In creating my own online drama I took an in-depth look at other series– Why did they succeed or why did they fail.  Here are my observations about a very spectacular public failure: Quarterlife.   These are the take-aways from my analysis of the web series created by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, the creators of television’s Thirtysomething and Once and Again and producers of My So-Called Life.  You can watch the series here:  Quarterlife on MySpace

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Without Authenticity and Urgency the Audience Disengages

The series, Quarterlife, is named for the phenomena of the “Quarterlife Crisis.”   This is the emotional angst and anxiety that hits around age 25 – 29, when college grads wonder: “What am I doing with my life?  Why am I broke, bored and/or stalled in my career?”  The iconic television series, Friends, explored the same territory in a comedy.

There is a sense of entitlement and astonishment among the Quarterlife characters summed up by Dylan Krieger (Bitsie Tulloch), the protagonist:  “A sad truth about my generation is that we were all geniuses in elementary school but apparently the people who deal with us (now) never got our transcripts because they don’t seem to be aware of this.”

This sense of entitlement and astonishment seemed to also accompany the series’ failure.  What went wrong?  Don’t you all know we’re television geniuses?

Quarterlife lacked the necessary authenticity and urgency to engage its core web audience.  The producers didn’t fully understand their audience and the series felt too much like a cynical ploy.  The Friends characters took themselves much less seriously.  Quarterlife simply can’t sustain all the self-important angst.

New Media Ploys Annoy the Audience

Quarterlife was originally conceived as a broadcast series but didn’t get picked up by a major network.  Herskovitz and Zwick broke the series down into 8-minute segments.  They independently financed the show and created special channels for the series on MySpace and YouTube.

Rather than creating content specifically for this new medium and this particular audience, the creators recycled a conventional series and distributed it in smaller chunks.  Their goal seems to have been to get back on broadcast television as quickly as possible.

Despite the social networking aspects of the Quarterlife website, it seems the creators did not fully embrace (or fully understand) their audience and this new storytelling medium.  After a much-hyped launch, viewership dropped precipitously.

“Podcasting News, for example, gleefully pronounced the web series a bomb in December, running a chart of each episode’s views on YouTube that looked like a graph of Ron Paul’s 2009 delegate count, noting that the show was getting fewer web views than ‘sleeping kitties, graffiti videos or even a clip of Sims in labor’,’” wrote Los Angeles Times media columnist Patrick Goldstein.

Goldstein also suggests that Quarterlife served as a magnet for web devotees’ scorn for all the Old Media Titans who’ve been invading their turf, hoping to turn the new medium into another profit center.

Herskowitz didn’t help matters when he wrote in Slate:  “Most of it (web entertainment) is simply incompetence and ignorance masquerading as an ‘Internet style.’ And until now no one had tried anything that would actually engage the emotions of an audience.”

It’s ironic that Quarterlife doesn’t engage the emotions of their audience in a way that is authentic or that rings true.

Emotions Not Experienced Directly Distance the Audience

Protagonist Dylan Krieger narrates the series via her video blog.  She is a would-be writer stuck in an assistant’s job at a woman’s magazine, working for a boss who tries to steal her ideas.

The creators assume that video-blogging is the same thing as writing.  The key difference, as a commentator on New TeeVee pointed out, is:  “A writer wants an audience for her ideas and observations; a video blogger wants an audience for herself.”

This personal performance aspect is the narcissism of “Watch me – Look at me – I am what’s important here.”

In her video-blog, Dylan says that her “curse” is to see what people are thinking and feeling. In the visual language of storytelling, that is the reaction shot that shows the audience a character’s thoughts and feelings writ large on the actor’s face.

When Dylan narrates, as video blog performer, she prevents the audience from experiencing these emotions, thoughts and feelings directly with the characters.  Her performance distances us from the characters and is a classic violation of the “show don’t tell” rule of storytelling.  Her narration tells us what we’ve already seen or should have already seen ourselves.

If, however, personal narration directly contradicts what we have seen (or will see) then that shows us something new and interesting about the narrator and/or the other characters.   This counterpoint works wonderfully in the classic Herskovitz and Zwick produced series (created by Winnie Holtzman), My So-Called Life.

That show’s high school protagonist, Angela Chase (Claire Danes), is hopelessly infatuated with Jordan Catalano (Jared Leto).  She remarks romantically that he is always closing his eyes as if it hurts to look at things.  Later, we see him dousing his eyes to get the stoner-dude red out with Visine.

