The latest attempt at a web series comes from NBC and its new show, “Gemini Division”, which premiered on Monday, August 18, over at www.geminidivision.com, and stars Rosario Dawson, Justin Hartley (Smallville), and Kevin Alejandro (Ugly Betty).
“Gemini Division” is a female first-person confessional (Lonelygirl15-like) about biotech run wild. Rosario Dawson plays Anna Diaz, a New York City detective on a trip in Paris with her boyfriend (Justin Hartley), who seems to have something wrong with him.
What do you guys think about it? Not to shabby if I may say so myself.
Its so important for the interactive TV genre that Gemini Division puts on a good showing. This is the kind of innovative product that exploits the interactivity of the internet and changes the lean back viewing experience of traditional TV into something far more engaging. Its success would bring much needed attention to the indie interactive web scene.
Signing Rosario Dawson is a great choice, a neo sci-fi plot is a great choice, the one gripe I have though is geo-blocking the show limiting it only to a US audience, I think its a cop out and a failure to fully embrace the internet. NBC, why get only half pregnant?! In mitigation, I suppose with a huge marketing budget, Gemini Division does not have to rely on viral distribution like indies do. And it probably has found revenues in international distribution.
$1.75M is HUGE for the web TV world but my hope is that a nice chunk of that is allocated to marketing (and you can count Rosario’s paycheck in that) to bring attention to the nascent interactive web series genre … indies like ours will gladly ride this coat tail.
I like it! Curious, where did you find the NBC embed codes? That is cool.