Web TV for quarterlifers: Beyond cynicism?

The new Web video series quarterlife takes a boldly precious approach to product placement. The show watches over a vaguely post-collegiate group of pals squirming toward adulthood, and two of them, fledgling moviemakers, pick up a gig producing a commercial for a Toyota dealership. (Given how the characters spout off about consumerism and artistic purity, it seems that we're supposed to be mildly sympathetic when the pretentious one tries wooing the owner by explaining, "The whole concept of Postmodern filmmaking is based on the idea that there are no limitations.")

The attitude is, if not Postmodern, at least post-cynical, and quarterlife drips with earnestness even when stooping to pay the bills. Creators Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick—the upper-middlebrow maestros behind thirtysomething and My So-Called Life—have launched quarterlife both as a MySpace TV series and as its own social-networking site. The target audience for the latter is, according to Herskovitz's profile page on quarterlife.com, "creative people, passionate people, people who want to change the world"—in other worlds, people with enough youthful idealism to tolerate the show's high-gloss navel-gazing.