On-Air to Online: Still Waiting for the Next Big Thing

Media executives have been trying to harness the power of the internet for a long time, but when most people still had a dial up modem the experience for these crossover promotional campaigns was less than ideal. Now that most of the country can get broadband for $20 or less, people are once again starting to get a little more creative. Recently, the creators of Smallville, along with AOL, launched The Project Mercury Blog, which reveals details of one of the plot lines before they are revealed on the internet. Fans of the show can follow along as details are revealed about Professor Fine (James Marsters) as he crosses the globe in order to start some sort of armageddon that Clark Kent will have to stop.

ABC and the producers of Lost take a different approach by launching an interactive game that does not involve a story line that is featured on the show, but is supposed to be geared towards people who have watched every episode as well as people like me, who think that you people who watch every episode and talk about it all the time should just shut the hell up and let the rest of us live in peace. Details are little more than press releases at this point, but there will be new characters (as if you didn’t have enough trouble keeping track of everybody now) and Ana Lucia is revealed as a cyborg and she blows up and kills all of The Others. Just kidding on that last one. I like making up spoilers about the show and watching fans of the show stare into space and wonder if I am telling the truth. Since the writers make things up as they go, this works all the time. Try it yourself someday. Anyway, if you would like to play along, the first clue will be revealed during the episode on May 3rd.