There is no such ironic or poignant counterpoint in Dylan’s narration.  She tells us what we should see for ourselves or repeats what we already know.

Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) muses publicly about personal concerns via her newspaper column in Sex and the City.  The opening image vividly shows the contrast between the public and the private in Carrie’s life when she is splashed with dirty water as a bus plastered with her glamorous billboard image roars past. Sex and the City uses humor and irony to illuminate the disappointments, anxieties and dissatisfactions of a slightly older age group than Quarterlife.  Carrie, the wry witty writer, is not the self-conscious performer that Dylan is as a video-blogger.  The Friends characters also took themselves much less seriously.  Quarterlife simply can’t sustain the self-important angst.

Boredom, Stasis and Frustration Aren’t Urgent

As a friend has pointed out, “there is a reason so many serial dramas are set in hospitals and police stations, these environments provide an automatic sense of urgency, conflict and high stakes to a story.”

Articulate, over-sensitive, highly-educated, middle class white kids bemoaning the lack of a “special and gifted” life track (which is their due) doesn’t provide much emotional urgency.   There is little at stake if they can fall back on Mom and Dad, as one character does.

Fans watch football matches or basketball games because there is a sense that if you aren’t present or watching, cheering as hard as you can for your team, something terrible might happen.  The strength of your passionate concern will somehow help to put your players over the top.

Serial drama fans need to feel the same passionate concern and  personal involvement with the characters whose lives they follow.  What is the worst that can happen? Why do we have to watch to prevent that terrible outcome?  Why must we yell at the screen:  “No, no, don’t do that!”  What do we fear for our characters?  Why is it urgently important that we watch?

Interpersonal relationship can have that kind of emotional tension and urgency.  The stakes just have to be high enough.  The conflicts have to be intense and personal enough to evoke our deepest concern.  We have to be worried about the characters!

Weak Conflict Undercuts Urgency

The biggest potential conflict and most interesting social question in Quarterlife is weakened if not completely neutered.

Dylan’s friends don’t seem to care that she is violating their privacy, disclosing intimate information, betraying confidences and spewing interpersonal revelations to anyone who has access to a computer.

She names names.  She distributes secretly recorded videos.  She commits the emotional equivalent of a physical violation.  Outside of a minor emotional hissy-fit, this potential conflict quickly passes by the wayside.  Nobody really pays attention to Dylan’s video blog.

Her revelations cause little conflict within the group.  They cause no conflict outside the group (no outsider causes a problem for the characters because of information learned through Dylan’s blog).

It is very startling and disconcerting when strangers know the intimate details of your life and remark on them to you.  What happens when everyone knows your whereabouts and/or your personal business?  How does that cause problems and create conflict for the characters?

What are the limits of personal privacy and the ethics of personal disclosures about others?  All those questions are interesting opportunities for conflict that could come from who the characters are as individuals and how they might view the world (or privacy) differently.

If Dylan’s blog has no effect on the other characters, what is the dramatic point other than to show her on a web cam?   This feels like the creators trying to be hip but it comes off as empty, false and inauthentic.

When It Isn’t Urgent It Has to Be Funny

The characters in Quarterlife are remarkable for their lack of humor or any wicked sense of fun.  They take themselves and their lives way too seriously.  The series doesn’t have a vivid appreciation of the absurd.

The classic series, Friends, mined this age group’s anxiety, boredom and frustration brilliantly.  The theme song by The Rembrandts sums up the same storytelling territory:

“So no one told you life was going to be this way.

Your job’s a joke, you’re broke, your love life’s DOA.

It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear,

Well, it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month, or even your year.

I’ll be there for you…  And you’ll be there for me too.”

Friends had wit, warmth and sense of the absurdity of life (and lasted many years past the characters’ “Quarterlife Crisis” because the fans weren’t willing to let the characters go).  Contrast this with the previous quote:

“A sad truth about my generation is that we were all geniuses in elementary school but apparently the people who deal with us (now) never got our transcripts because they don’t seem to be aware of this.”   (Poor me!)

Which show would you rather watch?

Seinfeld, originally featuring the same or slightly older age group, totally lacked urgency and was proud of it.  That show was about nothing more critical than finding a parking place, making a reservation at a restaurant or buying soup at a lunch counter.  The series had a wicked sense of humor; made us laugh and we were satisfied and came back for more.  If it’s not emotionally dramatic then it must be laugh-out-loud funny.

