Neil Patrick Harris and Joss Whedon Have A Hit With Dr. Horrible

Buffy The Vampire Slayer creator and internet darling Joss Whedon has been making the rounds to promote his newest project Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, though now that the blog has launched the publicity seems like it may have been unnecessary. The site has had to move to a new server due to massive traffic.

The blog is the home of a three-part, 40 minute musical which debuted today with the two subsequent parts to be released on July 17 and 19, respectively. The series will only be available on the web until July 20, and after that it will be available for purchase on DVD. MTV Movies describes the plot:

It's a superhero spoof starring Neil Patrick Harris as a supervillain wannabe who dreams of being accepted into the Evil League of Evil. Thwarting him from his goal is his nemesis, Captain Hammer (played by "Firefly" star Nathan Fillion), as well as his affection for a girl from the Laundromat (played by Felicia Day).

Since its debut, the website (www.drhorrible.com) has been working only intermittently due to the number of visitors, though the show is also also available on Hulu.com and iTunes (where it has quickly entered the top ten downloads for TV shows).

Whedon started the project during the WGA strike earlier this year and has said that web entertainment is extremely liberating.

"Freedom is glorious," he comments. "And the fact is, I've had very good relationships with studios, and I've worked with a lot of smart executives. But there is a difference when you can just go ahead and do something." As a web show, there were fewer constraints imposed on the project, and Whedon had the "freedom to just let the dictates of the story say how long it's gonna be. We didn't have to cram everything in-there is a lot in there-but we put in the amount of story that we wanted to and let the time work around that. We aimed for thirty minutes, we came out at forty two, and that's not a problem."

Are blogs the future of TV? Whedon's hedging his bets; he has a new show, Dollhouse, this fall on Fox.