Over at Entertainment Weekly columnist Michael Ausiello is reporting on the TV networks’ press tour and he specifically reports on two CW shows–the Melrose Place relaunch and The Beautiful Life.  What these shows are about doesn’t really matter, because honestly I couldn’t get past the promotional cast photos.

Seven beautiful, nondescript young people lined against a wall.  Yes, this is the show I want to watch.  It’s the equivalent of advertising every new show with a rip-off of The Usual Suspects’ film poster.  Only, in this case, the people aren’t nearly as interesting looking.  I’m all for putting beautiful people on television.  The truth is that they have a God-given-talent which is to stand around and appear nice for others to look at.  They’re the organic version of a Van Gogh painting.  But couldn’t they at least be interesting looking beautiful people?

Take Julia Roberts for example.  She’s got a smile that haunts children in their sleep.  Seriously, she could play the Cheshire Cat in a stage production of Alice in Wonderland, and that’s not a bad thing.  It makes her interesting to look at.  Owen Wilson has that odd bump in his nose, and he’s all the more interesting for it.  These kids?  Not so interesting.

The problem for me is that all the shows start to look alike.  I have the same issue with many police procedurals which cast the grizzled older man, the young nondescript blond headed guy, and the sassy dark-haired woman (who is likely ethnic).  Can we mix it up a bit?  At least CSI finally hired on Laurence Fishburne, even if it was just in the role of grizzled older man.  There should be something we’re paying casting directors for, right?

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Is this our curse?  Is this the fate we suffer for demanding (or at least allowing) 24 hour a day news coverage?  The picture above is from an extended live segment where CNN tracked the body of Michael Jackson from the hospital where he died to the morgue.

Yes, the morgue.  What is news coverage coming to?  There’s the obvious complaint that the death of Jackson, while newsworthy, did not deserve several uninterrupted hours of news coverage.  There’s still the demonstrations in Iran and the threats of North Korea to fill news time.  There’s still Obama’s wrestling with Congress over health care reform.  And in the midst of these stories, we find 24 hour coverage of Jackson.

Any major story leads to the eventual problem that there is rarely 24 hours worth of news to go along with the story.  There are the rare exceptions, such as September 11, but even that story felt like the news networks were stretching pretty much past the first day.  It was just endless replays of planes hitting the towers.  Which, when you stop to think about it, was pretty morbid.  We were plastering the murder of several hundred Americans live on television in a continuous loop.  But at least with that story, one could argue the planes crashing and the building falling were the main part of the story and you couldn’t tell the story without those images.  Of course, Michael Moore later showed that simply the audio from news coverage was enough.

Regardless, Jackson’s body being transported adds nothing to the story.  It’s instead just incredibly morbid.  It reeks of desperation to fill the news hole with anything related, or possibly hoping to scoop those networks who dare turn away from the ease of rubber necking.

When a friend mentioned this coverage today I noted that this fall I expected to see Celebrity Autopsy on Fox.  It would be the sad bastard child of CSI and Dancing with the Stars.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t joking.

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File this one under “Most Awkward Moment Ever.”  Now, MC Hammer is not the smartest business guy in the world, even by his own admission.  He lost millions of dollars trying to be a friend to everyone.  Maybe not smart financially, but he does seem a fairly nice person.  That’s what makes what happens on The Today Show even more awkward.

While appearing on the show with his young son to promote his new reality series Hammertime, Kathie Lee Gifford opened her big mouth and inserted an equally big foot.  Gifford asked if his son was interested in an entertainment career, and then proceeded to give him a lecture on not being like his dad and losing millions.  Hammer’s response was very cordial, but also short and to the point.  He told Gifford he didn’t feel like that was the sort of thing that should be discussed in front of a young kid.

What followed was Gifford apparently trying to blame her producers for writing the question.  Perhaps they were to blame, but could she not seriously use her brain to decide it was an inappropriate question on her own?  Hammer may not be a genius in finance, but Gifford is a moron in decorum.  See the segment below.

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Try to hide your shock, but it appears Hulu may be moving to a subscription based model.  Jonathan Miller, News Corp.’s new chief digital officer stated that is exactly where he sees the currently free site headed.  But don’t worry too much yet, as this is neither as inevitable or possibly as bad as you might think.

Speaking at The Hollywood Reporter’s Internet Week event, Miller said he envisions a future where at least some of the films and TV shows would be considered premium content accessible only by subscription.  Still, Miller is so new he hasn’t even attended a single board meeting of Hulu, so it isn’t a done deal quite yet.  But with word that Hulu is set to turn a profit this year and is already more financially solvent than YouTube, why change a good think?

