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    Now on a Computer Screen Near You

    Posted Wednesday, March 18, 2009 9:00 AM | By Willa Paskin
    Photograph of Alexandra Chando in Rockville, CA by Pamela Littky/Warner Bros.Josh Schwartz, the guy responsible for The OC, Gossip Girl, and Chuck, has a new Web-series, Rockville, streaming over at theWB.com. Each episode is five minutes long (Schwartz told New York magazine that amount of time "is perfect for my attention span," which explains a whole lot about the recent plotting of Gossip Girl) and takes place in a music venue that is populated by Schwartz archetypes: the nervous talker guy, the chick he banters with, and the surprisingly cool authority figure.

    Like Marshall "My So-Called Life" Herskovitz and Ed "thirtysomething" Zwick's Quarterlife, the only other serious "Web drama" made by people with experience making great television, Rockville is not any good (if this showed up on your set, you would groan, loudly, and flip away, which is exactly what happened when Quarterlife aired on NBC), but it is still perversely enjoyable. Schwartz deploys all of his typically charming tricks to ill-effect: Why doesn't his self aware, nerdy banter work on the Internet? Is it the acting? (Yes, it's mostly the acting.) The pacing? The way everyone gets too earnest too fast because they need to provide an emotional payoff in less than 300 seconds? But then before I can get well and truly annoyed, it's over. And I'll probably watch the next episode, because getting a smidge worked up about what's happening on-screen is one of the particular pleasures of TV watching. Plus, this could be the future of television; it's intriguing to watch it work out the kinks.
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