But Elevator creator Woody Tondorf‘s first post-Break project Foursquare Cops elevates minor online infractions to crimes worthy of Judge Dredd-style justice. I invoke Judge Dredd because like Sylvester Stallone’s vigilante future cop, these cops on a mission do not hesitate to shoot transgressors who might violate the Foursquare spirit.

Shot documentary-style, Det. John Harty (Nate Hinchey) and OFC. Frank Ashton (Kyle Paice) roam the streets searching for those who dare to abuse their check-ins and use unfair means to oust the rightful mayors of various locations. If none of that makes sense to you, then you are clearly not part of the show’s target audience — there are no explanations provided for those unfamiliar with the complexities of Foursquare’s location-based interactivity.

However, if you’re no n00b, then you’ll probably enjoy the show’s many clever gags, some of which are built around obscure Internet in-jokes and some of which are just funny. “Policing the streets is just our day job,” Harty shares in episode 1. “We’re also in an a capella group. It’s called Copappella.” And then he starts to sing.

Foursquare Cops is technically branded entertainment, as it was produced by Hubspot, a software product that assists businesses with social marketing. But the brand is never invoked during the actual show, its mention limited to a post-show title card — the perfect sort of branded entertainment from a consumer standpoint, though how the show’s message translates to pushing Hubspot’s services to businesses isn’t entirely clear at this juncture.

The production isn’t flawless — while the cinematography does a nice job of capturing the cinema verite nature of Cops (the clear inspiration), the fight choreography and gun-play stand out as so painfully fake that they often took me entirely out of the story. But the acting is solid and the tone consistently funny.

If there’s an interesting twist to Foursquare Cops, it’s this: Those policing these social media transgressors are just as addicted to social media. As a result Foursquare Cops creates an interesting portrait of the world as it would be if products like Foursquare ruled our desires completely. And frankly, I find it a little scary.

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Directed by Matthew Balthrop of g14 Productions and distributed via Blip, Reservation tells the story of people with extraordinary abilities — and the government agency hunting them.

The approach, though, is pure character with little narrative, with each tightly-paced episode focusing on either someone with supernatural powers and how it affects their lives, or one of the agents hunting them. The closest the show has to a central protagonist is Alec Silva/Agent Pearce (Al Ghanekar), a reactivated agent whose decision to return to duty deeply complicates his personal life.

But in between vignettes about his domestic drama come portraits of people dealing with their special abilities without resorting to cliches like crime fighting or villainy. What would you do if you saw the future and it held tragedy? What’s it like to live life at sonic speed? These are some of the questions Reservation answers without relying on cliche, and as a result of this ensemble approach, the stories told are intimate and focused, shifting to drama to suspense on a dime and keeping things interesting.

The show isn’t perfect — production values are decent, but the sound design could use some work. And while the opening and closing themes are decent, the episodic music choices are pretty poor, hovering on the level of daytime soap operas. Some of the acting is also a little over the top, but the writing’s unique approach elevates some of the more amateurish elements and keeps things moving.

In short, Reservation proves a much more intriguing superhero drama than its most obvious comparison, managing to be affecting and engaging without relying on Peter Petrelli’s boyish charms or Claire the cheerleader’s bisexual experiments. Doesn’t matter what the medium is, in the end — good storytelling is good storytelling.

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Created by Michael Todd Cohen and hosted by Noah Starr, the Blip-hosted Red Carpet Run challenges pop culture enthusiasts to answer questions on a range of film and TV topics. The questions aren’t exactly Jeopardy-level in terms of their difficulty but with categories like “Television of the Year 2002,” it’s clear that MENSA members aren’t the target demographic.

The structure of the show is pretty impressive, though, in that each episode manages to be relatively complete and satisfying despite only lasting about eight minutes. Moving between three rounds — an audition phase, a showdown, and then the titular Red Carpet Run, where a final contestant answers questions on one topic in a tuxedo while running on a treadmill — the show’s tight structure keeps things moving, the only lag time appearing when a contestant blanks on an answer.