There’s a few reasons.  First, the cable companies are irate over Hulu.  The site essentially circumvents them, and many younger users have decided it negates their entire need for a cable subscription.  If more started to feel this way, especially with ABC’s recent partnering, then the cable companies might really be in trouble.

But what would it take for a significant enough part of the population to drop cable?  Many are still waiting on a way to conveniently stream Hulu on their television.  Just before E3 there were rumors that Microsoft would introduce just such an ability for their Xbox 360.  That didn’t pan out, but now such rumors have turned to the Roku media player which already streams Netflix films (much like the Xbox 360).  Make it easy enough and why would anyone need cable?

Well, anyone but the content providers.  As much as NBC Universal might see green with Hulu’s ad revenues, they also worry about making an enemy out of big cable providers.  They still need their cable outlets, such as USA Network, to appear on most cable systems both the income generated by fees charge to the cable companies and advertising.  They’re not quite yet at the point where a digital streaming solution can replace that income—only supplement it.

In addition, while adding older, more niche films to the Hulu catalog might make sense for generating revenue, adding more modern hit films does not.  Fox has yet to add franchises like Die Hard because there’s still so much money in those films on cable, DVD, and other outlets.  In other words, they hate to give the milk away for free.  Internet users, meanwhile, are use to getting their cows for free.

This, of course, creates a dilemma.  How does a site like Hulu move to a subscription model when the Internet audience is used to getting everything for free?  Miller is smart enough to know it would have to be a limited amount of the content, and not the entire site.  Going entirely pay would drive away most of the site’s current audience.  So, how much would you be willing to pay and for what?

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If you ask why people are bigots, you’ll often get the answer because they are terrible, horrible, no good very bad people.  Of course, many very good people are bigoted against a particular group or idea.  They may spend most of their days taking meals to the homeless, but still harbor prejudices that color them ugly.  So, how do we reconcile two different perceptions of the same person?

We don’t often.  Instead we write off people with a broad brush.  Either we paint them as the aforementioned horrible type, or we justify their views using some quasi-logic about their upbringing or some other demographic detail.

One of the more common is to say people are bigots against groups they have little experience with.  For example, rural white kids dislike black people because they’ve had little personal interaction with people of color.  Christians have preconceived notions about Muslims because, at least in the US, they have few chances to interact.  In other words, bigotry is caused almost entirely by ignorance of a group.  Replace the ignorance with experience, and you replace the bigotry with accepting and understanding.

It’s a good theory, and it likely applicable in many cases.  As a teacher I have seen it in evidence as I’ve taught in different areas of the country.  Some were very intolerant towards homosexuals, blacks, white, Hispanics, Christians, Muslims, etc.  Each group tends to have its own bigotries, but also, in general, tend to be overall good people.  How to reconcile this?  Is it completely ignorance based?

Not entirely.  The other major cause of bigotry is the need to feel superior.  Starting from an early age this is why kids pick on those who are different from them on the playground.  He’s fat.  She’s Asian.  He’s short.  She’s got freckles.  Anything that can make someone more of the other, means that we’re more of the mainstream, and being in the mainstream is a wonderful thing as a child.  The problem is that we never really outgrow it.

For example, posters on the website Reddit.com recently celebrated when the NBC show My Name Is Earl was cancelled.  Because they didn’t like it?  For some.  But for many it had more to do with an intense dislike of star Jason Lee.  That might seem odd at first, as Lee belongs to an exclusive group of actors who made a name for themselves in the films of Kevin Smith.  Smith tends to be a god among geeks, and sites like Reddit pull heavily, if not exclusively, from the geek crowd.  But thinking this way would be logical, and exclude the fact that Lee happens to be a practicing Scientologist.

In the past few years a concentrated campaign has erupted through the Internet against Scientology.  It’s an odd fight for people to chose, what with this country being in the middle of two wars and having one of the most unpopular presidents ever.  They observed the landscape and saw Scientology as the great threat that needed something done about it.  But that’s fine, in this country we have freedom of speech and people can speak out against any ideas that they want.  Simply questioning Scientology is hardly a bad thing.

