 2008-07-17 06:01 ]

phoenix1023 | July 17, 05:52 CET

Yeah, Jobo, Jed and Maurissa do write as a team. Pretty sure I read that somewhere, although I can't remember where now. And 1000 hits a second is damn impressive!

dollrific | July 17, 06:06 CET

Savvy business people ... hehehe. =D

cabri | July 17, 06:24 CET

SCI FI Wire.

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=4&id=57732

The One True b!X | July 17, 06:25 CET

For some unknown reason, when I open this, my firefox shuts down. O.o

[ edited by maxsummers on 2008-07-17 07:01 ]

maxsummers | July 17, 07:00 CET

For the rest of his life ... for the rest of his life ... Nathan Fillion will have to cope with fans walking up to him and saying "Say, Mr. Fillion ... I forget ... What's the hammer, again?"

It'll be like Mandy Patinkin, expected to say the "You killed my father" bit until his dying day. Same principle.

And I agree with Harris: "A happy medium," indeed. :)

[ edited by Ghalev on 2008-07-17 07:26 ]

Ghalev | July 17, 07:18 CET

...Whedon is now considering further webisodes, as well as Broadway and film.

Oh. My. Gosh. It's taken off beyond my hopes and dreams. Go Joss! Can you imagine a Broadway production of this?

notfadeaway | July 17, 07:28 CET

I think the business about Broadway and film is probably just the reporter taking some of the Joss-man's recent lighthearted quips on the subject a little too literally. Not everybody gets Joss (to paraphrase Xander).

AlanD | July 17, 07:52 CET

"...as well as Broadway and film."

Oh. My. God.

I think it's illegal to be this happy.

Sly | July 17, 08:04 CET

Does my blog count as an article?

http://michaeloconnell.com/blog/2008/07/dr-horribles-singalong-blog.html

oconnellmd | July 17, 08:45 CET

My impression was also that the "broadway and film" bit sounds an awful lot like Joss's sense of humor, combined with his dry deleviry I can see how a reporter could take it seriously:)

Act II by the way, wow....How such an amazing project can take shape with only three 13 minute episodes boggles.

Cyclopticxander | July 17, 08:58 CET

....further webisodes, as well as Broadway and film.

Can there be tea towels?? Argh! Enough already!

Part of the delight of this thing is the relative low cost and fast production. I'd like to see Joss (and others) use this new format to deliver a whole menagerie of different stories and characters.

Part of the reason for Dollhouse is Eliza's range as a performer (which she normally doesn't get to explore). It would be great to see guerilla-shows like Dr Horrible offer the same opportunities to a wider collection of cast and crew.

[ edited by malcolm on 2008-07-17 09:06 ]

[ edited by malcolm on 2008-07-17 09:10 ]

malcolm | July 17, 09:05 CET

I can hope.

notfadeaway | July 17, 09:22 CET

If Joss ever makes a Broadway production of this I will be first in line for tickets.

badwolf | July 17, 09:34 CET

Hilarious!

It's so funny! ^^ And sad. Poor Dr. Horrible, man needs some love for himself :,-(

(Yeah, we can watch it here in Europe, too. Thanks!)

cleveland | July 17, 09:39 CET

Broadway, film... I'd settle for a OMWF type sing-along (boy do I hope legal rights are available.)

BYO inflatable hammer optional!

missb | July 17, 09:47 CET

http://hijinksensue.com/

Did anyone post this already?
Not a review but a very nice reference, and I think a lot of people feel that way.

urkonn | July 17, 09:47 CET

does my friends blog count??

http://supersidhom.blogspot.com/

he's new to whedonverse and is also currently reveiwing buffy (as he watches for the 1st time)

April_fool82 | July 17, 10:17 CET

There is a 10 minute interview with Joss about Dr Horrible on BBC Radio 5 Live, Up All Night. Starts at about 3:33:00. I knew my insomnia would prove useful for something. Snore!

MutantFriend | July 17, 11:16 CET

I hope someone can save the BBC interview. I'd like to hear it. It's interesting "Dr. Horrible" is getting more buzz than another musical that's hitting the theaters, "Mamma Mia!"
Anyway, I have a review of part 2 on my blog , if anyone is interested.

impalergeneral | July 17, 12:01 CET

Reviewed Act Two at my blog.

littlexander | July 17, 12:04 CET

"Crazed fans." Well, that's one of the nicest compliments anyone has ever given. I'll wear that.

MysticSlug | July 17, 12:40 CET

I've saved the BBC/Joss interview and will get it uploaded to my site later today.

*supposed to be working*

The Do That Girl | July 17, 12:42 CET

A reminder (in case this got buried on the previous thread): the audio of my 10-minute interview with Joss is now here.

