...tunities?

So i got to thinking after posting this link in the "Arrested Development" post - http://imoscar.com/

If you're not watching the show, one of the characters is wrongly imprisoned (Oscar, instead of George Sr) and when another character (Michael) went to George and found Oscar in jail, Oscar started talking about his webpage, imoscar.com and they showed a couple screenshots. He made several references to it, then Michael even made another reference to the later in the show where he said "Oscar can spend one more day in prison", then the narrator said "not according to the latest entry on imoscar.com and it shows a screenshot of the blog where the top headline was "I can't stay in prison one more day!".
So anyway, I finally tried out imoscar.com and sure enough, it's the same page they showed on the show, with some additional hilarious blog entries (and several ads for Fox of course).

but that got me thinking - I think the studios are really missing an opportunity now to start making more shows interactive, and give them some space in the "real-world". When you think about the imoscar.com page, it really represents a paradigm shift - you take a normally completely fictional TV show that people watch passively, then create a webpage or a blog for one of the characters, and all of a sudden the viewing experience becomes interactive! the characters "come alive".

So what if some of these shows really did develop rich and interactive websites for their characters? To take the Arrested Development thing further, the entire Bluth family could have a huge website, where each of the characters occasionally makes blog posts, we can view the Bluth construction company site, see "press releases", etc. Instead of creating episode summaries (or in addition to) on fox.com, people can read the characters blogs and "about me" sections to see what's happened in past episodes. Then the websites can add some additional info and character depth for the show, and the scripts in the shows can make references or jokes to the continuously updated webpage. Nothing crucial would "happen" on the webpage/blog so people who only watch the show won't miss anything, but it would help capture other people's attention.

Then other shows like 24 or CSI could really dive deep into this. The studios put a couple people full time on creating a website for CSI that was updated week to week with what happened on the show, or presented additional crimes to "solve" or something.

Anyone aware of anything like this? Stupid idea....? I know "who wants to be a millionaire" did a real-time play along with the show thing that some people did, but I'm not aware of any fictional shows where the characters keep up a webpage or interaction in the real-world. When the Joe Schmoe Show was on SpikeTV I kept up weekly with the producer's blog and that was great - after every show he would comment on the show, give some inside information and stuff, and lots of watchers were able to talk with him and give and get feedback.

The key is having fully developed characters on the show that people care about in between the 7 days that you watch the show for 30 minutes. I think Arrested Development is a great example - the characters are already so rich and deep that they could easily add one or two blog entries per week while in character to add more depth to the show.

10/19/2005 3:15:45 PM

This is sort of what you're talking about, perhaps:

http://www.freaksandgeeks.com/TheFreaksAndGeeks/TheFreaksAndGeeks.html

10/19/2005 3:42:39 PM

http://www.877sue2win.com

http://www.oceanicflight815.com

10/19/2005 3:48:21 PM

yeah, that's basiically what i'm getting at. I don't watch any of those 3 shows, though, so i can't comment on how much the site adds to the show.
I'd like to see one that keeps up in real-time with the show, week to week. I know most shows create a site and give some character information and leave it static for the rest of the season. Does the Lost site do that? From what I've heard about the show, that seems like a good candidate to make an interactive site that follows the show (of couse I suppose it would be hard to make it "written" by the characters themselves, as i assume they're not surfing the web on their island. ha)

10/20/2005 3:26:08 AM

They could just leave it unexplained...kinda like why the morbidly obese dude stranded on an island doesn't lose any weight.

10/20/2005 3:41:51 AM

^^Last season there was a diary written by one of the survivors (someone who we never see on screen) that was updated every week with a different perspective on what went on that week.

^According to him, he has lost some weight, AND they have had plenty of food, AND it's only been 43 or 44 days.

10/20/2005 6:26:26 AM

The LOST one doesnt count...its not written to appear that one of the castaways is running it. The Boston Legal does at least have the right look.

There was a site that was featured in CBS more recent version of The Fugitive (the Tim Daly version). http://www.drrichardkimble.com was a site proclaiming his innocence in the show that was ran by people who knew his story and believe he was wrongly accused. The real version also did this with a variety of information regarding the doctors innocence, as well as various information about the show.

10/20/2005 8:57:12 AM