IT’S easy to forget that The WB was, for a time, the most promising network on television.
Anyone who grew up in the ’90s inevitably has fond memories of The WB’s “New Tuesday,” a two-hour block of TV you absolutely had to watch in order to have something to contribute the next day’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Dawson’s Creek“-centric conversations.
“Dawson’s,” along with “Felicity,” “Charmed,” “Angel” and “7th Heaven,” garnered around 7 million viewers for the premiere episode. Impressive numbers that the brains (and the wallets) behind yesterday’s launch of The WB.com hope to replicate as they reposition the channel – which died two years ago – as an online source of original and vintage video.
In addition to opening up The WB’s vault to offer more shows that made the network famous – “Gilmore Girls,” “Everwood,” “One Tree Hill” – 11 original series will be premiering on the site over the next year.
But there are some serious hiccups that need to be addressed (immediately) if the site truly intends for its slogan, “The Next Great Network Will Not Be Televised,” to be true.
While the video-playback software is crystal clear, the commercial interruptions occur more than at their requisite breaks – one pops up every time you fast forward an episode.
And while viewers are promised that new episodes of each series will be added to the site every Monday, the pickings are beyond slim right now – a greater variety of these same shows are currently available at Hulu.com, ABCFamily.com or CWTV.com.
That must be why such heavy emphasis is placed on the site’s original content – what little there is of it.
A series acquired from Australia, “Blue Water High” is currently the only long-form program active and even then, only two episodes are available.
The WB.com’s two most promising original programs, “High Drama,”an unscripted series about what it takes to put on a high school production of “The Wizard of Oz,” and “Sorority Fever,” a high camp mystery about the ultimate secret society: sorority life. It premieres early next month. Keenly aware that the ways teenagers choose to watch TV are rapidly changing, users are given the option of integrating their personal Facebook pages with TheWB.com, allowing anyone to utilize all of the site’s features on their iPhones or BlackBerrys.
Unfortunately, the site’s layout proves to be nearly incomprehensible no matter what platform you access it from. Nowhere are any of the series’ available episodes laid out in an easily understandable format. It took nearly 20 minutes for this computer savvy soul to realize that seven staff-selected “Friends” episodes are currently the only ones online. Clearly, via the Facebook applications, messages boards and games, the intent of TheWB.com is to create the ultimate online TV fan community. But unless you’ve dreamt of the day you can place a “Veronica Mars” title card over an old episode of “The O.C.,” you might find yourself clicking away, longing for “New Tuesday.”