Dr. Horrible's Quick Return (Or I Feel Used)

The "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" web-isode by Joss Whedon was cold barely a week before it suddenly reappeared on Hulu and MySpace. So much for "ad free" and "exclusive."

Whedon's initial telegraphed business plan was to run the three-part web series across a week without commercials and then pull it off the air, er servers, forcing people to either buy the iTunes now to catch up with what happened or buy the forthcoming DVD with guest commentary. If viewers caught it on line during its limited run, they would feel, well, special.

Instead, "Dr. Horrible" quickly returns online with ads (sponsored by Hungry Man and some cat food maker during this reporter's viewing) and is being syndicated across multiple sites; Hulu has Dr. H. for a four-month run.

Don't worry, the "Dr. Horrible" DVD with plenty of extras is still coming and a sequel is in the works. There's even speculation Dr H. may appear as a holiday special on "classic" TV (but more likely a cable run on VH-1, M-TV, or Sci-Fi Channel).

Dr. Evil, er, Joss Whedon does, alas, have good green reasons to shuffle up his online viewing plans. The first run of Dr. H clocked nearly 450,000 streams a day and a mind-boggling 2.25 million streams (actually more, due to some Hulu accounting tricks) across its five-day run. And that's before adding on iTunes sales.

If you are really a "Dr. Horrible" fan-person, Whedon is reportedly going to take 3 minute video submissions if you want to be in the "Evil League of Evil." Think Survivor. Sort of. Top 10 will end up on the DVD.

For more:
- LA Times announces the rapid return of Dr. Horrible
- Dr. Horrible sequel news from Paste

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