I hate television. There’s nothing more scary to me than the deadening of the senses television brings. Yeah, I work for a television company. No, it’s no contradiction: by doing a good job with Keshet’s new website, I seriously hope to help bring about the death of the tube. You know, my small part in it.

So I was rather surprised at myself when I sat down to watch the first episode of Big Brother Israel (called here האח הגדול). I kinda guessed it’s gonna be something I’d have to deal with at work, I wanted to know what the brouhaha was all about — but those aren’t really excuses, are they? I hate television, and more than that I hate the lowbrow, old, tired Israeli television, and even more than that I hate those sneaky and manipulative reality shows — but even more than all of that I hate Israeli reality shows. And there I was, sitting there, smiling besides myself and having too much fun to feel guilty about it. Really. Having. So much fun.

Who’s going in the house next? A short guy with a success complex and homophobia? Ooh! Give me one of these! The too gay to be actually gay guy? Yes! His straight twin? Give, give, give! The big-titied girl’s father? I sat there for an hour in my own adolescent fun juices and I couldn’t wipe that smile off my goddamn face. This show rocks. I do work for these guys, so what’s my opinion worth? Well, that’s the first show I ever said nice things about. Ever.

Rise of the Internet-TV-Show

Why was I enjoying myself? Have I grown callus and dark and indifferent to the sick manipulations played on fame-hungry idiots? Likely. But also, I guess that I felt, even through the programming, that I’m watching the first real internet-TV-show. There were a few TV-internet-shows, certainly some internet-shows, but this is something else. Allow me to explain.

Some shows put on extra filmed material on the web now. As Aaron Sorkin said, there’s only 22 minutes and 11 seconds on a TV show — and it’s so easy to fill the net with everything you had to leave out. Smart networks have fake blogs for TV characters –here’s Barny’s from How I Met Your Mother — and, of course, you can buy and watch whole episodes for free online. And then there are Internet shows like the very excellent Dr. Horrible Sing-Along Blog, created specifically for the more limited, but savvier internet viewers.

This something else. This is the next wave for television. It’s a TV show, which means it brings in TV crowds — in terms of volume, in terms of sophistication — but the main medium the TV people are gonna watch it is on our 24/7 4-camera live feed from the house. The show is still at the boring first stage, but they’re already doing it; there’s a forum on Big Brother, and they sit there, devouring the feed, talk about what they see: the fridge door won’t close. Someone explains on the forum how they can fix that. They’re baking Challah for Shabbath. Someone remarks on their technique. Their lingo is undecipherable, unless you’re also watching the feeds 24/7. Someone says “I can’t believe it just happened!” Someone else agrees. Someone blinked for a second. He asks “what happened?” Nobody answers. If you don’t keep watching, all the time, you’re out of the game.