The internet as it should be used and bringing back my teen nostalgia.

I have a confession to make – as any normal teen growing up in the mid-90s I absolutely loved and adored a special little short-lived American show called My So Called Life. Ah yes, Claire Danes and her bright red hair (which I adored) and her oh-woe-is-me-for-I-am-a-teenage-girl-in-the-mid-90s-and-wear-my- sleeves-over-my-hands-because-I-want-to-GAWD! attitude which I, at the time, could like TOTALLY relate to (mock me if you will but I adored it). Including the whole crush on Jared Leto (before he became the renowned douche that he is now). I loved that show and as recently as a month ago was discussing its merits with Mike (once again, he never ceases to surprise me – first big surprise was a conversation we had about my mock Marc Jacobs ‘Mouse’ shoes, a story for another time methinks).

Now the producers of that fabulous show and my early to mid-teens nostalgia are back – all grown up and near enough my age group. Apparently, the producers of the show Quarterlife premiered as a pilot in 2005 on ABC in the US. However, it seemed ABC weren’t too keen on the show or direction of the show and decided to scrap it (insert shock horror here). The producers (Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick), frustrated with the way networks are interfering with the creativity and integrity of shows (yadda yadda) have decided to take their dissed show onto the interweb! Yep boys and girls, Quarterlife is premiering and showing purely online! Screw you boring ass US networks, we’ll get to see what we want when we want it and all online!

Herskovitz and Zwick have struck a deal with Myspace – which will stream the show weekly starting from November 11th. Myspace will have the rights to each episode for 24 hours after it first airs and then it goes onto the show’s website. Now I know what you’re thinking – ‘It’s been done before. Myspace is sooo over (still on my teen kick – sorry. Still mooning over the good old days – braces mysteriously vanished from my mid-day daydream)’ and ‘can anyone say Arctic Monkeys’ blah blah blah. All very good points, however it’s a tv show and not yet another band with a Myspace page.

I especially love the stick it to the networks attitude of Herskovtiz and Zwick – kind of like ‘well you don’t want to air our show we’ll take it to the masses anyway – via the internet!’. I love the fact that they’ve found another way, it’s kind of like old skool internet land isn’t it? Going back and doing what the internet was meant to do in the beginning – getting your stuff out there with minimal interference from networks, suits, ratings, etc. The fact that they’ve teemed the show with a whole social networking scene may be of interest to a lot of you dear readers out there. It’s just refreshing to see someone taking the chance, and I’m sure they’ll be plenty of people who follow once the initial risk is taken by Quarterlife. There is always lots of chat about using this medium for tv etc, and to an extent there has been a lot of use of it. However, this is the only show I know of (correct me if I’m wrong) which will have the look and feel of a real, big budget network show but be purely based online.

And best of all, after seeing the trailer I really can’t wait to see it. It looks like the evolved My So Called Life – it’s grown up, gone to university, and is figuring out what to do next minus all the flannel. I really hope it doesn’t let me down, as I’m rather dorkily looking forward to it (man I use a lot of parentheses).

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