With the writers' strike about to enter its second month, networks will soon run out of fresh episodes of your favorite shows. This catastrophe might cause you to do something drastic, like read a book or converse with those people in your household you strongly suspect are your children. Worse, you might spend even more time on the Internet.
Watching a "webisode," the latest computer craze, seems to be the equivalent of doing a shot of rot-gut whiskey. Seems harmless enough at the time, but about an hour later you want to crawl up in a ball and cry like a baby. Bargain-basement budgets and crass humor can only take you so far, unless you're a Pauly Shore fan. In that case, you're beyond help.
Despite my low expectations, or perhaps because of them, I was somewhat surprised to find some genuine talent toiling out there in Googleland, although nothing that could match the genius of, say, "Notes From the Underbelly." Here are some impressions of five popular sites. If you choose to check them out, bring aspirin. You're gonna need it.
Eight vapid gal pals, with names like Sigourney and Violet, live their Paris Hilton-inspired lives on the Internet in this daily 3-minute soap spoof of "The Hills," seemingly unaware that the MTV series is hilarious enough on its own. The show teeters on the edges of soft porn with lots of hot-tub action and weighty debates about their tatas, but, alas, there's actually no nudity -- and no laughs. To borrow a series catch phrase, this is "super lame."
Poking fun at celebrities has overtaken baseball as America's favorite pastime, which justifies the existence of this crude creation. "The Heavy Show," a tepid reheating of "Talk Soup," features Internet star Taryn Southern, best known for her Hillary Clinton love song, hamming her way through bits that point and giggle at the rich and famous without bothering to come up with any punch lines. Slightly better is the ongoing cartoon "Superficial Friends," a takeoff on "Superfriends," with crime fighters such as Nicole Richie, who uses vomit as her weapon, and the Olsen twins, who can transform into the shape of Bob Saget. Mildly amusing, but the entire site is a lot like playing darts just one foot from the board. It's too darn easy.
