Quarterlife

I’m apparently a little behind the times.

There’s a new show that should be hitting the NBC airwaves next year and I just found out about it.

Normally, that’s not too disconcerting of a thing. After all, I live in the DC area and not LA or NY.

What’s disturbing here is that the show I just found out about is by a high-powered producing team, with a solid (though not well-known) cast, that’s already drawing in viewers.

How’s it doing that if it hasn’t hit the network yet? By hitting the Web first.

The show is called Quarterlife and it’s the brainchild of David Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz (they’re the ones that brought us My So Called Life and Thirtysomething).

I spent some time today watching the six parts that have been posted so far (over at MySpaceTV), each between seven and fourteen minutes long. In the television world, they would be strung together to make the first hour-long episode. Online, they’ve been posting two a week for the past three weeks.

Unlike last year’s LonelyGirl15 stuff, Quarterlife doesn’t try to sneak in as a genuine blog–it is unabashedly a produced series. Even better, it’s got production values on par with your normal network show. If they’ve really cut any corners, they’ve been more than covered up by the style (kind of quickly cut and quirky) and basic format (online video) of the show.

The basic premise is relatively common–a handful of 20-somethings living with or near one another, trying to make sense of the world their in, trying to make friendships and romance work, trying to figure out life and work in general. There’s an actress, a couple of film makers and then there’s the character who’s the audience’s gateway into this world: a video blogger.

If that isn’t a cutting edge show, I don’t know what is.

It’s not the most original premise, but the first six parts definitely touch on themes that have been commonplace in entertainment media for generations. This show just frames them in something it’s current target audience can really relate to. Fifteen years ago, it would have been centered around that same bunch of friends accidentally finding the online message board postings of the main character. Twenty years ago, they’d have to actually be reading a paper diary or the main commentator would have to actually have a print column somewhere–in other words, it really wouldn’t work the same at all.

The performances by the cast are pretty good based on normal television pilot standards and excellent based on what you normally see on independently produced videos. The difference, I’m guessing, is in the amount of money and time the producers have had to invest in the thing. The actors have all shown up in other places before–I know I spend a lot of time thinking “Hey! I’ve seen them somewhere before!” and, sure enough, a quick check of the show’s listing on IMDB turned up slightly unfamiliar names with much more familiar credits.

As an interesting side note, the producers tried a show with almost the same name (and a similar premise) a few years ago on network TV. It was called 1/4Life and didn’t quite take (I didn’t even remember it until I really sat and thought for a while–and even then only because Shiri Appleby was in it).

If Quaterlife does make it to air on NBC, as has been reported, it will be the first show to make the leap from independent web production to mass network consumption. Even better, since the show is already well into production for the web, the ongoing writer’s strike shouldn’t really have an effect.

Could this be the way of the future? Short runs of shows done for an online audience that then vie for the attention of the TV networks? Do the “five or ten minutes here and there” habits of online video watchers translate to the “you’ll watch when we say you’ll watch” mentality of traditional networks?

I’d like to think that, at the absolute least, we can count on more high-quality online shows. While I’d love to see some of the better ones make the leap to the traditional mass media screen, I won’t be holding my breath. If there’s one thing the major media companies have proved again and again it’s that they adapt slowly. (They are, after all, still using sweeps months and Nielsen ratings to determine what stays and what goes and not at all taking into account the changing viewing habits of their key demographic.)

If things go exceptionally well, the online arena may, indeed, become where nascent shows duke it out. We all know that the online community can be more vicious than any network executive. We also know that it can be a fully interactive process, with the viewers and fans communicating directly with the people who make the decisions on how the show progresses. That’s something that traditional TV has never really had on a large scale. It completely inverts the power structure.

For now, though, I say check out Quarterlife. It may not be the future, but it is good entertainment. It touches on important issues for those of us who communicate and hang out here in the Blogosphere should be well aware of. How our personal observations, when posted in a public forum (be it accidentally or on purpose), can deeply affect those around us. How this new method of communication is still growing and still experiencing growing pains.

We’re all learning how to best interact here in the public digital realm. We may as well watch some fictional characters muddle through it, too.

And then, if they end up on our television screens, watch how it plays out in the “real world” of the general population.