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I was surfing around mindlessly a couple of weeks ago and I found something that made my jaw drop in horror. I came across a story about a new show called quarterlife, a new "television" series produced exclusively for the Web.

At first glance, this series may not look much different than much of the claptrap found on YouTube, which is largely filled with amateurish comedy shorts and whiny diatribes by aspiring Internet stars. But it's far more nefarious than you might think and unfortunately the inevitable conclusion to the current redistribution of entertainment. quarterlife, it seems based on the trailer, centres around a twenty-something blogger who faces the scolding of her friends for posting about their private lives online. It looks like a sort of cross between lonelygirl15 and Beverley Hills 90210. lonelygirl15, for the six or seven of you reading this that don't already know, is largely considered the most popular show on the Internet and is most likely responsible for the proliferation of Web series that came after. Started in June of last year, it was a video diary by Bree Avery, a 16-year-old geek girl whose parents were involved in a strange cult. It banked primarily on the cuteness of the lead and the fallacy that she was, in fact, a real girl. Internet dweebs all over the globe watched her postings on YouTube with glee as they imagined if they met her on the street, they might have a chance at scoring with her because she was a nerd like them. Poor misguided fools.

Of course, Bree was actually an 19-year-old actress (now 20) named Jessica Rose and in real life has none of the proclivities of geekiness that her character possessed. (And frankly, it's a hard to believe anyone would actually think the show was reality. The quality of the video being well beyond the capability of a standard webcam aside, the chance of a 16-year-old in 2006 being only the 15th person on any site to request the screen name lonelygirl is highly unlikely.)

Despite Bree being exposed as a fraud in August, 2006, the show's popularity did not drop off. Although other Web series already existed on YouTube and other sites, such as Channel 101 and Channel 102, it's possible the realization that Bree was contrived that sparked a surge in other people posting their series online.

quarterlife, although also focusing on a video blogger, probably has more in common with 90210 than lonelygirl15 as it's a large-scale production by two television veterans. As the show's site indicates, Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick are the creative team behind My So-Called Life and obviously this is a selling point to any of their demographic who watched the show as kids. (Of course, it doesn't mention these two were also the brains behind thirtysomething as I imagine they don't want to bring attention to the fact that two guys in their mid-forties are pretending they know how to appeal to the youth of North America.)

Granted this isn't the first time major players have produced content exclusively for the Web. Some shows, such as Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who, offer webisodes that expand upon the storyline of the show. Sometimes disconnected, other times part of a larger whole, these shorts offer an extra treat to the dedicated fans who visit the site. But it falls into a category of secondary content, along with wallpaper, outtakes, interviews and fake blogs by the show characters. quarterlife is part of the next generation where the high-budget webisodes themselves are the series. But it's not the first. Prom Queen, which started back in April of this year, is backed by Vuguru, an online video production company that's a subsidiary of Torante, which is run by former Disney CEO Michael Eisner. (To further hype his Net cred, Eisner sits on the board of Veoh, a video portal rival to YouTube even if no one uses it.)

Prom Queen "aired" on MySpace TV as well as on its own site and the 80-episode series follows a group of high school students the 12 weeks leading up to prom night, where something terrible happens. Oooh, I'm scared. Because of Eisner's money, a sponsorship deal with the recent Hairspray movie and a redistribution deal with Verizon Wireless to provide the show on mobile phones, Prom Queen looks far more polished than its predecessors. Though at a 90-second length, the episodes don't provide much in the way or plot or character development and feels quite soap operatic. But the popularity has spawned a second season/sequel/spinoff: Prom Queen: Summer Heat.

Similarly, there's Afterworld, a 130-episode sparsely animated science fiction series, produced by Electric Farm Entertainment, a company that boasts former Lizzie McGuire executive producer Stan Rogow as one of its principals. With a reported budget of approximately US$3 million, it is far more expensive than any independent Web series that came before it.

But Afterworld's Web releases, first on bud.tv and YouTube and later MySpace TV seems more of a marketing strategy than anything else. The Scifi Network in Australia has repackaged these two-to-three-minute episodes as a 13-episode series.

But what worries me about these types of shows, their total destruction of the notion of story aside, is the interest established entertainment industry players show in it. Sure it's great that Eisner and Rogow are searching out new talent who without the Internet wouldn't get noticed. Certainly with Prom Queen, Eisner's company bankrolled the project because he was impressed with the production company, Big Fantastic, LLC's previous Web series Sam Has 7 Friends. (Granted, all four of the guys in the Santa Monica company already worked in the film industry and they spent around $50,000 on Sam Has 7 Friends. So they weren't exactly a bunch of kids dressing up in aluminium foil helmets and blanket capes recording themselves with cellphones fighting invisible dragons in their parents' basement.)

And sure a number of shows have got their start online. Although not the most popular of series, both Odd Job Jack and Tripping the Rift started as Internet content. And more importantly, if it wasn't for a bunch of university students e-mailing each other a poorly animated Christmas short that pit Jesus against Santa Claus, it's possible South Park would have never made it on the air.

But that's the point, the Internet is supposed to be a stepping stone. I realize this might seem like an antiquated notion. Soon all of television and film will be accessible over the Internet. You can already watch streaming shows on the sites of the major Canadian and U.S. Networks.

But for the time being, they are still separate. And even Web stars still think of hitting the big time as making the transition to television and film and not having the largest video blog around, including two of the biggest. Amanda Congdon left her popular comedy news webcast Rocketboom for a job as a Web correspondent and podcaster for ABC News and Jessica Rose left lonelygirl15 for the chance to have a bit part in a terrible Lindsay Lohan movie and a reoccurring role on the recent television series Greek. (In lonelygirl15, Bree was killed off by ritual sacrifice so the show could continue without her. The producers now also have KateModern, a spinoff about a video blogger in London, England.)

But the thirtysomething producers should be creating television series and not a series exclusively for the Web.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a champion of the big film and television industry. So don't lump me in with Manny Perry, the stuntman the MPAA paid to say that downloading movies is wrong. I think he's a tool too.

I'm not saying Zwick's and Herskovitz's content is of a higher quality and deserves to be on television. In fact, I'd be quite happy if they stopped producing shows altogether, although I did enjoy My So-Called Life. I'm saying they deserve to make television because they can afford to make television.

The problem with established producers creating Web content is they argue that because they can't monetize it in the same way as television or film, they can't afford to pay the people involved the same way. quarterlife is covered under the Screen Actors Guild's Internet Online Agreement which is good for the actors, who seem to be relative unknowns even if they are SAG members. But the need for a separate contract for actors on the Internet, although helpful to smalltime producers allows the possibility for larger productions to exploit their talent..

And I'm not just talking theoretically. There was a major controversy over the Battlestar Galactica webisodes. The writers, in this case, were told they weren't getting credit or pay for this content as NBC considered it promotional content.

And here in Canada, the recent ACTRA strike had largely to do with its members wanting better pay for their online work.

In reality, quarterlife, under the SAG agreement, probably pays its actors reasonably well even if it doesn't match what those actors would get on an actual television set. But if we continue on this path, we may one day see Al Pacino appearing on Chad Vader to make ends meet. Or worse... Tom Green's Internet talk show. Now that's a scary thought. quarterlife premieres on MySpace TV on Nov. 11 and offers a social network through quarterlife.com.

About G4 in Canada
G4 Canada (formerly TechTV Canada) launched in September 2001. G4 is the one and only television station that is plugged into every dimension of games, gear, gadgets and gigabytes. Owned Rogers Media Inc., the channel airs more than 24 original series. G4 is available on digital cable and satellite. For more information, see www.g4tv.ca.

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