Am I missing something? Joss is mentioned briefly on page 3, but that seems to be it.

NotaViking | September 30, 22:46 CET

I thought about killing it, but it does have relevance to what Joss was aiming for when he did Dr. H. Plus how often do you get to hear media folk say things like "You can't protect old business models artificially."' or "I find that very inspiring. Others might be scared out of their wits. But to me, this is the way media always should have been.". I read this in the meatspace version of the mag a while back.

zeitgeist | September 30, 23:24 CET

I thought hard about it before I posted this. During the Writer's Strike, there was constant talk about "new media" and how it will effect the way Hollywood does business. I thought the article, besides nicely mentioning Buffy, Angel and Dr H, explained a lot about the whole web-movie-tv-media dynamics.

kazzmere | September 30, 23:42 CET

I was going to say something about the tenuousness of the Joss connection, too, but the article was so interesting and explained so much of the background that made Dr. Horrible possible that I didn't want to be the one to say "Kill it!" ;)

I remember when I first heard about Hulu, my kneejerk reaction was "Yeah, right, Fox and NBC together? That'll last." I give all credit to Kilar for taking his mandate and running with it. It reminded me of Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street, telling all of his desperate Christmas shoppers to go shopping at Gimbal's instead of Macy's.

cabri | October 01, 00:18 CET

Nooooo, my cunning plan to complete my name change and then pour scorn on my opening post has been foiled by the site updating all my old posts with the new name. Curses! I will stagger on with the shame of the skim-reader. ;)

NotaViking | October 01, 00:39 CET

No scorn or shame necessary, NotaViking. I'm a "skimmer" as well; and usually it's cool, but occasionally it does but one's ass.

kazzmere | October 01, 00:47 CET

Hehe, that second post was just me being intentionally silly - the first post was originally under "cypher (soon to be NotaViking)", so I wasn't actually intending to get away with it :). I only use "cunning plan" in a sarcastic sense, but I guess "Blackadder" (great UK comedy show where a cunning plan was usually anything but) never made it to the US. Be also aware of the shame of the possibly-spell-checking-but-not-proof-reading-poster. ;)

NotaViking | October 01, 01:17 CET

"You can't protect old business models artificially."'

That made me laugh when I read that since that is precisely what they are doing restricting it to the US .No other option even considered and of course it's a pity that when they decided on Hulu as the device to deliver Dr Horrible everybody forgot that you can't even see the most minor of clips on Hulu if you're outside the US ,something which even NBC's own website allows.

garda39 | October 01, 01:35 CET

Well, arguably the larger part of the old business model is not being protected by Hulu (broadcasting over the air/cable/satellite with 18+ minutes of commercial content sold per hour). Licensing outside the US is at best a secondary revenue stream for the companies involved, if not tertiary or less.

zeitgeist | October 01, 03:48 CET

garda39,

Dr. Horrible was viewable worldwide on Hulu for a while. So Hulu is able to turn off the restriction. Just can't seem to keep it turned off.

Anonymous1 | October 01, 04:46 CET

Just have to reassure NotaViking that Blackadder is well-known and -loved here in the U.S., at least by some :) (and I wouldn't be surprised if many of those some are Whedonesquers)

miri47 | October 01, 05:20 CET

Yup, NotaViking, I'm a big Blackadder fan, too, like miri47, I'm guessing. I think I'm fondest of Blackadder The Third with lovely Hugh Laurie as a foppish Regency Prince of Wales - but Miranda Richardson as a whack Queen Elizabeth and Stephen Fry as the toadying Lord Melchett are hilarious in Blackadder II. I love them all, madly.

I frequently think I have come up with a "cunning plan" - but I am so often wrong about that...

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I'm anaspeptic, phrasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulation." - Blackadder, "Ink and Incapability"

QuoterGal | October 01, 08:09 CET

Thanks you two, good to know (and nice quote, QG). I was about to say thank goodness that this was in the days before they tried to remake all UK shows for the US (Peep Show & Father Ted - really?!?), but I did a quick check and there actually was a US pilot made in 1992 with a different cast and set in colonial Philadelphia. Sigh. At least you finally got Spaced.

Just to get vaguely back on topic, it is frustrating that we can't watch Dr Horrible on Hulu or buy it anywhere. At least the DVD is getting closer though. I wonder if Hulu's intentions are to remain a US-only site. Would it not be possible to have a different set of adverts in, for example, Europe? You get to sell the advertising space again - would the additional costs be significant? I don't doubt that this is not a primary concern for the companies involved, but they are businesses after all.

NotaViking | October 01, 15:25 CET