What Was NBC Thinking?

Quarterlife was picked up by NBC at a time when broadcast dramas were running out of stockpiled scripts and scripted shows were shutting down all over Hollywood during the strike.   It seemed like a slam-dunk opportunity.  Then, just like the story concept for the series characters, reality hit and it was nothing like anyone imagined.

The show only had 3.1 million viewers in its NBC broadcast debut, the worst in-season performance in the 10 p.m. hour slot by an NBC show in at least 17 years. The series also got hammered in the adult 18 – 49 demographic, where it managed only a 1.3 rating.  The show was pulled from NBC’s schedule after only one episode.

Why would NBC think that a series allegedly conceived for and widely available on the web would attract the same audience age group in a repeat on broadcast television? Everyone who was interested had seen the show already.

If viewers can watch on their own time on the web why should anyone watch the show on NBC’s time? What was new, different or added to the viewing experience during the rebroadcast?  The network didn’t seem to understand the core audience either.

There is an element of condescension (or maybe contempt) in all of this exemplified by the words the creators put in Dylan’s mouth:  “We blog to exist, therefore we… we are idiots.”  A show on any media platform is really in trouble when the creators have contempt for or belittle their own characters.

Power of Truth characters can be a bit tricky. People who have difficulty with or question their identity of sexual identity (Alan Harper) people who don’t know who they can trust or question the truth and believe in or discover conspiracy theories (Michael Scofield) and spies and those who conceal their identities or live by subterfuge and their wits (Aladdin) are usually Power of Truth Characters.  The full list is below. See if you agree. If not tell me why:

TV Shows

– Rachel Green ( Jennifer Aniston ) in Friends : Power of Idealism

– Chandler Bing ( Matthew Perry ) in Friends : Power of Excitement

– Monica Geller ( Courtney Cox ) in Friends : Power of Reason

– Fran Fine ( Fran Drescher ) in The Nanny : Power of Love

– Maxwell Sheffield ( Charles Shaughnessy ) in The Nanny : Power of Conscience

– Lucas Scott ( Chad Michael Murray ) in One Tree Hill : Power of Idealism

– Peyton Sawyer ( Hilarie Burton ) in One Tree Hill : Power of Idealism

– Michael Scofield ( Wentworth Miller ) in Prison Break : Power of Truth and Prison Break is a Power of Truth TV show

– Lincoln burrows ( Dominic Purcell ) in Prison Break : Power of Will

– Charlie Harper ( Charlie Sheen ) in Two and a Half Men : Power of Excitement

– Alan Harper ( Jon Cryer ) in Two and a Half Men : Power of Truth

Films

– Dr. David Huxley ( Carey Grant ) in Bringing up Baby : Power of Reason

– Susan Vance ( Katherine Hepburn ) in Bringing up Baby : Power of Love

– George Wade ( Hugh Grant ) in Two Weeks Notice : Power of Excitement

– Lucy Kelson ( Sandra Bullock ) in Two Weeks Notice : Power of Conscience

– Tracy Turnblad ( Nikky Blonsky ) in Hairspray : Power of Idealism

– Brian O’Conner ( Paul Walker ) in The Fast and the Furious : Power of Conscience

– Dominic Toretto ( Vin Diesel ) in The Fast and the Furious : Power of Will

– Sally Albright ( Meg Ryan ) in When Harry met Sally : Power of Conscience

– Harry Burns ( Billy Crystal ) in When Harry met Sally : Power of Truth

– Kathleen Kelly ( Meg Ryan ) in You’ve Got Mail : Power of Imagination-

– Joe Fox ( Tom Hanks ) in You’ve Got Mail : Power of Truth-

– Aladdin in Aladdin : Power of Truth

– Giselle ( Amy Adams ) in Enchanted : Power of Imagination

– Robert Philip ( Patrick Dempsey ) in Enchanted : Power of Truth

Power of Imagination characters see the world as or make the world into a miraculous and magical place.  They can access what others can’t.  Their reaction to this unique perception is affirming and all embracing.  They never doubt their vision, special insight or call from beyond.

These  characters are launched on a quest when something in the wider world is disrupted, thrown out of balance or is causing danger or deep divisions.  They are reluctant heroes who are pushed into their roles by larger circumstances.  Greatness is usually thrust upon them via a special message, personal intuition, vivid vision or supernatural imperative that calls to them in some deeply powerful way.

