Illadelph Quarterlife

Quarterlife is a TV show for the web 2.0 generation (so goes the pitch), airing twice a week in eight-minute segments on MySpace and its own social networking site. What might deliver Quarterlife from the 15 minutes of fame lonelygirl15 enjoyed over on YouTube last year (and the only reason I care about the show, frankly) is the involvement of writers Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, the team behind my college-years guilty pleasure thirtysomething and My So-Called Life. Four episodes are posted so far. I’m not in love.

The web-video show is about Dylan, a twentysomething intern at Women’s Attitude magazine who vlogs about herself and her friends on her own time. The friends are straight out of central casting for a 00s Reality Bites sequel. Danny and Jed, a variation on the id/superego contrast of Michael and Elliot from thirtysomething, are aspiring filmmakers. Jed’s in love with Danny’s girl, Debra (who’s not at all a looker, or otherwise much interesting yet). Dylan and Debra live with Lisa, a bartender slash aspiring actress whose acting coach’s berating is unintentionally kinda funny. Dylan’s blogging gets her in trouble (“It’s in beta” is her defense); Lisa is a lush, Jed – as I mentioned – is in love with his best friend’s girl, and now the whole Internet knows.

I can’t imagine a 25-ish blogger not knowing that the world wide web isn’t the best place to keep a secret, no matter how desperate an aspiring writer she might be. But the acoustic guitar plucking is there over the understated closing credits, right where it belongs in a Herskovitz/Zwick production, and Quarterlife takes up less time than a Michael Jackson video. (Back when, you know, MJ made videos.) I’ll tune in every now and then, things might get interesting. Then again, they might not. NBC will start to air the show next year after, uh, everybody’s seen them already. The first episode is below. Food for thought though: why ain’t thirtysomething on DVD yet?

quarterlife Part 1

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