But reveling in the personal downfall of its members?  Simply because they are members of a particular religion?  Doesn’t that seem just a bit bigoted?  Okay, a lot bigoted?  Yes, because it is.  Disliking someone and rooting against them for such things is the essence of bigotry.  It’s really no different than rooting against someone because they happen to be a Republican or Democrat.  Or because they’re a vegetarian.  Or because they’re a sculptor, for that matter.

The argument many made was that Lee’s support of Scientology meant they could not support him.  Now, let’s think about this.  Isn’t this the same as not buying Elton John CDs because he’s gay?  Or boycotting reruns of Fraiser because Kelsey Grammer is a Republican?  What kind of narrow minded group think is this?  If we don’t personally agree with your views or lifestyle we’re going to actively root against your success?  It might be one thing to root against Lee if he were running a recruitment campaign for Scientology.  At least then you could root against the campaign, and not the man.  But anything else is just flat out bigotry.

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Fox’s new hour long drama Glee benefitted from lots of hype and premiering after the next to last episode of American Idol this season.  But too much hype can be a bad thing, and a show about high school glee club certainly borders on the edge of terrible just by its premise alone.  Luckily, the show isn’t nearly as bad as it should be, and it hints at great things possibly to come.

If nothing else, Glee is perhaps the most earnest show premiering on television this year.  That’s hardly a huge accomplishment when most programs are as cynical as a group of teenagers (likely because that’s who most shows are targeted at).  Still, it makes the show stand out.  When the soulful jock Finn Hudson stands up for Arty, the kid in the wheelchair, in the pilot episode you almost want to roll your eyes at its innocence, but then he utters a fairly funny, astute diatribe about the fate of everyone in the school and town.  It’s earnest, but not stupid.

The same cannot be said for its comedy.  While the show benefits greatly from having Jane Lynch as a cheerleading coach gone mad, she’s about the only funny part of the show so far.  The rest of the show seems to bounce happily from homophobic jokes to “Isn’t my wife evil?” type jokes.  What’s supposed to be funny just isn’t most of the time.

Luckily, only about the first half of the pilot is trying to be funny.  After that it becomes more earnest and the show really takes off starting with a visit to see another school’s glee club perform.  Their rendition of “Rehab” is jubilant and exciting, like a very good off-Broadway musical.  It isn’t until the main cast performs at the end of the episode though that the music truly comes alive.  Their take on Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” is top tapping good.  It’s also one of the few times that a cover of a song doesn’t embarrass the original.  You can currently purchase it on iTunes, and it would be worth a listen for fans of the original.

I mentioned earlier that the wife is portrayed as a hateful, mean character.  This is a shift from most things on television that portray the wife as long suffering and the husband as overweight and inept.  Here lead character Will Schuester is charming, soft spoken, and motivated.  He’s the opposite of just about every male character on television, and we’re instantly won over by him for it.  Fellow teacher Emma Pillsbury is nearly his equal in charm, though the obsession with cleanliness feels tacked on.  I’d vote it for character trait most likely to disappear early into the first season.

Fox took a gamble in premiering Glee so early.  While the first episode airs now in May, the rest will nor air until this fall as part of Fox’s regular schedule.  If audience had hated this episode, it could easily spell doom for the series.  I didn’t want to like this show, and I really didn’t for the first half.  But by the time the cast broke into Don’t Stop Believin’, I couldn’t.

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Here’s a shock—Fox is considering renewing Dollhouse.  Not just considering, that seems obvious that they may consider, but actually leaning towards doing so.  This courtesy of James Hibberd’s blog for The Hollywood Reporter.  But why bring back a show failing in the ratings?

At the end of the day, it comes down to money for Fox.  Dollhouse, even weak in the ratings, is a lot more valuable than other shows they could put on their fall schedule.  For instance, despite the fact that Dollhouse’s season one finale had the lowest ratings of any episode, the show in general still fared better than Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  Getting horrible ratings is always a bad thing, but when  your horrible ratings are better than anything else you could put into the time slot, sometimes you have to grin and bear it.

There’s also the little matter that Fox produces Dollhouse, and therefore stands to make a lot of money from syndication and DVD rights, something they continue to milk with Buffy and Angel.  Has Fox perhaps learned a bit of a lesson from Futurama, Family Guy, and Firefly?  Don’t count on it.  It is likely they will ask for concessions for Dollhouse to stay on the air, likely in the form of reduced episode budgets.  Creator Joss Whedon has faced this before when for Angel’s final season the budget of the show was slashed considerably, leading to many episodes that took place entirely within the Wolfram & Hart set.

