Online Videos

The story of ABC's "Six Degrees" could really be a metaphor for this whole sorry TV season. The show had the right pedigree ("Lost" creator J.J. Abrams) and the right time slot (right after "Grey's Anatomy"), yet it never gained traction with viewers. So ABC yanked it from the schedule before the holidays, revamped it, and trotted it back out in March, only to pull it again two episodes later. The final chapter of the saga starts tonight, when the first of five unaired episodes will arrive where so many canceled shows have gone this season: the network's online video player.

I'm glad that the episodes starring Josh Charles (Dan Rydell of "Sports Night") will end up somewhere besides the editing room, but I have to wonder if anyone will be watching. Will any of you "Six Degrees" fans see the show through to its conclusion online? Or has ABC moved it around so much that you're beyond caring now? To watch a clip of the first few minutes of the series, read more

So it's Sunday morning, and you're easing into the day by checking out the latest posts here on BuzzSugar. Maybe you're even sipping coffee while wearing a cozy bathrobe. But wouldn't you feel cooler if you had a Dunder Mifflin bathrobe like the one "The Office" crew got from corporate for Christmas last year?

Now all your fantasies of dressing like Michael Scott can come true! The NBC Universal Store — previously best known for the Dwight Schrute bobblehead — is now selling official Dunder Mifflin terrycloth bathrobes, just like Tobey, Kevin & co. wore in "A Benihana Christmas." You can preorder the $65 robes now, and they'll start shipping June 1. Wearing your bedclothes to work like Michael & co. is strictly optional.

Now, onto that clip I mentioned. NBC must have known we were bummed about the repeat this week, because they've released a brief video from the upcoming new episode, "Product Recall." In the video — which I'm guessing is the opening two minutes of the episode — Jim comes to work dressed head-to-toe like Dwight and proceeds to imitate all of his greatest tics and mannerisms. It really is a riot, so to check it out, read more

Fans of "The Black Donnellys," it's time to shake off that cancellation-induced coma and head over to NBC.com. The first two unaired episodes have made their way to NBC's video player, where other two filmed episodes should also wind up eventually.

I'm glad that "Donnellys" at least has a venue online to "broadcast" the rest of its episodes; plot lines can get tied up and fans don't have to hope for a DVD set to see what happens. But I do wonder how many people actually follow the shows online once they're off TV. I swore up and down that I'd finish the "Day Break" season once those episodes got posted on ABC's site, and I still haven't watched. What about you? Will you follow "Donnellys" online?

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Online-only series seem to be all the rage for TV networks these days, and ABC is the latest to jump into the ring with "Voicemail." The series consists of short episodes — most just a minute long — based on messages left for Mike, a twentysomething living your standard slacker-dude life. It's sort of a live-action version of Amy's Answering Machine, inspired by a decade of voicemails saved by creator Michael Wilde.

In the six episodes posted so far, we've seen Mike forget to pick up his grandma at the airport, get beaten up by a girl playing football, and dig through the dumpster to find the discarded dream-interpretation book in which a female friend (girlfriend?) has tucked surprise concert tickets. Yeah, the whole twentysomething-burnout premise is a little played out at this point, but a few of the episodes are pretty funny, and because they're so short, it's easy to get hooked. New episodes will be posted every Wednesday through mid-June. To see one of the episodes, in which Mike tears his apartment apart looking for the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants video he rented, read more

Writer-producer Steven Bochco is best known for his gritty TV dramas, including "Hill Street Blues," "LA Law," and "NYPD Blue." But now he's trying his hand at something warmer and fuzzier by producing a series of confessional-style videos for Metacafe.

In this Los Angeles Times story about the project, Bochco likens himself to a camp counselor sitting around the fire listening to his 20-something "campers" tell stories about their worst dates, most embarrassing moments, and first sexual experiences. The first 19 videos are up now, and more than 40 are planned. Viewers can also submit their own stories.

Some of the videos are more successful than others, but the series as a whole is weirdly compelling. People tell stories in such different ways, and the just-you-and-a-camera setting made me feel like I was eavesdropping on something intimate. To see one of my favorites, in which a guy talks about his rap group's total failure at a high school talent show, read more

If you missed out on the start of "Heroes" when it premiered in the fall, you don't have to wait for the DVDs. NBC has put all 18 episodes of the show online for a limited time. Granted, that's a lot of catching up to do if you're starting from scratch, but the show is off the air until April 23, so at least there's time.

The site doesn't say how long the episodes will be available, but when NBC did something similar in December and January, the videos stayed online until new episodes began to air. So, make like time-traveling hero Hiro and jet back to September!

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The new Andy Richter comedy, "Andy Barker, P.I." starts its five-episode run on NBC this Thursday. But there's actually a sixth episode of the show that guest-stars one of my favorite funny ladies, Amy Sedaris. The online-only episode, called "The Lady Varnishes," has Sedaris playing a former starlet who claims to have been framed for murder. In case that isn't intriguing enough, it also includes a dose of sexual innuendo and a prosthetic leg.

NBC seems to be really into the deleted-episode thing right now (the special "Black Donnellys" episode is still online too), and while I think it makes more sense for a comedy like "Andy Barker" than for a serial drama, I hope the network keeps them coming.

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NBC recently promised to put episodes of its new spring shows online early, and they've now made good on the offer by posting the full pilot of "Raines." The Jeff Goldblum show about a detective who channels the dead victims of the crimes he investigates officially premieres on March 15, right after the debut of "Andy Barker, P.I.," another show you can watch online right now.

I saw a short preview of "Raines" a while back, and I wasn't sure what to make of it. On the one hand, Goldblum had a nice touch as the staid detective who thinks he's going nuts when the dead crime victims start appearing, and some of his dry one-liners made me laugh out loud. On the other hand, I'm not sure I dig the "Law & Order"-meets-"Six Feet Under" concept, no matter how well it's done. But I just might be curious enough to check out the pilot. To see a preview video, read more

Now, I've heard of deleted scenes — but a whole deleted episode? That's what NBC has done with "The Black Donnellys." Apparently this episode, called "God is a Comedian," was "too shocking" for network TV, so NBC put it online instead.

Like a lot of you, I'm kind of digging the show so far, so I'm curious to give this bonus episode a look. On the other hand, I wonder how "Donnellys" will deal with any important developments that only fans dedicated enough to watch online will see. That can be tough even with deleted scenes, as this article points out, so I imagine it would be a bigger problem when a whole episode gets pulled. I mean, what if someone dies? How would they explain that? I guess I'll just have to watch.