Dr Horrible's sing-along blog

Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is a 3-part 40-minute musical-comedy fantasy that won an Emmy in 2009 for creator-director Joss Whedon. Its title role was played by young TV sitcom veteran Neil Patrick Harris, whose many claims to Hollywood fame include his outing as the homosexual partner since 2004 of an actor who's become a catering entrepreneur.

The actor had worked with him on Doogie Howser, M.D., for which Harris title-starred in 97 episodes (1989-1993). In 1999 he made 22 episodes of Stark Raving Mad. Many cartoon voices later, his career gained a new hit with How I Met Your Mother (since 2005 and still going strong).

Non-Americans may have been surprised to see his unannounced appearance as the singing-dancing opening star turn at the 2010 Oscars show, but not Hollywood and New Yorkers. For them, he wasn't simply a belated American answer to Hugh Jackman's previous audience-winning stylishness.

Harris had done musical theatre work, notably in Sondheim's Assassins and Sweeney Todd. He was a former child star who'd worked hard, and his coming-out on the Ellen De Generes chat-show hadn't hurt his image.

His sweetly nasty Dr Horrible is a would-be evil mastermind who loves Penny from the laundromat, but her affections are stolen by the Dr's nemesis, Captain Hammer. There's a chorus, freeze ray, frequent short bursts of song, a league of evil chaired by Bad Horse, and the surreal TV exercise looks like a vacation romp by Hollywood professionals, a la the Oceans series. Reportedly, it is.

Joss Whedon, like all dutiful members of the Screen Writers Guild, was on strike in 2008, and just like all professionals, couldn't stop working. He thought up Dr Horrible. His track record is unique, as he's the first third-generation writer in US TV. His grandfather wrote for Donna Reed's shows and his father's successes included Golden Girls. Whedon himself created Buffy the Vampire Slayer (first as a movie) and Firefly, and co-wrote the original Toy Story among many other other Hollywood screenplays.

Whedon and Harris re-united for a multi-nominated episode of Glee in 2010. Canadian actor Nathan Fillion, who hams merrily as the mock-macho Captain Hammer, had worked with Whedon on Firefly, and the third lead in Dr Horrible, appeared in eight episodes of Buffy. In Us TV, it's clear that a career depends not just on knowing the right people but on working with them often.

Dr Horrible has a cult status, and it is an amusing foot-note for the biographies of many talents. But it isn't a Singing Detective and won't be seen as a pivotal moment in the development of the entertainment industry.