The official launch of the made-for-the-Internet series "Quarterlife" on NBC (GE)will be February 18. The network picked it up from Thirtysomething creators Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick through a licensing deal.
Originally the series aired on MySpace (NWS-A), and one day later was shown on the Quarterlife website. It included 36 episodes which will be edited down to six one-hour episodes for the peacock.
This adds another element to the ongoing strike by the Writers Guild of America. The union doesn't have any say in shows made for the Internet, and so it weakens their position even more, as content could be negotiated with the networks - like Quarterlife was - without concern of leverage being used to stop their production.
Herskovitz spoke to this reality in November, saying, "There will be the whole question of whether the kind of ambitious Internet productions that are signatories to all the guilds will be allowed to keep functioning by the guild. I'm sure they have some concern that Internet production will be snapped up by TV and therefore represent a way for TV to go around the guilds. This is all just clouded in mystery right now and we'll have to see what happens."
For now though, TV viewers will get their first look at a series made for the Internet being brought to their television sets. If it's successful, it could spawn a whole new way of looking at the starting points of airing video content.
It's odd to think of a show being popular on the Internet and so they "allow" it to be shown on TV. For the most part, obviously, that's the opposite right now. It could soon change.
Comment Preview