For The Attention Deficit Generation: "Minisodes"



Just what this Attention Deficit Generation needs (Gore Vidal called it "The United States of Amnesia")! "Minisodes." Forget about spending a stormy evening reading Don Quixote, or even War and Peace or watching Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata. Sony, the company that brings you Playstation, plays perfectly to our shortening attention spans. From paidcontent, observed with tongue in cheek:

"f you ever thought hour-long crime dramas like Charlie’s Angels and Starsky and Hutch contained a little too much filler, you’re in luck: Sony Television is boiling down episodes from those and other 1970s and ‘80s warhorses to three- to five minutes for the forthcoming Minisode Network, which will have an exclusive run on MySpace starting in June. Sony is weighing the proposition of creating a stand-alone website for mini-shows later on, the NYT reports.

"Sony execs hasten to note that the so-called minisodes are not clips or highlights, but intended to function as programs with a full narrative arc, albeit one with only the essentials."

And: the essentials of Charlie's Angels? Farrah Fawcett jiggling down a beach, oscillating wildly, at provocative velocities in pursuit of "the heavy." (paidcontent)