Chances are you’ve been at a social gathering or on a date and heard someone use that putdown in response to a comment on the plot twists of Lost or some other TV show. Maybe their condescending tone made you choke on your Veuve Clicquot in your rush to disassociate yourself from those “TV watching” cretins. While movies and theater are deemed perfectly acceptable, even culturally enriching, TV conjures up images of an overweight, unemployed, beer drinking underachiever manhandling a remote. I honestly don’t turn on the tube myself. I have seen none of my favorite shows on their original network airings preferring to stockpile whole season DVD’s of House, The Closer, 24, CSI, Grey’s Anatomy et al, a consequence of my hectic schedule not allowing me to plop on the couch during the week. But there is a get out of jail free card for the entertainment addict who wants to wean himself off his cable box while still getting his daily fix. Coming soon to a monitor near you is programming made just for your computer. And we are all expected to stare at a PC at least once a day right? So here is my guide to where no remote has gone before.

“Web-only shows” or “webisodes” are two buzz phrases that started making the industry rounds a year or so ago. Now word on the street (and by street I mean Variety and the Hollywood reporter) is that Hollywood is increasingly looking to the viability of the internet as an outlet for original professionally produced content. This is nothing earth shatteringly new since there has been talk in the last few years and even some early attempts that met with mixed success. In November 2005 the Food Network debuted the first web-only TV program “Eat This” setting a traffic record of 15.5 million page views on their website Foodnetwork.com. The thirteen part original series followed preppy young chef Dave Lieberman as he took a culinary tour of five US cities and spawned a sequel “Dave Does”. Scripps Networks the parent company of The Food Network followed this success in November 2006 on their other cable property HGTV, with two do-it-yourself shows “8 Fresh Ideas” and “Getting Started”. However all of the above were reality style instructional shows, relatively cheap to produce and an easy fit for the medium.

Another channel to tackle the net was MTV’s Comedy Central which filled a web channel called MotherLoad with programming such as “All Access: Middle Ages,' the inside story behind the coolest crusades and 'most awesomely bad plagues,”. Online comedy-if done well- sells, as demonstrated by the creators of South Park who signed lucrative deals for their show online and by Will Ferrell whose skit about a foul-mouthed toddler landlady put his site FunnyOrDie.com on everyone’s favorites list. And it is not just cable that has dipped its toe into web distribution, Fox produced webisodes of their hit animated sitcom Family Guy exclusively for the net in 2006. This came on the heels of NBC’s airing special episodes of “The Office” online. The ten internet only installments revolved around the cubicle capers of the popular show’s lesser characters and were part of CEO Jeffery Zucker’s strategy to retain the audience during the summer when traditionally reruns are the norm.

The democratic nature of the web means that now it’s not just the boys in Burbank who can play at being internet auteurs. Five Los Angeles filmmakers pooled their spare time and $50,000 to come up with “SamHas7Friends” a serial drama that was distributed on YouTube, Revver and iTunes. It received mixed critical reception and averaged 10’000 iTunes downloads daily. The group then parlayed this experience into creating “Prom Queen” an 80 episode internet show in 90 second chunks that had the backing of former Disney honcho Michael Eisner and was hosted on MySpace, New Corp’s social networking behemoth which boasts over 110 million active users each month.

More recent is the announcement that veteran producers Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwik whose credits include “The Last Samurai” and “Blood Diamond” and the iconic series “Thirtysomething” have penned a deal with MySpace, to produce and distribute an original Web series called “Quarterlife.” It is billed as a regular television series, made by professional level writers, directors and crew. A new ten minute segment of the show will be posted on MySpace TV every Thursday and Sunday night, beginning Nov. 11. The storyline revolves around post-college twenty-something’s trying to find their place in the world. Hmm, it sounds suspiciously like Kevin Williams show Wasteland which was axed from ABC after only three episodes. A day after the MySpace broadcast, “Quarterlife” episodes will be available on quarterlife.com, a site separate from MySpace that will promote the show and act as a portal for fans. A week later, the webisodes will be available on the general web. And, if the producers have it their way, they will eventually work their way onto traditional TV screens. What is notable about the series is the production values and polish which is a result of not only having professional crew but also access to a generous budget, significantly more than the $50,000 or $100,000 an hour that most pro Web series spend. “Quarterlife” is based on a pilot the producers pitched several years ago called “1/4 Life,” (rejected by ABC) and stars relative unknowns. Creative Artists Agency (CAA) helped cobble together the project and owns a piece of the action. MySpace does not pay traditional licensing fees for the broadcast rights but contributes its substantial members as potential viewers and will sell advertising.

If slacker teens and high school drama is not your cup of tea, fear not I have something for the Star Trek crowd too. The cutting edge “Sanctuary” marks yet another attempt to bring TV programming to the web. It is a re-mixable sci-fi tale with interactive gaming components that aim to fuse the best elements of the two media. The first four episodes are free with the rest being pay to view and pay to play. Among the most promising entries in the sci-fi vein is 'Afterworld,' a post apocalyptic take on Rip Van Winkle. The animated story revolves around a man who wakes up to find most of the world's population has gone so he treks from New York to Seattle to find his family and meets survivors on the way.'Afterworld' is one of the most expensive and ambitious Internet undertakings yet and stands miles apart from the grainy YouTube video clips we usually associate with the internet. The brain child of Santa Monica-based Electric Farm Entertainment, it spans 130 two to three minute episodes. The show's $3 million budget makes it the most expensive series of its kind to run on MySpace. Unlike “Sanctuary” “Afterworld” is free and supported solely by advertising sales. Some of the episodes were shown on YouTube where they turned into instant viral hits, commanding more than 1 million page views.

The show takes the interactive nature of the web and uses it to good effect. Plots development is open to fan input and a viewer can also solve puzzles, explore maps, interact with characters and get more involved with the storyline than traditional TV would allow. This hands-on dimension is a natural fit for their target demographic, teens and young adults raised on video games, text messages and other tactile diversions. Instead of a licensing fee, the production company receives some of the advertising money that MySpace makes from the show. Electric Workshop has sold TV, Internet, mobile and gaming rights to Sony Pictures, which helped bankroll the project. A second season of “Afterworld” is in the works as well as two other animation/live action web series.

The success of all these shows rests on their being able to gauge and deliver what their audience- a decidedly unpredictable group-expects. Traditional TV has had years to perfect this through trial and error but still manages to slipup on occasion. Web-only shows have to compete not just with other channels but with literally millions of other distractions that are just a webpage and mouse click away. These web shows need to do the impossible, capture an attention deficient audience’s interest for about ten minutes (an hour in online time). The number of viewers and the advertising revenue they ultimately pull will determine the future of web programming. But don’t for a minute assume that traditional TV is dead and gone forever. Webisodes are just an evolution, a promising addition to our ever growing entertainment options and very soon you may be able to watch TV without actually “watching TV”. But right now I have an episode of “House” that is calling me.