In calling others to heed their vision, these characters naturally collect diverse individuals who share a common purpose despite significant outward differences and even conflicting agendas or opposing points of view.  Their goal to keep the potentially divisive group together and to restore harmony and balance to the world.

A character driven by the Power of Imagination used to be a fairly rare character in film and television. More recently, these Character Types are more common. Power of Imagination  characters are the naifs, innocents and eccentrics, seemingly the last person anyone would think of as a hero. They are, in fact, the classic mythic hero or the reluctant hero that Joseph Campbell and Chris Vogler describe.

Character Examples

Film examples include:  Horton in Horton Hears a Who; Luke Skywalker in Star Wars; Frodo in The Lord of the Rings; Amelie Poulain in Amelie; and Lt. John Dunbar in Dances with Wolves.  For more movie examples see the Power of Imagination blog posts.

John Locke in Lost; Alison Dubois in Medium; Ned in Pushing Daisies; Phoebe Buffay in Friends; and Hiro Nakamura in Heroes are great television examples of this Character Type.  For more television examples see the Power of Imagination blog posts.

Power of Imagination eBook

The Power of Imagination Character Type eBook explains how these characters are alike and how each character is made individually distinct. It Imagination help you develop unique, original, evocative and authentic Power of Imagination characters that fully explore all the contradictions, reversals and surprises of a fully formed human being.

Discover the Power of Imagination character’s specific goals, unique emotional obstacles and very distinct responses and reactions to any opportunity, challenge or threat. Create this character’s Immediate Tactics, Long-term Orientation and Strategic Approach in a way that is recognizably “true” at every step of the story and during every moment of screen time. The audience Imagination instantaneously recognize and relate to your character because your character is complex, three-dimensional and “feels real.”

This eBook is thorough analysis of the Power of Imagination Character Type in his or her many guises and roles as a protagonist or a member of a larger ensemble. It is packed with numerous examples from film, television and even real life! Examples from scores of scenes and dozens of quotes from film and television characters clearly illustrate this character’s motivations and psychological dynamics in a story.

Comprehensive Analysis

The Power of Imagination Character Type eBook illustrates exactly how to create and differentiate this character based on his or her:

(1.) World View (beliefs about how the world works) What are the essential core beliefs that motivate a Power of Imagination character’s ordinary actions?

(2.) Role or Function (position in the story or role in the ensemble) What do the other players look to a Power of Imagination character to do or provide in the story?

(3.) Values in Conflict (competing values that push the character to extremes) What opposing choices or goals establish the Power of Imagination character’s moral code? What is this character willing to fight, sacrifice or die for? And why?

(4.) Story Questions (emotional journey in the story) What personal issues, dilemmas and internal conflicts does a Power of Imagination character wrestle with over the course of the story? What does this character ask of him or her self? What is this character’s Leap of Faith in an emotionally satisfying story?

(5.) Story Paradox (emotional dilemma) What is the duality or the contradiction at the heart of a Power of Imagination character’s story struggle? How is the character’s internal conflict expressed in actions.

(6.) Life Lessons (how to complete the emotional journey) What must a Power of Imagination character learn over the course of the story to make a clear, satisfying personal transformation? What actions lead to this character’s emotional salvation?

(7.) Dark Side (this character as a predator or villain) What happens when a Power of Imagination character’s actions are driven entirely by fear? How might or how does the story end in tragedy?

(8.) Leadership Style (what defines and qualifies this character as a leader) How does a Power of Imagination character convince others to follow? How does this character act to take charge and command?

(9.) Film Examples (the Power of Imagination character as a protagonist)

(10.) Television Examples (the Power of Imagination character as central to an ensemble)

(11.) Real Life Examples (historical Power of Imagination figures on the world stage)

Mad Men

The question boils down to:  What audience do you want?  Once you target the audience the question becomes:  What does that audience want?  High brow audiences look for a very different experience than mass appeal audiences.  In fact, the very things that attract one audience repel the other.

This is not to say art is better or worse than commerce– they just are DIFFERENT.

What exactly are the differences?  What is necessary to attract a wide audience?  Below are a couple of articles on Mad Men I have annotated that get to the core of the art vs. commerce divide.  My comments follow.

LA Times: The TV Hits That No One Watches
By Scott Collins

“Mad Men” was the most-honored of any drama series this year, a surprising achievement given that it represented AMC’s first real stab at traditional series development. It was only the latest stop in “Mad Men’s” astonishing trip from a spec script hammered out by a moonlighting TV writer to cultural phenomenon, critics’ darling and Golden Globe winner.

