Robin Sparkles, it wasn’t, but How I Met Your Mother‘s most recent online tie-in garnered considerable attention before it even went live and may have been the last push needed to secure a much deserved third season. The most recent clip shows the part of Marshall’s bachelor party we couldn’t see: a stripper pulling a large variety of unusual objects out of a Mary Poppins-esque carpet bag, presumably to put in her, well, you know. But in an episode that alluded to big, black dildos and Barney’s taste for sadistic strippers, this one minute clip that was questionably deemed “too hot for CBS,” hardly warranted seeing the light of day. Though it was a great excuse to try and double their previous viral success.
HIMYM isn’t the only show jumping on the social media bandwagon. In an attempt to woo new viewers, Bones made eight MySpace pages for characters that’ll show up in a May 8th episode. Fox promises that there are enough clues in the profiles for viewers to figure out the identity of the victims and the killer before the episode even airs. In what seems like an open, marathon game of Clue, each character has a slew of photos, friend comments (from the other characters!) and their own blog. Each page is being updated several times weekly. Now, as much as I like Clue, I really don’t want to read Colonel Mustard’s blog. I just want someone to tell me he didn’t do anything shady in the Library and be done with it. The whole attempt is admirably ambitious but a little foolish. The online attention span of Americans is far too short for an endeavor of this scale.
I love me some Bones, but isn’t the allure of these procedural shows being able to turn your brain off for a non-serialized mystery? Bones has always been different because it manages to be charming and sporadically hilarious despite operating under the guise of a CSI knockoff. It’s enough to keep me watching, but it’s not an experience I care to take much further.