So, is it a done deal?  Hardly.  But there is more hope right now than anyone ever considered in recent weeks, including yours truly.  Keep your fingers crossed for Monday when Fox announces their fall television lineup.

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Be aware, heavy spoilers follow if you have not finished the first season.

Joss Whedon’s show Dollhouse never had much of a chance.  Fox forced him to create a new pilot episode (something quite reminiscent of Firefly’s debut on Fox), and then placed into the Friday night timeslot behind Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  For Fox, like many networks, Friday night is where shows are sent to die.  The only possibly worse fate would have been Saturday night.

The show premiered to almost universal let down of fans at the pilot episode.  The second episode came and it seemed a pretty crude departure from the first.  In face, for some audiences the show didn’t really find its footing until the sixth or so episode, and in the modern era of television that is just too long a wait for network executives.  They were already salivating over what reality show to put in Dollhouse’s slot next season.

Dollhouse eventually did air 12 episodes, including a season (possibly series) finale.  What it didn’t air was a 13th episode which Fox wanted to hold for the season one (complete series?) DVD set.  That’s right, Fox held an episode and just decided not to air it.  But one shouldn’t be surprised, they did the same with Firefly.  So while Dollhouse hasn’t been cancelled yet, it seems a foregone conclusion that Dollhouse is gone.

What to make of the friend we hardly knew?  Is there any significance to Dollhouse beyond a Friday night sci-fi action romp?  Yes, though not in the way many viewers likely realized.  You see, Dollhouse is likely the most intellectually  feminist show to ever air on network television.

Oh sure, there have been shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Maude before it that argued a woman deserved equal treatment to men, and equal pay.  These were, for the most part, tangible feminist arguments.  What is the place of a woman in society?  In the home?  In the workplace?  What is the place of a woman?  Tangible questions about abortion and sexual harassment that have further exploded over the years in shows such as Ally McBeal and Whedon’s own Buffy, The Vampire Slayer.

Dollhouse, however, was different.  The questions were not concerning abortion, sexual harassment, equal pay, or anything else quite so tangible.  The series presented an examination of woman’s place not just in physical society (bank teller versus bank president), but the perception of female value and use in society.  If a woman can be a serious contender for President, such as Hillary Clinton, then the feminist questions must dig deeper.  It is akin to skipping the affirmative action question with a black man in the White House, and instead focusing on the still underlying perceptions of people of color.

That, however, does not easily make for compelling television.  HBO’s The Wire showed us that by wrapping such questions of race and poverty in a cop drama veneer, you can entertain audiences while entertaining ideas.  Dollhouse tried a similar tactic, but one far more subversive.  How do you address issues of feminism?  By putting all your female characters in short skits and low-cut blouses.

This, of course, seems horribly counter intuitive, and such was the point.  Males age 15-25 are not going to willingly sit through a retelling of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House.  So, drop the story of a woman unshackling herself from an oppressive husband, and figuratively doll up the female cast in 4-inch heels and red lipstick.  Give them the sugar they desire to take the medicine they need.

And that’s exactly what Whedon did.  By dressing up series lead, and producer, Eliza Dushku in every manner of fetishist garb, Whedon was able to accomplish two things.  One, as noted, he was able to attract the young male audience the show needed to survive.  Two, he was able to make commentary on the fact that such tactics were even necessary to attract a male audience.  Every time Dushku walked on screen in a new short skirt, there was a knowing wink from the star and creator that most of its audience was being manipulated by the very thing restraining the show.

If visual objectification was the outer shell of the show, the far more interesting nougat center was the debate over societal objectification.  But what does that even mean?  Consider that the show, which overwhelmingly focuses on female characters, has as its central concept that people can be mentally wiped clean, and replaced with new personalities.  In other words, the body stays the same but not the mind.  What is this saying about women?

The clients indulging in Echo’s (Eliza Dushku) servies are normally men wanting to fulfill sexual fantasies.  In its very first episode the show questions its own premise, asking why would millionaires bother with such a service?  If they want something or someone, surely they can just buy it, right?  But that neglects to address what money can never purchase someone—desire.  Prostitutes might be complicit in the sexual activity, but the money is their desire, not the client.  Echo can be made to have desire.  Her personal wants, such as money, are taken from her, or as the case may be, never even granted to her.  She’s not a robot, for she still has feelings and emotions, but they are not her own and she has not earned or chosen them through actions of her own.