…Too bad, then, that about 98% of Americans have never watched the show. In fact, whatever the interest in this acting showdown or that snub, this year’s Emmy nominations may be most notable for underscoring a growing cultural trend: the yawning gap between what critics and industry veterans cherish and what the rest of the public actually watches.

It’s the relentless narrowing of what was once, in a pre-Internet era, a mass culture, a shift that mirrors what’s happening in movies, books and other art forms.“In terms of nominations, it is a very elite group,” said Shari Anne Brill, an analyst at New York-based ad firm Carat.

Referring to today’s most-honored TV shows, she added: “They get an upscale audience; they just don’t get a mass audience. ”Scripted series, from “I Love Lucy” to “Dallas” to “Friends,” traditionally netted some of the biggest audiences in television history. But now TV’s comedies and dramas are, with a sprinkling of exceptions, becoming expensive diversions for the cultural elite, akin to opera in the 19th century or foreign films in the 1960s.

Critics may love shows such as “Mad Men,” FX’s “Damages” (seven nominations) and HBO’s “The Wire,” but not many other Americans have caught the fever. Even popular network dramas such as ABC’s “Lost” and NBC’s “Heroes” have far fewer viewers than comparable series even a few years ago.

Instead, the TV masses tend to flock these days to major sporting events– such as February’s Super Bowl telecast on Fox, which drew a record audience of 97.5 million– and live reality shows such as “American Idol” or “Dancing With the Stars.” The latter were Emmy-nominated but mostly in the relatively low-prestige “reality competition” category.

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/18/entertainment/et-emmysmad18

My comments:  What makes these “low prestige” show so compelling to audiences?  They are immediate, urgent and authentic. Yes, these shows (and their contestants) are also manufactured, manipulated and managed.  But the contestants, in any situation or challenge created for them, respond by revealing their true characters.

They are real people struggling, failing or overcoming obstacles in real time.  They can’t help showing us who they truly are– that’s what every human being does under extreme pressure.  Over time these contestants’ facades are stripped away.  The audience sees everyone at his or her most vulnerable.  Strengths and weaknesses are exposed. The contestants fall and battle to rise again.

Forget the shiny floor or the flashy lighting.  In these shows something is at stake.  There is struggle, pain, and disappointment but most importantly there is hope.  If your football team falls to take home the trophy at this year’s Super Bowl, there is always next season.  If your favorite singer or dancer is defeated there still is joy in seeing a new star emerge.  And you can pick a new favorite next year.

Another key factor is that these “low prestige” shows are entertainment the whole family can watch together.  This is viewing that isn’t dark.  It isn’t edgy.  It doesn’t “push the envelope.”  And then at the end, there is a sense of affirmation, joy, triiumph or even redemption.

Contrast this with Mad Men and it’s dark relentlessly downbeat tone and stylish but rather empty lives. The characters seem to drift through the story much like the cigarette smoke that fills their homes and offices.  There is little flesh and blood urgency and little worth fighting for.  There is pervasive disillusionment, detachment and disappointment.  Each of the characters is distanced from their emotions (and from us as viewers). The show is stunning in its careful attention to period detail.  It looks beautiful and is beautifully written.  It is also as slow, measured and somber as a classic Requiem Mass.

The Hollywood Reporter
Mad Men Bottom Line: All Pitch and Windup with a Soft Delivery
By Randee Dawn

…(I)f the pieces are in place for “Mad Men” to break big, why does its center feel so hollow? Watching characters indulge with relish in what today are vices has a transgressive quality, yet it’s all done with an insider’s wink to the audience. A fawning tone would grow just as tiresome, but who can identify with characters from whom even the writers seem to shrink?

…There’s much to admire about “Mad Men,” and much worth tuning in for. But so far, it’s all soft sell. At one point, Draper advises a cigarette exec (John Cullum) that they’ll promote his product’s “toasted” quality,” thus ushering in the era of pitching lifestyle over product, the birth of selling nothing. Unfortunately, at this stage, “Mad Men” is giving its audience pretty much the same thing.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/television/reviews/article_display.jsp?&rid=9514

If you are a fanatic fan.  Here is a great site analyzing each episode along with PDF episode scripts.  High art or “low prestige” mass audience. It is your choice.