There are a lot of kinks to still work out. For example, Starr is a solid host, but the show’s equivalent to Vanna White, Alexandra (no last name specified), has exactly two jobs: Wear a dress and adjust the speed on the treadmill (something Starr could easily do himself). If you’re going to bother with eye candy, why not let it have a full name — or speak on camera? At this point, she’s completely irrelevant.

In addition, the virtual set for the show isn’t nearly refined enough to pass for a real space, and the effect is ultimately a bit amateurish. The money spent on green-screening would probably be better invested in some real physical sets.

At this stage, I don’t think Red Carpet Run will ever become a national craze like Who Wants to Be A Millionaire was in its day — especially while prizes include oddities like “holistic pet charms.” But if you’re a pop culture fan, especially a pop culture fan who enjoys shouting answers at the screen, it’s a pocket-sized romp.

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After all, The Tester‘s episodic challenges were designed to legitimately put through the paces skills a game tester must have: a critical eye, a healthy imagination, industry knowledge and communication skills. And working as a game tester is how most in the video game industry got their start; it’s considered a common stepping stone to greater achievements.

However, there are still touches of the ridiculous to The Tester. For example, everyone went not by their real names but by their “gamer tags,” which means that you have a 34-year-old man introducing himself to the other contestants as “Barmy.” That’s not a tester thing, at least not according to my brother, who’s worked as a game tester for a year and a half now and says they just use their real names. And in one episode, the producers made the contestants LARP — not an activity soaked with dignity.

In addition, the testing position won by Powers is a contract job, which means that like any other newbie, he does not receive benefits and is vulnerable to layoffs.

Susan Panico, senior director at PlayStation Network, to whom I spoke via phone, tracked the origins of the project to a day when she made a call in a break room for the quality assurance team. While on the phone, she observed the testers coming in and out of the room, and she was “fascinated by their interactions — these kids who love and live and breathe games.” This eventually lead to Sony partnering with reality producers 51 Minds to create a 22-minute-per-episode series that mimicked shows like Survivor fairly closely (though instead of getting your torch snuffed, you turn in your badge).

When asked how you create value around the experience of competing for an entry-level job in often ridiculous challenges, Panico pointed to the poor economy and the lack of jobs currently available. “Being a tester is a really great launching pad to areas of the business as a whole,” she said. “And we had thousands of applicants, so there was clearly a desire to get that foothold.”

How many of those applicants were more interested in being on a reality show than being a game tester? “Of the thousands that applied, we definitely had some people who wanted be entertainers, but the ultimate goal was to find someone who would work well within the team,” Panico replied when asked. Sony is pleased with The Tester‘s performance, and is considering adding more original content to the PlayStation Network — maybe even leaving the network open to a deal similar to The Guild and Microsoft — though it want to “focus on quality over quantity and deliver content relevant to our gaming audience.”

I’ve watched several episodes of the series now, including the finale, which pitted the three finalists against each other both in a real-life video game-style adventure that concluded with a video game face off using Uncharted 2, one of Sony’s top PS3-exclusive titles. As a gamer-by-proxy thanks to the men in my life, the show managed to be fairly entertaining and respectful of the process; being a tester wasn’t held up as an magnificent prize, but instead the first step towards professional success, which the winner would be on their own to achieve.

If I were to offer a defense of The Tester, it wouldn’t have anything to do with the download numbers or with the opportunities for creators that might come from Sony finding success with original content. It would be this: Will Powers graduated from college in 2008. He majored in Japanese, and is interested in using his degree to localize technology in either Japan or the U.S. But he wasn’t able to find work in the game industry because he was based on the East Coast, where there aren’t a ton of entry-level opportunities, and he couldn’t afford to relocate.