Which gets to the central conceit of the show—what is the soul?  Is what Western civilization deems a soul nothing more than our memories and attitudes shaped through experience?  Or is it something deeper, something that exists beyond the grey matter of the physical brain?  That’s a spiritual question to be sure, and though Whedon teases around the idea of what this all means for religion, it is never directly addressed in the first season.  That’s because the central issue is not the soul when it comes to God, but the soul when it comes to man, or woman in this case.

If the character Mellie is given no choice but to love FBI Agent Paul Ballard, then is the love she feels real?  Is it programming, or is it organic?  Grey matter, or soul?  If there is no soul, then the body is an empty shell waiting to be filled with data.  It is essentially a computer floppy disk with no program to run.  But if there is a soul, then anything written over it is simply a virus infecting the underlying program.  It may supersede and overpower it, but the underlying program remains functional at its core, wanting to work.

Whedon seems to be saying that this is the way women are often treated, even in today’s society.  It isn’t enough to work hard, get educated, and land the great job.   Society writes superseding code over all of that.  A woman must be a good cook, dress immaculately, accept bawdy boy talk in the office, etc.  We objectify women—viewing them as dolls to be dressed up for our amusement, and to be programmed according to our liking as men.  If given the chance, perhaps we would order them to specification as the men in the series do.

In Ibsen’s A Doll’s House the main character, Nora, eventually leaves her husband.  She breaks free from being a doll in a dollhouse.  The comparison with Echo is obvious.  Unfortunately, it’s likely we will never learn if, when, or how she might escape herself.  But in echoing many of the sentiments that women simply play a superficial role in the minds of many in society, Whedon has done the unthinkable.  He has made feminism hip for young men to watch on television.

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Just to start out, if you have not yet watched the season finale of Lost please stop reading and do so now.  This entire post is one big spoiler that should be avoided by those who haven’t seen every last minute of the series.  Good, watched it?  Okay, now we can continue.

So, the season ended with Ben killing Jacob and Juliet setting off a nuclear bomb.  Sounds like just about any given episode of 24, but for Lost this was huge.  What does it all mean and where do we go from here?  Obviously the next logical step is Armageddon.

Armageddon, for those who do not know, is the final battle foretold in the Bible between Heaven and Hell, or God and Satan.  In this case, between the forces of Jacob and the forces of Mock Locke (or the black haired, black shirted companion of Jacob from the beach).  Wait, they’re God and Satan?  Yes, weren’t you paying attention?

We have two characters with light and dark hair dressed in light and dark clothing, respectively.  That much is obvious.  But note that while on the beach the Mock Locke tells Jacob he will find a loophole.  A fairly common sentiment attributed to Satan, including in the film Dogma where the fallen angels try to find a loophole back into Heaven.

This is what makes Locke’s behavior throughout the episode so bizarre.  He tells the Others he is leading them on a pilgrimage, and he specifically tells Ben he is going to kill Jacob.  A pilgrimage is generally viewed as a religious journey, such as the one many Muslims make to Mecca.  But kill Jacob when you get there?  If Jacob is God, why kill him?  Something is amiss.

Meanwhile we get the flashbacks to Jacob visiting all of the main characters throughout their lives in times of trouble.  He asks Kate to never do wrong again in a very Christ-like tale.  He offers the upset Sawyer a pen to complete his letter.  He offers the defeated Jack his candy bar from the vending machine.  He apparently heals and raises from the dead a Locke that has just fallen out of a building.  He congratulates a just married Sun and Jin words of advice to always trust in one another.  He tells a lost Hurley to return to the island.  In fact, his only action that doesn’t seem guiding is to distract Sayid while his love dies, though it could be considered that he is saving Sayid from the same fate.

So, if Jacob is God, then how did Locke end up as Satan?  At the end of the episode it’s revealed that Locke never came back to life.  This would be in line with Richard (or perhaps it was Ben) saying he had never seen the Island bring someone back to life—on the island dead was dead.  Practically the entire season Mock Locke has been deceiving those around him.  In other words, he has played the role of the Great Deceiver, or Satan.  He has even deceived Ben and led him to Jacob to murder him.

This, of course, is where it gets interesting.  Jacob tells Ben that he has a choice.  he can choose to kill him, or he can choose to leave.  Meanwhile, Mock Locke tells Ben he has no choice—he must kill Jacob.  Note, that it is God’s greatest gift that he gave mankind free will.  God does not make man follow or worship him.  He allows them a choice.  Mock Locke, or Satan, does not.

