Quarterlife Over Before It's Begun?

Thu., Feb. 28, 2008 4:23 PM PST by Natalie Finn

Quarterlife was dead on arrival.

The latest offering from the creative team behind the woefully shortchanged My So-Called Life tanked in its network debut Tuesday, drawing only 3.1 million viewers in its 10 p.m. time slot.

And not only did Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick's ensemble drama fail to rate with viewers, despite the enthusiastic following it developed in its original incarnation as an eight-minute-per-episode online production, it also marked NBC's weakest performance during that time period in 17 years.

The series was scheduled to move to Sundays at 9 p.m., but it's unlikely an episode number two will be living for the weekend.

But although the series, about six twentysomething creative types, one of whom is keeping tabs on their lives via video blog, had the pedigree of a hit, its creators seem unsurprised that quarterlife failed to register.

"It never should have been a network show. It's too specific," Herskovitz told an audience at Harvard Business School's Entertainment & Media conference on Wednesday, per the Hollywood Reporter. "It belongs on cable."

And his premonition might come to pass. Some say the show could be headed for NBC Universal-owned Bravo, home to a number of hit reality series, such as Top Chef and Project Runway, but not a cable net known for original scripted programming.

Herskovitz told reporters Wednesday he hadn't yet talked to NBC executives about a possible move.

"We're deeply grateful for NBC's efforts to make quarterlife a success on network television," he said in a statement Thursday. "However, I've always had concerns about whether quarterlife was the kind of show that could pull in the big numbers necessary to succeed on a major broadcast network...

"We live in a media world today where many shows are considered successful on cable networks with audiences that are a fraction of those on the Big Four. I'm confident that quarterlife will find the right home on television as well."

And while NBC cochairman Ben Silverman, who championed quarterlife's transfer from online to broadcast (spurred in part, at least, by the writers' strike that was draining Hollywood of fresh scripts), might not be so quick next time to take a similar risk, he says he isn't sorry he tried to ferry the show onto a network.

"The website traffic went up a huge amount, and we continue to try new things and new models," he told THR. "It's very inexpensive, but we hoped for higher ratings."

Quarterlife premiered Nov. 11 on MySpace, and Silverman ordered up six hourlong episodes (the 38 webisodes edited together) barely a week later.