kartooner

Another show I miss was the short-lived tele­vi­sion series Freakylinks. I can remem­ber it being one of the first tele­vi­sion shows to fea­ture a web­site that show­cased var­i­ous arti­cles and tid­bits as if the web­mas­ter (played by actor Ethan Embry as Derek Barnes) was actu­ally main­tain­ing the site simul­ta­ne­ously with the show. Recently shows like the WB’s Smal­l­ville have uti­lized this “psuedo-realtime” aspect to their respec­tive web­sites, an alter­nate real­ity if you may.

“Freakylinks pre­miered on FOX on Octo­ber 6, 2000. This sci-fi drama [uti­lized] the power of the Inter­net to recount tales of the unex­pected. From his home base deep in cen­tral Florida, web­mas­ter Derek Barnes was con­tent run­ning FreakyLinks.com, an under­ground web site devoted to debunk­ing para­nor­mal mys­ter­ies. Until the day when images of his long-deceased twin brother Adam — show­ing him still alive — showed up in his e-mail. Now fol­low­ing the trail to uncover this seem­ingly impos­si­ble occur­rence, Derek, together with his brother’s ex-fiancée Chloe, finds him­self immersed in a sub­cul­ture of the strange and unusual.

He learns that some­times the impos­si­ble is, indeed, pos­si­ble. In a tele­vi­sion first, the series [existed] simul­ta­ne­ously on tele­vi­sion and on the Inter­net, allow­ing series view­ers to delve fur­ther into the show’s mythol­ogy via the web site, www.FreakyLinks.com.”

Details | http://www.pazsaz.com/freakyl.html