This week, the Twitterverse and online-pub-o-sphere has been all abuzz with the latest way social media - a.k.a. "the people" - are making an impact on big media: the possible - even if limited-duration - return of "Ronna and Beverly," a Showtime series created by Jenji Kohan ("Weeds") and two comedians from UCB, Jamie Denbo and Jessica Chaffin, and featuring Denbo and Chaffin as two older ladies who authored a dating book titled "Don't Worry, You'll Do A Little Better Next Time: A Guide to Marriage and Remarriage for Jewish Singles." The title alone is genius - but the most genius thing is the "a little"...as if doing "much better" or just "better" next time is unattainable. (Which is basically what it feels like. But I digress. This isn't JDaters Anonymous...)
Who are Ronna & Beverly? Rachel Sklar (Mediaite) gives us a look:Ronna & Bev are not real people — except insofar as you may be have grown up around them, or God forbid, be related to them. They are the incarnation of your worst Jewish mother-in-law or Passover seder nightmare, created by LA-based comedians Jessica Chaffin and Jamie Denbo, longtime fixtures of the LA comedy club scene — and now, the subject of a new Showtime pilot that just might have a shot.
But how much of a shot does it really have on impacting a major cable player like Showtime, which this season picked up no new pilots (essentially saying, nothing personal, Ronna and Bev)? Mashable says (and we have to trust Mashable, because they know lots of stuff about media gone social) that while it's tempting to frame the strategy as groundbreaking, it might not have the desired impact.
Although social media and online campaigns have had an impact on many other mediums, television has remained an elusive nut to crack. Campaigns to get followers to tune into television premieres have consistently failed (or failed to sustain themselves after the initial flurry is over) and online-specific campaigns to take a show to the small screen have been equally unsuccessful.
My go-to examples of a successful online fanbase precipitating the continuation of a TV show both happen to center on Joss Whedon - the "Buffy" auteur who created "Firefly"'s alternate space western universe and the human trafficking-themed "Dollhouse." In the first case, the fan base demanded a movie and got it: when "Serenity" opened to lackluster box office even with the support of the fan base (and that was before Twitter), the model was seen as not viable for replication. When fans protested the impending cancellation of "Dollhouse," the series got a stay of execution for an additional season; it has since been cancelled, but that additional season does allow the writers to craft an ending for the series, which is a blessing for closure-seeking fans.
It was also this base of technosavvy, loyal admirers (along with Joss Whedon's financial support) that made "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" a smash internet sensation, shattering the paradigm for content and distribution venues, and giving Felicia Day the success she needed to encourage her into taking her idea for "The Guild" directly to fans via webisodes, bypassing networks and cable entirely. The first season of "The Guild," an sitcom webseries about a group of online gamers, was financed entirely by PayPal donations from fans, and then for its second season, drew corporate support from XboxLive, Microsoft and Sprint. Amazing. (Hearing Day's experience at her Digital Hollywood panel was a real eye-opener about how the industry is changing, yet "legacy media" refuses to admit that change is necessary.)
These are small strides, not enough to open a box office blockbuster or get a third season of "Dollhouse," and maybe not even enough to save a couple of Jewish yentas from Boston from cable retirement from being put out to pasture even before they've begun. But I think all this grassroots mobilizing, this "power to the people" democracy when it comes to which entertainment products we choose, why, and how those products are delivered is not the ends itself of social media, but the beginning of a path that negotiates network goals and user preferences. I think we'll all look back on these moments as the evolutionary step, the entity that emerged from the primordial ooze of our now, but what we'll then call "the way television used to be."
Related stories:
On this site -
- Much Ado About Whedon category
- "Serenity: The Snark, the Sorrow, and the SciFi" (my "Serenity" review)
- Digital Hollywood
On other sites -
- Rachel Sklar at Mediaite ("Triumph of Buzz, Comedy and Social Media" and "Second Chance for a TV Pilot - And That's Where the Internet Comes In" )
- Katie Rosman in the Wall Street Journal ("Ronna & Beverly: How the Showtime Sitcom Went From Cancellation to Sensation")
- Christina Warren ("Comedy Duo Hopes Social Media Power Will Secure Slot on Showtime") on Mashable
- Al Kustanowitz at Jewish Humor Central ("Politically Incorrect Yentas Get Shot at TV Stardom")
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