NEW YORK Don't think of the Minisode Network as a brand-new Web site. Think of it as a long-overdue public service. That is, who among us hasn't felt the double-edged sword of our media age: So much video from TV, DVDs, the Internet and even cell phones .
.. but too little time to watch it all?
The Minisode Network has a solution. Launched last week as a broadband channel on the MySpace site, it offers, for our streaming pleasure, episodes of vintage Sony Pictures Television series like "Silver Spoons," "Starsky Hutch," "Diff'rent Strokes" and even Ricki Lake's talk show. But the, um, sparkling array of programs isn't what makes the Minisode Network a cultural godsend.
It's the convenient packaging: each episode has been pruned from its original half-hour or hour length down to a handy running time of somewhere between four and six minutes! "The shows you love only shorter," boasts Minisode Network, which only asks us in return to watch a very short commercial before each program. Let NBC bulk up its sitcoms with its much-hyped "super-sizing.
" There's no juicing at the Minisode Network. Quite the contrary. Here, dialogue and action is abbreviated by a team of skillful Sony specialists, providing time-strapped viewers with on-the-fly TV fare.
This means we can enjoy "Fantasy Island" as never before: Mr. Roarke transports guest star Joan Collins to 49 B.C.
so she can sit on Cleopatra's throne, and learn an important lesson, all in just 4 minutes (including opening titles and closing credits). Here's a minisode of cop drama "T.J.
Hooker" whose climactic chase scene ends with (spoiler alert!) the bad guy dangling from a bridge as he calls for help from his pursuer, Hooker (series star William Shatner). "You're not gonna let me die," the bad guy declares.
"That's what separates the rest of us from scum like you!" All in six minutes. The sitcom "What's Happening!
!" originally aired in the late 1970s. But it anticipates the current hot-button issue of immigration reform when roly-poly teenager Rerun agrees to do a favor for his new friend, Maria.
"Maria and I had this serious talk," Rerun later tells the gang. NEW YORK Don't think of the Minisode Network as a brand-new Web site.
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