HA HA, GOOD ONE, ASHTON

“The Beautiful Life” was a lousy show with bad acting and a boring lead actress that no one watched, so the CW pulled it after only two episodes (

“What we feel like we’re doing is creating, in some ways, an industry first,” Kutcher told Reuters. “A show that couldn’t find its legs on television, we believe can find its legs on the Web.”[...]

YouTube and Kutcher are banking on the TV-level quality to attract viewers in a crowded Web landscape that has plenty of expensively made reruns, but not a lot of high-end original content. Kutcher reckons if he can increase the audience size on YouTube, then he might lure sponsors or others to finance more episodes solely for the Web. [...]

While the trend in content for the Web has called for short “webisodes” of 5- to 15-minutes, instead of longer shows, Kutcher believes “The Beautiful Life’s” production values will allow it to buck that trend. “I would bargain that people will be willing to sit a lot longer if the picture looks a lot better,” Kutcher said.

Not the plot. Not the writing. Not the characters. Not the acting. The picture quality is going to keep you watching a YouTube video for 40 minutes. So let’s put this to the test. Up top there is the pilot episode (I didn’t want anyone lost in the back story). Go ahead, sit there and try to watch this for forty minutes. I made it through 2:33. Or, as you might see, 2:31 plus two seconds of Mischa Barton.