Home ยป Lifestyles
Lifestyles
Inter-TV?
Harpers Globe is a CBS Social Show Experiment
By Crystal A. Johnson
The team which brought you the heavily fan supported hit series Jericho is revolutionizing the entertainment game by partnering with the internet sensation team from LonelyGirl15 for the crossover internet series, Harper's Globe. The show is a counterpart to the upcoming 13 part CBS television event entitled Harper's Island but it also stands alone as a series. Could CBS have figured out a brilliant scheme to recoup viewers back to the tube? Have television writers taken a page out of the reality TV book to attract a generation which has grown up with reality TV as a preference? The plan is that each season there will be a new group of characters just like Survivor or other popular reality shows. Unlike scripted programs such as ABC's Lost, viewers will get their beginning, middle and end to the story within one season.
This brainchild of a marriage between television and internet derives from how pivotal fans were to resuscitating Jericho for more and more episodes. The ratings were not good but the emails told another story to CBS. For Harper's Island, the network makes a conscientious decision to engage users of the internet to bolster the potential for ratings by introducing characters that will appear on the series prior to the television air date. CBS sought LonelyGirl15 co-creators and executive producers Mike Beckett and Greg Goodfried for the social show extension to the 13-episode mystery event, Harper's Island.
On the social show Harper's Globe, Melanie Merkowsky, formerly of the hit internet series Lonelygirl15, plays Robin Matthews, a girl with a mysterious past who has recently arrived on Harper's Island to digitize old news archives for the local news paper and build a community on HarpersGlobe.com. Merkowsky's character begins tracking the story of
the murders that occurred on the island seven years ago. Another key element to the story is that Robin has arrived a few weeks before the weeklong festivities of the destination wedding in which the television series is based around.
Merkowsky is a stunning embodied of a beautiful girl next door. Her portrayal of a young local newspaper/online writer is fresh and vulnerable. It is easy see how internet viewers may become smitten with her. Within each episode's Merkowsky's character talks directly to a home video camera as if she is having a conversation with internet viewers. The major storyline is an unfolding murder mystery. Head Writer, Jennifer Yale admitted at a Q & A after a screening of the web-based counterpart, Harper's Globe will push the envelope more than the TV series due to lack of FCC regulations.
Harper's Globe has a haunting air to it. It seems to derive from the family of pop culture slasher flicks meets the hand held of the hand held styling of the Blair Witch Project As the story progresses, the webisodes are filled with montages and flashbacks week after week. It is probably a good bet there are some clues to the mystery embedded in the scenes.
Given that Harper's Globe is a social show, www.HarpersGlobe.com is where the Harper's community of fans will join together to watch the mystery unfold through video, interactivity with the story and communication with community. What does this mean? The internet community can speak directly with the characters, solve puzzles and actually see their participation affect the character's lives. Viewers can also expect webisodes to fit the average internet viewer's average viewing time span of 3 to 5 minutes. Appearances will be made from characters from Harper's Island on Harper's Globe vice versa. Every Wednesday there will be a new webisode.