Ben’s dialogue here reads like something out of the Book of Job in the Old Testament of the Bible.  He tells Jacob that for 35 years he has followed every command, every order, and never questioned one of them.  He has been faithful, but never has Jacob revealed himself or called for Ben.  Who does this sound like but the obedient servant of God?  Note that it also echoes the Kevin Costner character from Field of Dreams.  He questions why James Earl Jones character is being called to the corn field (Heaven) and he is not.  He is the one who listened to the voice.  He is the one who plowed under his field.  He is the one who went on a journey to amass the baseball players, and James Earl Jones’ character.

Ben defiantly questions, “What about me?”  To which Jacob responds, “What about you?”  It isn’t about Ben.  The God of the Old Testament has similar responses.  It isn’t about the people or the individuals.  It’s about serving.  And with that, Ben stabs Jacob and he falls over.  Mock Locke grabs him while Jacob whispers, “They’re coming.”  Who is coming?

To answer that question you have to define who Richard and the rest of the Others are.  Richard never ages.  He is the advisor to the leader, and he seems to be the guardian of the island.  Could it be that he’s the angel Gabriel?  That would in turn likely mean that the other Others are angels as well, including Widmore and Ben (forgetting their aging for a moment, which might instead make them the Israelites).  Of course, what is Satan but a fallen angel?

That seems to explain why Widmore cannot return to the island.  As a fallen angel he cannot return to Heaven, or Purgatory, or whatever the island is supposed to be.  It also explains who the new Others from the crashed plane are.  They have brought the real Locke’s body to Jacob in a box reminiscent of the ark of the covenant.  So, who is coming?  The fallen angels such as Widmore and Faraday’s mother.  Why?  For Armageddon, of course.

Where does this leave next season?  Can you have Armageddon if God is dead?  Well, there are two directions the show could possibly go along these lines.  One, is to have a resurrection of God.  That marks the conversion of many of the Lost survivors, and leads into the last battle (note that the producers have listed The Chronicles of Narnia as an influence, a series that ends with a book title The Last Battle).  This is the safe, Christian route to go with the story.  It also fits with their other influences such as Stephen King’s The Stand.

The second, and perhaps slightly more risky approach, is to say that God is indeed dead and not coming back.  The survivors must then take the place of God and battle the forces of Mock Locke/Satan alone.  It becomes man saving himself, or in other words—a secular humanist tale.

Which direction is the show truly heading?  I have no idea.  It may be something completely different.  But to end a season leading into your declared final one with such an obvious setup seems to be begging for such an outcome (don’t forget that Widmore has said a war is coming).  The producers of Lost pride themselves on keeping viewers guessing, but what may be most impressive is if they’re able to pull off a true modern allegorical fable as they appear to be trying.

Feel free to contribute your own theories in the comments section below.

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Wait, something happening now can not explain past success, can it?  I mean, unless we were the Lost castaways…oh, wait, ABC?  Gotcha.  Actually, the point is nearly as convoluted as Lost, and that’s a good thing.

Hulu.com was a joint startup between NBC Universal and Fox.  The idea was to bring the media properties of both giants under one banner online, and it has worked.  Within 18 months of launching it has become the third most popular video site.  So, what’s the secret to its success and why is ABC so eager to join up forces with its two competitors?

To understand Hulu as a web site, you must first look at how other mediums work.  Television works because all you need is an initial investment for a television, and then the interface is as simple as pressing up and down buttons.  This can be made more complicated through digital cable and satellite, but even those options still allow for the simple up and down button push.  Essentially, television just works and the interface is streamlined for the masses.

Compare that to the web sites of ABC, NBC, Fox, and CBS.  Each has a different interface and is crowded with additional content beyond the video content.  Each may use a different browser plugin or video format for streaming.  Quality may vary wildly, as might the way one is advertised too.  For example, on ABC’s web site you have to click a button to proceed at the end of commercial breaks.

Hulu, on the other hand, provides a unified interface for all three networks.  Its content is entirely video based and the interface is about as simple as possible to use.  No, it isn’t exactly as simple as television, but then again, it’s probably just as simple as many digital cable guides.  Point being, Hulu mimics television in its simplicity, with quality programming easily accessible from a variety of partners via a standard interface.

For all that consumers crow about wanting standards when it comes to media distributions (MP3, Blu-ray, etc.), the distributors have been slow to catch on.  Now, perhaps their biggest success of the digital age (ruling out iTunes, where credit goes to Apple) comes for a unified format and interface.  Who’d have thought?

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