C. A. Bridges | July 17, 12:56 CET

Haha! While I have to admit that Dr. Horrible doesn't excite me as much as Joss-stuff usually does (I mean, it's good, really good even, it's just not as captivating as his stuff usually is), the concept of more D. Horrible just delights me. Both because the characters are certainly a delightful bunch and I would like to see more of them, but also because Dr. Horrible certainly is breaking new ground and I love when ground breakers and innovators succeed. :D

Djungelurban | July 17, 14:24 CET

Thanks for posting about the 5 Live interview, MutantFriend, really great stuff. So obvious that either the host or someone behind the scenes is a huge Joss fan. For those that can access BBC radio shows online (only us Brits AFAIK) a direct link is here (and then skip forward to 3:33 as MutantFriend said). Someone let me know if that link works, as it's the first time I've tried linking (works for me, so guess it's ok).

NotaViking | July 17, 14:34 CET

The fan site has some screenshots of some front page "buzz" doctorhorrible.net/front-page-buzz

Beth | July 17, 15:25 CET

Did anyone else do the math on that Jed Whedon comment?

He said, "We're getting about 1,000 hits per second"

3.6 million per hour? I'm guessing that should read 1000 per minute. But even at 1000/minute thats still almost 1.5 million page views a day. Otherwise that would mean they are getting 86 million hits day...is there a chance that that is an accurate number?

alexreager | July 17, 15:56 CET

There's a chance that at one point, for a limited time, they were getting 1000 hits per minute (or even per second maybe). I suspect the problem comes when you extrapolate that out to a whole day i.e. as Act II goes up for viewing, the hit rate will be very high but it's then going to drop off rapidly i'd bet.

Saje | July 17, 16:04 CET

Nah, I don't think so alexreager. It seems like an offhand comment, equivalent to "we're getting a lot of hits".

GVH | July 17, 16:05 CET

For those that can access BBC radio shows online

I'm pretty sure that's "everyone". Certainly works well enough for me here in the US. :)

janeway216 | July 17, 16:12 CET

In relation to the 1000/second - that was just one particular surge - the one that took out the server

Beth | July 17, 16:30 CET

I thought I'd seen people from the US say that they couldn't access stuff on the BBC's website, but if you can listen to the interview, then that's great. :)

NotaViking | July 17, 16:35 CET

And you're all very welcome ;).

Saje | July 17, 16:53 CET

In relation to the 1000/second - that was just one particular surge - the one that took out the server

That's certainly not what the quote implies Beth'll, got a link ?

Saje | July 17, 17:00 CET

I'll have to find it... I know I read it somewhere, it was in an article that stated that that bit of info was actually provided by someone working for the hosting provider

Beth | July 17, 17:17 CET

Probably this one.

The show creators said at peak, the site was getting 200,000 hits per hour. In fact, a representative from their web hosting company, Vireo Verio.com, called to tell them the site had crashed when, at one point, 1,000 people tried to access it in one second.

The One True b!X | July 17, 17:20 CET

That's the one, thanks b!x

Beth | July 17, 17:22 CET

I still hold that the 1000 hits/second wasn't supposed to be an actual number, was just a way to say "a lot".

The 200,000 hits per hour, though, is an actual number, it would seem.

[ edited by GVH on 2008-07-17 17:32 ]

GVH | July 17, 17:32 CET

Grr. "Hits" and "page views" and "downloads" are all very different things, making it impossible for me to gauge this.

Say the Dr. Horrible page has 5 graphics and the video. Going to that page would create 1 page view and 6 hits (the page and the graphics, one for every time your browser had to query their server). Still wouldn't count as a download unless you clicked on the video and caused it to load into your browser.

So ten visits to the page could be read as 10 page views, 60 hits, and anywhere from 0 to 10 downloads. When the Whedon Bros report 1,000 hits per second, is that "hits" or "page views"? The quote strongly implies page views, since it says "people."

C. A. Bridges | July 17, 17:35 CET

I would think it'd be at least 1000/sec right at midnight, with everyone refreshing.

I'm not sure even page views would be accurate. Once I've got the video up, I can just keep playing it, which itself isn't on the drhorrible.com server. I never need to refresh the page, so I don't know if they can count that.

hacksaway | July 17, 17:53 CET

The video is hosted on Hulu so the video itself wouldn't raise load on drhorrible.com at all.

KernelM | July 17, 17:55 CET

But once the video loaded into your browser once, as long as you didn't refresh it would just keep playing from your cache and not count as an additional download.

C. A. Bridges | July 17, 17:58 CET

Probably this one.

Aha, cheers theonetruebix (and Beth'll, sorta ;).

Re: numbers, i'd assume the crash number (with its "1000 people") is pages but WRT "hits", it's hard to say. If the "show creators" mentioned just reported verbatim from Verio then it might be actual hits (i.e. HTTP requests) but we can't really be sure (there're quite a few objects on the page so if it's 200,000 hits in an hour that's not actually too many pages served).

Those kinds of distinctions aren't usually noted by the non-technical though and not only do we have the "show creators" quoting (and, best will in the world, possibly mis-quoting) the site's hosts we also then have the journalist quoting (and maybe mis-quoting) the creators. Chinese whispers.

