June 15, 2006
TV Characters with Blogs
One potentially interesting turn for blog narratives: there seems to be a trend towards television characters with their own blogs as a way for the networks to cross-market their offerings on the Web. While most of the TV character blogs I’ve run across are fairly lame in-character rehashings of plot events from the show, it is interesting to see the different approaches that production companies are taking to using character blogs in their crossmedia marketing efforts.
The uptight “dork” character from NBC’s The Office, Dwight K Schrute‘s blog is infrequently updated, though his posts, such as his detailed report of his morning itinerary, including what he had for breakfast, the radio show he listened to, and a progress report on his beet farm and throwing star practice, are in character with the nature of his TV persona. The many commenters seem comfortable with addressing Dwight as if he was a real person. NBC seems to have just as as big a problem with blog spam as GTxA. In addition to his blog on the NBC site, Dwight set up a MySpace profile, which immediately blasts the viewer with his favorite tune, the Scorpions’ “Rock Me Like a Hurricane.”
Margene, the somewhat ditzy youngest wife of the polygamist family on the HBO drama Big Love, has a blog on the HBO site in the confessional LiveJournal style, complete with happy and sad emoticons. While most of her entries simply rehash plot events from the preceding week’s show, they do offer a more detailed account of her character’s perspective on events and provide some method actor-style backstory on her character’s motivation. There’s also a pretty good rant about trolls who think she doesn’t take her blog seriously enough.:
Someone on the internet called my blog “inane.”(I really don’t know what that word means-I’d never use it myself, I mean-but, apparently, I shouldn’t admit that because then they would make fun of me some more for being dumb or whatever.) Believe it or not, I am this ditzy and I like it and if you don’t, you don’t have to listen to me ramble. Seriously. That’s not me being mean, I promise. I don’t want you to get unhappy when you’re reading this. And there’s just so much out there that if my squeaky voice annoys you, feel free to go off in another direction…no questions asked and no hard feelings. Go play online poker or read and bash Anderson Cooper’s blog (actually, don’t…he’s a national treasure). Gosh. What’s the big deal? I thought the whole point of these blogs was to “shoot from the hip” (as my mom says). Should I be more thoughtful? Should I talk about President Bush? I can complain about gas prices if you want.
The character of Dave, the wacky beer-loving conspiracy-theory oriented uncle from the recently canceled ABC series Invasion is actually a blogger on the show who revealed what he knew about the alien invasion of Homestead, Florida as the season progressed. On the actual episodes, Dave was often seen drafting his blog entries by recording them into a mini tape recorder. Dave’s blog, at http://www.didyouseethelights.com/ has some nice flourishes for verisimilitude, including a dedicated URL, a superbly tacky Dave head and beer design, a blogroll with links to conspiracy theory sites, the national weather service, and a homebrew site. The comments are also apparently filtered to weed out those that are not “in-character,” thus preserving a veneer of suspension-of-disbelief.
While none of these sites are great literature, they do suggest a compelling use of blogs for the entertainment industry. I’m sure that we’ll see more of them, given that they are a very inexpensive form of internet marketing that likely has more appeal than websites that simply present the show’s roster of actors and/or episode guides. One wonders what other sort of weblog/tv combinations are in the offing. It would be interesting to see a narrative that unfolded primarily or more extensively on blogs, which was supported by a TV series, rather than the other way around.
June 15th, 2006 at 2:20 pm
Working at an NBC affiliate like I do, I’m often subjected to shows that I didn’t intend on watching. One neat thing I found, though, was a blog from the character Nigel from the show Crossing Jordan. In the show he referenced that he was going to use his new blog to reach out to ‘forensics enthusiasts’ on the web to help solve cold cases. His boss immediately dismissed him and the show proceeded as normal. When I got home that night and checked it, sure enough the referenced http://www.nigelblog.com/ was real and the mystery was afoot. Since the wrapping up of the mystery it’s been mentioned on the show regularly (like him buying a new webcam, recording videos for his blog fans during the show, etc.) as a minor plot point.
What interests me is if they’ll change how they handle the passage of time on the how in relation to the time that passes until the next season starts (as Crossing Jordan’s season ended a few weeks ago.) Normally shows can just gloss over the fact and play it off as ‘a few days’ or ‘a few weeks’, sometimes picking things up exactly where they left off. But by nudging in on the real world, it would make sense that time passes in real time for the show as well.
June 15th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
The new Doctor Who made great use of tie-in websites. The opening episode featured a conspiracy theorist who was tracking the Doctor’s public appearances through old newspaper clippings and similar – the BBC runs a conspiracy theory blog written by him and another character. On top of that, they often have web sites for large organizations featured in the show which look just like actual commercial sites.
June 16th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
Another one I’ve found is The Slowskys, the turtles from the Comcast commercials here in the states.