We wondered and then we attempted to watch an episode there.
We've never reviewed Lost here, have no interest in doing so. Our lives have moved along just fine without ever seeing an episode. We had to endure five minutes of it, five minutes of bad net, really bad net, net so bad it was as if Fred Silverman was programming it. Not from the days when he was a golden boy, but from his NBC decline when shows like SuperTrain and much more crashed and burned.
We were planning to review The Goode Family this week and had already seen two episodes passed on by friends. But since we were playing with ABC.go.com, we figured we'd check that out again.
It seemed simple enough, just go to ABC.go.com and click on "Free episodes" and there it was . . . kind of.
First problem?
Installing a player. We were on a laptop and we have Real Player, Windows Media Player, Quick Time and Winamp already on it. Apparently those players aren't enough. We were on a laptop and, as we went through the process of downloading and installing ABC's player (which is useless except to play ABC programming -- which is useless?), we thought about how a lot of people would probably take a pass right there. Especially if they were on a laptop and worried about filling up their hard drives.
When that was finally done (about three minutes to download and install), we thought we'd be able to watch the program.
We were wrong.
And this is where we encountered "The ABCs of Lost." Five minutes of hype, propaganda and stupidity. Jack and Kate and Sawyer were "a romance for the ages." Uh, no. They compose a romantic triangle. Unless Jack and Sawyer start plugging into one another (the only twist the show has apparently not yet taken), this isn't a romance, it's two parts of a triangle competing for the third part. Get it? ABC doesn't.
Five minutes of "The ABCs of Lost," five minutes that never seemed to end in which ABC kept stressing so often that we'd now be able to be instant experts and able to catch any episode of Lost that we wondered if we'd clicked on the wrong show by mistake?
Finally it was time to "Click Play to Continue." We did.
And got five minutes of The Goode Family. After the five minute commercial of Lost.
We actually got 5:17 minutes of The Goode Family and then ABC was screwing with us as "30" appeared on screen for thirty seconds and began counting backwards while Doug Savant and Marc Cherry cock-knocked about how wonderful Desperate Housewives was. We could get through thirty seconds of this, we promised, gritting our teeth. But they were screwing with us. When the "30" countdown struck "1," The Goode Family didn't start. We were stuck with Desperate Housewives for five minutes.
"Which character are you most like on the show?"
"I think I'm most like Lee because he gets to use musical theater references," babbled Marc Cherry while Doug Savant grinned like a yokel visiting the Big Apple for the first time. When Cherry finally came up for air, Savant rushed in to insist, "And bitchy!"
Savant would reveal he enjoys his part and could ("if I have this much fun playing a half man") do so forever. Reminding us that these five dull minutes could be enlivened with Nicolette Sheridan -- whom we doubt would be saying she enjoyed the show (her character was killed off this season). Reminding us that Doug Savant was the most useless character on Melrose Place and has only become more so on Housewives.
Five mind numbing minutes. We've so far had to sit through a five minute promo for Lost and now were sitting through five minutes for Desperate Housewives. How much of The Goode Family had we seen? ABC had 'generously' shown us 5:17 minutes.
"Click Play to Continue." You know, on Hulu, it's seamless. The commercial plays and, when it's over, the show starts up all on its own. Maybe ABC thinks everyone runs from the laptop when the network advertising starts playing?
We're back to watching the 21:44 minute "Series Premiere" of The Goode Family. It started back up at 5:17 and, wouldn't you know it, when it gets to 9:29 minutes, we're back to another network commercial.
In fact, we're back to Marc Cherry and Doug Savant flogging Desperate Housewives and themselves. They're so mind numbingly boring, it took about a minute of the five minute ad before we realized it was the exact same one we'd seen before. As Marc Cherry was (again) babbling on about "new characters," we noticed that, with that red polo shirt and those flabby man boobs, Marc Cherry must be GOP for "Needs to wear a bra." Or maybe he was paying homage to Carol Burnett's Stella Toddler?
"Are you done pitching incest storylines on ABC.com?" Cherry asked Savant.
We blinked and tried to think of two men who could be as boring and as nonsexual for five minutes?
"Click Play to Continue." We do. And The Goode Family starts back up at 9:29. To recap, in order to watch the less than half hour animated show, we've seen a five minute commercial for Lost and two five-minute commercials for Desperate Housewives. And we're still not done with the show. We've watched 15 minutes of commercials and only seen 9:29 minutes of entertainment programming.
At 15:48, it's time for the next commercial. The "30" comes up as it always does. We think it must be a form of torture they first tried at Guantanamo.
"We just want to watch the show!" we screamed at our laptop.
It was a commercial for laser eye surgery.
It ran for 30 seconds.
Web Programmer be praised.
We couldn't believe it. We couldn't believe a commercial only lasted thirty seconds. We were just so grateful and so eager to "Click Play to Continue."
The program resumed at 15:48 and played through to the end (21:44). The brightness and contrast went in and out throughout this segment. The pixels were so bad at one point that someone might have assumed the Goodes were relatives of Casper.
And finally it ended.
With a commercial starting and we just didn't have the energy for it.
To watch a 21:44 minute program, ABC had subjected us to 15:30 minutes of advertising.
And it wasn't even smart advertising. Are people watching an animated program the normal audience for Desperate Housewives or Lost? And if ABC is attempting to promote shows, is it really necessary for them to promote two of their biggest hits? Wouldn't it make more sense to promote their shows in need of promotion?
And what was up with the laser eye surgery commercial? We were just about to point out that few of the core and target audience for an animated program needed laser eye surgery but then we remembered how, following that commercial airing, the video stream repeatedly alternated between overly light and overly dark and how the pixels dropped out so much it appeared ghosts were on campus visiting the sex booths. Suddenly, the laser eye surgery commercial was looking a lot like product placement.
And ABC.go.com was looking like the biggest waste of time. We got it. We got why, for example, reader Mimi wrote she'd rather watch her son "create a 'program' for me on his Etch-a-Sketch" than watch an episode on ABC.go.com. We got why reader Lorenzo wrote, "Online ABC is basically the 'channel' I block." It more than made sense. To watch a 21:44 minute program, we had to sit through 15:30 minutes of commercials and we had to install a player. All the complaints more than made sense.