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Advance screenings of television shows are nothing revolutionary. In the past, Entertainment Weekly subscribers have gotten pilot DVDs stuffed in the pages of their fall tv issues -- one year, I even got a flash drive containing videos of the new CBS lineup -- and network websites have offered sneak peeks at new shows or new seasons for limited engagements. This year, Facebook took the idea of creating advance buzz for a brand new show and mashed it into our social networking obsession. For a limited time in early August, you could watch the pilot of the new NBC sitcom Community on Facebook.
I've always had a hard time living in the moment -- always looking ahead or worrying about things to come -- so the idea of DVR and the invention of TiVo was like letting that particular fault of mine out of the cage and encouraging it to roam free on organic grass. Thanks to this technology, we now rarely watch shows when they actually air.
Ten years after the birth of Tivo, we're time-shifting our television viewing even more. The existence of Netflix, Hulu, and Sling mean we can mainline entire seasons of shows in mere days or even hours. In fact, it's become a mark of how smart a show is if they can get the previous seasons' episodes released on DVD before the new season premieres in order to indoctrinate new viewers. (I'm just saying, without Netflix, Hulu, and iTunes, I never would have been able to catch up with Friday Night Lights, Alias, or Veronica Mars in time to watch their newest seasons.)
Meanwhile, the networks are now courting viewers well in advance of their actual seasons. Did you watch Glee's pilot months before it aired this fall? I did. I saw it in May and was so entranced that I had a hard time imagining sweating through summer programming without any more new episodes. Those who didn't see it four months ago were slightly taken aback by this surprising new show and by the fans who were already showing signs of rabidity. Those of us who did see it four months ago were shining our knuckles at being so ahead of the curve as to already know and love the show before this month's pilot re-airing.
By the time I watched Community -- a mere day before time on the offer expired -- I actually felt pretty behind the times for being so far ahead of the times. You know? For one thing, I didn't even know you COULD watch on it Facebook, which is odd, considering how much I am on Facebook and that I list other NBC shows like The Office among my favorites. It wasn't until I read Linda Holmes' piece in her Monkey See blog at NPR that I leapt at the opportunity to preview a show I had mentally dog-eared as something I might interested in watching.
In her post, Linda breaks down the success of such a marketing stunt, citing issues with the video's playback and availability. I didn't have any problems getting the show to play for me, but I did appreciate how she called NBC out for this particular issue, "They only posted it on Facebook. Not Hulu, not NBC.com. Only Facebook. So if you're not a Facebook user, you're entirely out of luck."
Yeah, why did they do that? I mean, why not go for a broad spectrum of online media outlets instead of just relying on word of mouth to get people to Facebook? Sort of an odd decision by NBC. Also, Linda's skewering of one of Facebook's quirks made me chuckle:
Bad News: You have to become a 'fan' of the show in order to watch it. This is going to subject you to future communications from the show -- which presumably could include cross-promotional messages from NBC making sure you watch the rest of their fall shows. While you can certainly 'un-fan' something you've become a fan of so they don't bother you anymore, this isn't really the way the function is meant to be used. It makes people nervous when you force a tool they're accustomed to into some odd use -- like, 'Please say you're already a fan of this thing you haven't yet seen, so you can see it.'
Seriously.
Meanwhile, all that aside, I really liked Community. Does it have the potential to be an The Office or Parks and Recreation clone? Sure, that's a superficial assessment, but I
