Comments on: Has Dr. Horrible Really Helped Build the Web Series World?

By: jerry

jerry — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 19:37:45 +0000

There is no web content “industry.” There is no paying audience for anything that’s produced independently. Dr. Horrible is not a web original. He banked on his prior audience from TV, and wouldn’t have been able to make a splash if he didn’t have this machine in place. If you look at the web originals, entertainment/blog-wise, you’ll just find a mass of dead bodies caused by the giants like youtube and facebook moving in and drawing massive numbers, much like when Walmart moves in. “Original web content” is all fine and dandy, but there’s no market to support it, just a freeloading audience who basks in “being hip” for a week, ravenously suck up what the creators painstakingly produce, and heartlessly move on to the next fad when the artist is sucked dry.
and move on when they suck the artist dry.

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 19:02:46 +0000

It was what it was really. Not much more.

The only thing it really did for the rest of the creators and future creators is show us that one way to succeed on the web is to give viewers something they can’t get anywhere else. (Where else could you see NPH as a singing supervillain?) I never felt it deserved the massive amounts of attention and love that it received at the time but it wasn’t really a game changer at the end of the day nor did it kill the indies.

Overall Dr. Horrible is a footnote but not a landmark for the industry. It’s the shows that survive and leave a lasting legacy that will truly built the industry up and in order to accomplish this creators and producers need to stick around. We’ve had too many ‘one and done’ shows over the years and need more shows that last more than a few vids and go away.

By: The One True b!X

The One True b!X — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 16:55:37 +0000

For his part, Joss mostly describes it as a one-off and indeed not much of a model, citing precisely such elements as having access to a studio lot and a costume department, et cetera. Most of his remarks about it suggest he doesn’t even consider it a model for himself in the future, let alone anyone else.