By winning the top prize on The Tester, he has gotten a job in the industry of his choice and $5,000 to cover his relocation costs. And because of the show, he’s gotten to meet high-level Sony producers, managers and directors. “That’s stuff you can’t get by applying in person,” he said via phone. In short, Powers has taken a huge step towards achieving his professional goals — all thanks to winning The Tester.

Powers began work at Sony this week, and he was aware when we talked last Friday that his fellow testers might treat him differently at first. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some interteam hazing going on,” he said via phone, “but nothing I can’t handle.”

“It’s funny, though,” he added. “All of us were competing for this job that none of us really wanted.”

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The other three minutes, however, weren’t that bad. Luck and the Virgin, currently running on Koldcast in English and on YouTube in English with Spanish subtitles, bills itself as a 60 second soap, though the model in this case isn’t a traditional American soap opera, but instead a Mexican telenovela — a decision heightened by the choice of location, Mexico. In the first three episodes, we meet Valentina (Whitney Moore), an American who, due to some incredibly efficient storytelling, is already in serious trouble thanks to a former boyfriend, a misplaced bag and a life story’s worth of mysteries.

Luck and the Virgin chooses to be sparing with details, especially those that might explain why Valentina is down in Mexico, and creative with its construction of the show’s time line, leaning heavily on flashbacks and flash-forwards. But rather than proving frustrating, this heightens the mystery — the end result is the sense of watching only the most important moments of a drama, and trying to puzzle out how they fit together. The time investment required here is low, but and worth the result.

Shot on location in Mexico and written, directed and edited by Jaime Byrd, the production values are great, with special note made of the cinematography, which is full of lush golden tones that fit the setting nicely, and the editing, which is brutally efficient in keeping each episode under its promised time length. On a technical level, its major flaw is the acting — because the scenes are so abbreviated, there’s not a lot of time to allow for subtlety in interactions between characters, but Valentina’s conversation with Mario (Juan C. Vincourt) in the first episode, just as one example, was almost painfully over-the-top in terms of flirtation. Carlos Sanagustin, as the straight-up evil drug lord Ricardo, was downright nuanced in comparison.

Back to the pre-roll issue: Believe me, I understand that there are very few established ways to generate any sort of revenue from a web video project. But at a certain point it becomes an issue of presentation, and sitting through so many prerolls has a definite negative effect on viewership.

In the case of Luck and the Virgin, where its entire structure is designed to be quick and light, it almost seems criminal to pad its length by a third for every episode. This is a situation where flexibility in terms of one’s business strategy is necessary — for both the sake of the show and its audience — especially if you don’t want your audience to watch on YouTube instead.

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But with a new official hashtag — #celebratetheweb — a new tone was also set for the night, one that refocused the discussion on what makes this medium so powerful and meaningful to those who work tirelessly in it. While conversation before and after the event did focus on what went wrong during the official ceremony and what the fallout might be, there were only a few references on stage to Sunday, including one immediately before the livestreaming started, when Evey made an open plea for those present to be open to forgiving the Streamys producers. “They f—-ed up royally and they know that,” she said.

Legend of Neil creator Sandeep Parikh opened the event with remarks on the struggles that web video creators face, as well as the most cogent explanation of net neutrality’s importance I’ve heard in a while. And then the speeches from winners started. You can watch the entire event here thanks to Ustream, so I’m not going to go into details about who said what, mainly because it was mostly meditations on the same theme — web video is one of the few places where you can do what you love and in some cases even make a living at it. Which, to paraphrase Between Two Ferns director Daniel Strange in the night’s first speech, means real success.

I am, however, going to call attention to Best Actress in a Drama winner Rachel Hip-Flores’ video remarks. Because I’m not embarrassed to admit that she made me tear up a little.

This was a cooperative event in the truest sense — Powell and Evey making it clear in the initial announcement that they were operating this event outside of their professional roles in the web video community — and the event had a thrown-together volunteer feel (heck, I folded programs and tore tickets). Celebrate the Web now has a web presence that, properly nurtured, could become an important portal for supporting web video production.

