I am really getting into the new ABC show “Defying Gravity.” If you haven’t seen it, its part “Lost,” part “ER” and part space. I think the show is well done, the actors are great and the “future” they propose isn’t far off from what is likely to happen approximately a half century from now.
So… why am I talking about it here?
The first episode I saw was #5. I caught it by accident when I turned on the TV. I stuck around to watch the last 15 minutes because I noticed it had the guy from “Office Space” and the girl from a season of “24.” I liked the last moments I saw, so I used my DVR to go back to the stored hour it had automatically captured and watched the rest. I then used my iPhone’s “DirecTV” app to set my DVR to have a season pass recorder for the show.
A week went by and I caught episode #6 and still liked it. So this week, I decided to go back for the other episodes I missed. Neither Hulu.com nor ABC.com, however, have the full episode list posted for all episodes. I could only get #4-7, the pilot and episode #3 if I hurry up and do watch it in the next 2 days.
Why?!
I WANT to get into this show. I WANT to tell others about it (hey, I’m blogging about it, aren’t I?). I’m even cool with watching it on a smaller screen, on my computer and with mandatory commercials – all of which I’d gladly tolerate if they’d show the missing episodes.
So why am I talking about it here?
Simple. I think that in a time when I can stumble across a show, watch the last hour of something I didn’t know I wanted to watch ahead of time and set up a system to record the rest of the series from my phone — that I should be able to catch up on the episodes I’ve missed on-line. Ideally, it would be on-demand through my TV, but I’d settle for on-line.
The lesson (one of many that media outlets seem to be learning with varying degrees of success) is that in a new age with new technologies, many of our old habits and paradigms must be changed in order to sustain the end goal. In this case, the goal is to acquire advertising revenue by getting me hooked on a show. I can’t get hooked, if I can’t watch the show.
(Despite all that – it really is a promising show. Go check it out… if you can find the episodes.)
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