[ edited by Saje on 2008-07-17 18:49 ]

Saje | July 17, 18:48 CET

ETC OT - 1k hits could mean anything - web hits include the page and each graphic, the flash player/ controller files, and the video stream. All from multiple servers responding to requests for files. I imagine these were scaled up repeatedly as demand rapidly escalated. But it is the main servers which may have been overwhelmed, unable to act as traffic cops and 'balance loads' across the other servers and bandwidth pipes.

[ edited by napua on 2008-07-17 20:44 ]

peacemonger | July 17, 19:05 CET

I'm going to mention this one more time, and then shut up before I become annoying, but I still hold that this, in context is just a figure of speech meaning 'a lot':

"We're getting about 1,000 hits per second," says Jed Whedon, who worked on the project with his brothers, Joss and Zack, and his fiancée, Maurissa Tancharoen. "Joss has a lot of crazed fans. A fan leaked the trailer we were preparing for our website. Virally, it spread like wildfire."

I don't think he was ever actually saying that 1,000 per second was an official number. It's something I might say to someone: "dude, I've watched Act II, like, 1,000 times now!". "Hasn't this happened just about 1,000 times before?" "This must be the 1,000th time I've heard someone ask Joss to do the 'dance of joy'", "We were getting about 1,000 hits per second".

I'll shut up now :).

GVH | July 17, 19:06 CET

Maybe but the other link says

In fact, a representative from their web hosting company, ~~Vireo~~ Verio.com, called to tell them the site had crashed when, at one point, 1,000 people tried to access it in one second.

so it sounds like an actual number but, as Beth'll says, just at the single second the server crashed.

Manners of speaking are different for everyone but to me 1000 isn't high enough to just be saying "bajillion" - if you're exagerating for effect you have to use a number that's so big it's implausible IMO.

Saje | July 17, 19:11 CET

Like, "I would like to be a gagillionaire."

jcs | July 17, 19:30 CET

Has someone linked to Kristin's interview with Joss yet? There's also a NPH interview there that was done right after the Emmy nominations in which he discusses Dr. Horrible and how Joss sent him an email saying, "So. We broke the internet."

karosurly | July 17, 20:29 CET

Thanks karosurly - great interviews. NPH watched Act I seven times! He's as bad as us. ;)

NotaViking | July 17, 21:19 CET

Too many numbers! Head hurts! (Oh, okay, I'm a chemist, so that shouldn't bother me. I think it's the speculations that are making me a "crazed fan".)

What I'd like to see on the 21st is for Joss to post somewhere on if we were successful or not.

korkster | July 17, 21:28 CET

Yeah, and who the heckle are these relatives he's giving jobs to?

DaddyCatALSO | July 17, 22:07 CET

Found a nice review of Act II on Cinema Blend .

spikeangellover | July 17, 23:25 CET

Has anyone seen this? It's from a paper in India - more of a report than a review, but I found the accompanying picture a curious choice! Maybe because they mention Firefly?

samatwitch | July 17, 23:37 CET

Samatwitch, that was a very curious choice for accompanying picture. Maybe they think he's Neil Patrick Harris (or Nathan Fillion). Just weird.

spikeangellover | July 18, 01:02 CET

Another glowing review (mostly informational, but I'd call "blockbuster" pretty glowing), but not specifically about Act II: The Industry Standard

[ edited by spikeangellover on 2008-07-18 01:11 ]

spikeangellover | July 18, 01:09 CET

I hope that isn't actually the industry standard of any industry. They repeat the 1,000 hits/second myth, and they call Nathan's character "Mr. Hammer".

The One True b!X | July 18, 01:14 CET

Good point, didn't notice that. I just like the word "blockbuster".

[ edited by spikeangellover on 2008-07-18 01:25 ]

spikeangellover | July 18, 01:24 CET

NPH watched Act I seven times!

Geez, he watched it more times than I did. I must suck or something. Poor Neil, he'll be asked to do the Dr. H mad genius laugh forever now.

Tonya J | July 18, 01:34 CET

Thanks for those links karosurly. Those are some fun interviews. I especially love how NPH starts talking about Dr. Horrible himself (although, maybe they discussed the questions beforehand?). You can tell he's really psyched about the whole thing. Fun!

GVH | July 18, 01:37 CET

GVH, which one with NPH? I didn't see that. :(

korkster | July 18, 02:15 CET

Here's the direct link to Kristin's interview with NPH.

karosurly | July 18, 03:03 CET

Thank you, karosurly. :)

Why have I been blind all of these years? It's clear to me now that I have and always love NPH. He's so... so... cute? Charming? Loveable?

korkster | July 18, 03:18 CET

korkster, I think the word you're looking for is "shmexy." :-D

karosurly | July 18, 03:47 CET

Ah, shmexy! Thank you. :)

As in, NPH is shmexy in this MuShortio.

korkster | July 18, 04:04 CET

July 17 2008