It’s still hard to gauge how much damage was done to the Streamys as a institution thanks to Sunday’s crass humor and negative attitude, but last night did some major repair and served as a nice reminder of this medium’s value. So if the producers of the Streamy Awards should take heart from anything this week, it’s that the community who came together to celebrate still sees at least some value to the brand.

But what is going to happen to the brand? That’s a big question. An open letter from IAWTV Chairman Michael Wayne, posted Tuesday, included the following statement about the Streamy’s future: “The IAWTV will ensure that moving forward every event we are affiliated with lives up to our ideals. If the Streamy Awards take place next year, we will approve the show’s producers, vision, practices and its content in advance.” Last night was a great celebration of those who won Streamys this year. But we’re still waiting to hear if they will be the last to do so.

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The episode of Supernatural that introduced Ed (A.J. Buckley), Harry (Travis Wester) and Maggie (Brittany Ishibashi) as amateur ghost hunters seeking to achieve reality TV fame by documenting their exploits aired originally in 2008. And if this show had been produced for the web back then I’d be a huge fan of it — both as a fresh and funny spin on the supernatural world as well as an exciting new example of a network series giving a one-off idea a chance to grow online.

Unfortunately, by waiting so long to capitalize on the idea’s potential, Ghostfacers now suffers. Creating a spinoff series around tertiary characters is old news in 2010, after all, not to mention the fact that Ghost Hunters parodies have been done. There’s no way to discuss Ghostfacers without bringing up the Babelgum-produced The Occulterers — especially when it comes to parallels between that show’s Chelsea (Amy Klein) and Ghostfacers‘s Ambyr (Mircea Monroe), a hot new intern who’s thoroughly objectivifed by Ed, Harry and the camera. Ambyr’s bimbo-ness is at least an interesting source of conflict on the show, but her storyline is a big blow towards the series’ chances at originality.

Of course, here’s where great production value and writing pay off — I enjoyed the first three episodes of Ghostfacers provided for review a whole lot more than Occulterers. Some interesting plot developments are laid out and there are some genuine scares as well as laughs; I have to admit to being thoroughly amused by the post-modern opening of the first episode.

According to a Warner Bros. spokesperson, Ghostfacers‘s launch has been timed to tie into promotion for its parent series’ 100th episode. But that reminds me of one of the most important things about Ghostfacers: Being a Supernatural fan is not at all required to enjoy it. Trust me on that one.

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The what-meets-what description of Remember When, an indie series which launched yesterday, would probably be Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind meets The Hangover. But to cast it in that light doesn’t spotlight the original execution, clever writing and hilarious performances. What happens is simple: Elisha (Elisha Yaffe) gets injured during an “amateur wrestling incident” and loses all of his memories. Feeling guilty, his buddies decide to help him get them back by making him relive those moments through re-enactments. Because they are morons, though, this proves to be difficult — but hilarious.

The first three episodes to be produced run a little long at 10 minutes each but are broken up nicely into vignette segments, and production values are top-notch without feeling too polished (which might have made the show feel inauthentic). Not all the characters get equal treatment: Randy (Randy Liedtke) is a hilarious foil, but Alex (Alexander Barrett) feels a little underutilized, while the jerkiness of Curt (Curt Neill) at times dominates the three first episodes. However, Elisha in his amnesiac stupor is actually a pretty sweet emotional anchor for the show, especially in the third episode, when he’s forced to re-enact his break-up with Claire (Codi Fischer) — which does not go according to plan.

Ten episodes of the series, which were produced and largely self-funded by Yaffe, Neill and art collective TIWWI, have been scripted and are in pre-production. Via phone, Yaffe (who previously worked for Warner Bros. Studio 2.0) said that they’ve already been approached by some distributors and producers about the show’s future — he hopes to find “a destination site to relaunch the show with all ten episodes.”

