Why Dr. Horrible is on-demand event TV and Joss Whedon is the new Radiohead

There are a numerous reasons why Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is noteworthy; here are ten of them:

1.) It's a 40-minute, 3-part musical superhero comedy produced specifically for the internet (no really)
2.) It's a Joss Whedon production (he of Buffy/Angel/Firefly fame), starring Doogie Howser, M.D.
3.) It was written during the WGA writers' strike to circumvent, in the words of Mr. Whedon, "the Forest King system"
4.) It was reportedly made in under a week for a low six figure sum
5.) It's being distributed for free, with a view to making money on iTunes downloads, merchandise and a subsequent DVD release (hence the Radiohead comparison)
6.) It's available internationally via Hulu (which is normally US only)
7.) But only for a few days (Act I went up on Tuesday, Act II on Thursday and Act III on Saturday; all three come down today) making it a rare example of 'on-demand event TV'
8.) The official site crashed under the demand, peaking at a reported 200,000 hits per hour
9.) It's currently occupying spots 1, 2 and 3 in the iTunes TV Shows chart
10.) A Google search for "dr. horrible" already returns 361,000 results

If you haven't checked it out yet, then you'll have to get your skates on as the video comes down in a few hours. Here's a trailer:


Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.