If there's one thing that the internet and social media sites have always been good at, its blowing small, mild annoyances in life up to astronomical scale that only a word such as 'viral' can really be used to describe. If you happen to be a Lost fan and you watched the show last night, then you probably already know what I'm talking about (that, or you read the title to this article). Last night, during Lost, ABC tried an advertising gimmick that pissed off the masses, got the Lost community abuzz with comments, and even got series creator Damon Lindeloff to chime in on the shenanigans via Twitter!
The culprit in all of this was a small but obtrusive countdown clock at the bottom of the screen during Lost, with a logo for V above it, which returned from a very long hiatus last night. I have to admit that during the first five minutes of the show, it irritated me to no end, but after that I sort of just ignored it and hardly noticed it again until the end of the episode. At that point it only became obvious because the stupid thing obscured what was written on a note that Sun had written, and if there's one thing us fervent Lost fans hate, its when you obscure a possible clue. Regardless of my mild aggravation, I was quite shocked at the life this had taken on when I start reading about it across the web. Even writer Alan Sepinwall wrote about it on his popular blog What's Alan Watching, where he ranted in full, and movieline featured a piece on it as well.
I'm certainly not blaming people for being aggrivated, but there does seem to be a bit of over-reaction about this across the web today. For one, I do have to give ABC a little credit for at least trying to get people to watch one of its other genre shows. Those of you who are fans of genre television know all to well that the networks consistently fail to do any reasonable level of marketing for these types of shows, and seem to fail at the same things over and over again. Granted, I could think of tons of ways to make this more effective, as I'm sure many of you could as well, but hey, at least they're trying, right?
Another thing is, the countdown clock, no matter how despised, might have just worked, at least a little. Granted, V did return last night down in ratings, however according to TVbytheNumbers it was only down by a .2 rating from its last episode in the fall. Most insiders seemed to think that the series would have an even more dramatic drop when it returned last night. Another key factor to consider here is the shelf life most shows have when they are scheduled with Lost as their lead in. So far, Lost has killed just about every show that has followed it. Granted, some of those series were horrible, but some should have done better than they did.
So while having a V counter at the bottom of the screen did annoy me slightly, and I hope that they don't do it again anytime soon, I am happy that the network is at least trying to make V successful in its post-Lost timeslot. Only time will tell if this will be another genre show that bites the dust or not. So am I being too lenient on ABC with this countdown clock business, or should we be cutting them a little slack, even if we were annoyed?
Yes, that was totally annoying. Plus they could letterbox the show for us poor people without HDTV, and dump the ABC logo as well.
Advertising that becomes that intrusive is not acceptable to me. I had actually watched the prior episodes of V and was planning and continuing to watch it, but because of that supremely annoying V I am done with the show. I know I'm not the only one that this advert backfired with bigtime.
Yes, it was annoying, but what's the internet for if not to blow things out of proportion? Also annoying, however, is the use of "it's" when you really mean "its" at least three times in this article. And I'm sure many others will say picking on spelling is even more annoying, but it needs to be said on occasion!
Take a look at TVMoJoe's take on the Twitter bitterness here: http://www.thewrap.com/ind-column/abc-fail-v-co…..
Mike, picking on spelling and grammar is not annoying. I'm right there with you. It annoys me as well.
From the post: "For one, I do have to give ABC a little credit for at least trying to get people to watch one of it's other genre shows."Okay. I'll give ABC credit for trying to hype the show because of the 18.7 million ads that have run for V during the last few episodes of LOST, and pretty much dominated ad space last night. They did their part. They hyped the hell out of it. Then they made a clock and crossed the line. Oh yeah, and it's "its other genre shows," not "it's other genre shows."
Fair enough, I can respect that, and I can fix it too! :)
Give them credit for that? No way – they coud've done something far less annoying and obnoxious than that. Isn't it enough that we have to sit through all the ridiculously long commercials and previews for V?? I never had any interest in V anyway – the ugly chick with the 5-year-old boy haircut pretty much clinched it for me – but now I just despise it, thanks to one moron advertising exec ands his incredibly dumb idea for a bright red countdown clock obscuring what could've been important details on Lost. So…that said, I hope V fails miserably like pretty much every other show that has to follow Lost. Elizabeth Mitchell or no, V has to go!
How silly is it to blow off a great conceptual show due to an annoying advertising ploy? If you ask me that's ridiculous. Not only ridiculous, but childish and stupid. Granted, V has a good handful of flaws that give it a sort of slapped-together alien anti-terrorist program, but the concept is fantastic and original and the show does deserve all the attention it can get. I understand how Lost fans must feel about missing out on some potentially crucial information, however that does not warrant a boycott on a show that may already be doomed by its own time-slot. Regardless, the show itself was not responsible for the ad; the marketing directors of ABC were. So if you're going to boycott something as a result of this stupid ad, channel your frustration at those deserving and target the ENTIRE NETWORK! And if you'll just die without Lost, stream it for f***'s sake.