TV Eye

NBC closed the book on quarterlife after only one airing.

What a life it's been for quarterlife. The online phenom made its highly anticipated move to NBC last week (Feb. 26), only to be branded a flop after one airing and shuttled off for the rest of its run on sister cable network Bravo. Now it's the talk of the TV industry and other media watchers.

"Quarter who?" you ask. Don't be embarrassed if you had no idea this show has come and gone already. The "must see TV" network did very little to promote this highly pedigreed series (see "TV Eye," February 8, 2008).

According to a Feb. 28 Hollywood Reporter article, "The NBC premiere of quarterlife marked the network's worst time-period performance in the [9pm] hour in at least 17 years, averaging a 1.3 rating/4 share among adults 18-49 and 3.1 million viewers overall despite a strong lead-in from The Biggest Loser."

After having seen quarterlife both online and on its network premiere, then sorted through the couch-potato punditry, several things occur to me.

First, 3.1 million viewers is hardly a flop. However, for the massive numbers network TV wants to declare a show a success – and the added expectation for quarterlife to hit big – many now seem eager to wash their hands of it and declare it a nice but ill-fated try. Series creators Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick had hoped quarterlife would become a new template for making TV. Sounds good on paper, but the reality is something different.

Online, quarterlife is a series of short, eight-minute episodes. The reason it worked online is because even with its "cheap" production values, it embraced its "limitations." It understood its medium's diction and executed it well. The eight-minute episodes were full and complete and compelling unto themselves. But when they were translated to TV, something wonky happened. On the larger screen, the characters were small-minded and aggravating. Structurally, quarterlife on TV felt like a bunch of puzzle pieces that didn't match, and this was truly weird, especially after having watched and enjoyed a good part of the online version. Whatever happened in the transition from the computer screen to the TV screen is something that some new media theorist may be better able to articulate. From my perspective, it seems that trying to proclaim TV – or even a feature film – as the logical next step for work first created for the computer screen seems to ignore the fact that work created for online consumption is an animal in its own right, with its own aesthetic.

I'm still curious enough about quarterlife to seek it out – not on Bravo but online, where it originated.

To watch the original quarterlife online, go to www.quarterlife.com. Airdates on Bravo have not been announced.

Clear as Mud

My attempt to provide pithy remarks about the coming transition from analog to digital TV created confusion for some readers. Let me try and be clearer:

First, what kind of TV do you have? If you bought it before March 1, 2007, it's probably an analog set. TVs manufactured after March 1, 2007, are required to have digital tuners. That does not mean if you bought a TV after March 2007, you are automatically in the clear. There is no prohibition on retailers to stop selling analog sets. Check your owner's manual.

If you watch TV over the air (using an antenna or "rabbit ears") on your analog-only TV, your TV will not be able to receive the new digital signal without a DTV converter box (sometimes called a "set-top converter" or a "DTV broadcast converter"). From Jan. 1, 2008, to March 31, 2009, all U.S. households are eligible to receive up to two coupons, worth $40 each, to purchase two converter boxes (see www.dtv2009.gov). The converter box will not turn your analog TV into a high-definition TV; it merely makes it possible for the analog TV to receive the digital signal. The final transition from analog to digital is Feb. 17, 2009.

If you have an analog TV and it's connected to a cable, satellite, or other programming service, your TV should work without any additional equipment. If you're unsure, contact your service provider.

For more information, call the Federal Communications Commission at 888/225-5322 or go to www.dtv.gov.

As always, stay tuned.