Which is good for them, because they needed some help to even finish the first three episodes — fortunately, Kickstarter was able to help. Turning to the fundraising service to raise money for the completion of post-production, Remember When was able to raise over $2,000 by its April 13th deadline. The money left over will go towards the production of future episodes, which Yaffe teases will revolve around “Claire and Curt battling for the future of Elisha’s memory, as each of them have a vested interest in shaping Elisha’s idea of what his life was like prior to the wrestling accident.” If you ask me, that’s how you take a good premise and make it better.

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Acknowledging that the technical difficulties as well as a late change in venue “led to a production that was less than polished,” Brim-Deforest also acknowledged that “The show suffered from a lack of cohesiveness. There wasn’t enough focus on the awards, it was more focused on the comedy. Last night’s show was off that mark and we’re very sorry for that.”

When asked about the show’s heavy emphasis on self-deprecating material and scripted comedy bits, Brim-Deforest said that “As we tried to build the show into an entertainment platform, we tried to up the entertainment value. In the writing process, we were focused on individual bits and so we lost track of the show as a cohesive experience. If we had looked at the script as one whole instead of individual bits, I think we would have had a different outcome. Our focus was on building a show that was more entertaining than last year, and in doing so we lost focus on what the show is all about.”

Watching the show live from my seat inside the theater, with only occasional checks on Twitter, it was clear pretty quickly into the show that things were not going well. When considering the Streamys’ Three Fails, I’m willing to give the show a pass on technical fail, as sometimes — usually at the worst possible time — things will in fact fall apart. However, it didn’t help the perception of the show’s production value (in retrospect, host Paul Scheer’s joke about the lack of a tech rehearsal might have been a poor choice) and the technical failures seemed to help contribute to the show’s descent into crude anarchy.

For example, two butt-naked streakers only made their dash across the stage after the Fine Bros.’s parody short about how to get a Streamy nomination froze halfway through playing, the first of many technical mishaps. In a perhaps obvious twist, the streakers might have been representatives from a Streamy Award-nominated series, Streak to Win — which is yep, about streakers. From my seat close to the stage, I’m relatively confident I heard one of the pants-less gentlemen shout the show’s name, and am still waiting for comment from the show’s producers. UPDATE: A Streak to Win representative confirms that they were behind the streaking incident.

Instead of showing you naked men, though, I’m going to embed the full Fine Bros. video below for your enjoyment.

However, seeing two naked men run across stage wasn’t too shocking, given planned incidents like the masturbation jokes host Paul Scheer made in his opening monologue, a five-minute sketch about vaginal rejuvenation and an epic-length salute to the fictional founder of a porn site. Heck, David Faustino, who presented the best actress in a comedy award to Felicia Day, was only one pair of tightie-whities away from being on that level. (Screenshot below thanks to Web Series Today.)

While no details are available as yet on the record as to how sponsors reacted to the content of last night’s show, gossip is currently floating around online. Andrew Hampp of Ad Age Twittered last night the following: “The Streamys carmage piles up. One sponsor looked at me and said, ‘Don’t write about this!’”

And Jace Hall, creator/host of The Jace Hall Show, commented on his blog that “I heard discussion that one of the big sponsors of the event TRIDENT GUM was SUPER PISSED and basically wanted their money back ($100,000 – I’m told). If this is true then that is a very negative blow for the “Web Series” industry.” I’ve reached out to Trident’s parent company Cadbury for comment on this.

It’s the taste fail which may have hurt relationships with sponsors and which definitely has multiple creators apologizing to their fans (and in some cases, families). But the taste level also fed into the attitude problem, which had more than one person calling the show a roast, but not funny.

The big missed question here was this: Who did the producers imagine to be the audience for the show? Because the answer doesn’t seem to have been those inside the Orpheum Theater on Sunday night. Instead, the Streamys seemed to be making a big play for introducing web video to the mainstream audience, playing deliberately to those expectations — while simultaneously pointing out, especially in one particularly awkward video sketch featuring Scheer interviewing web series n00bs at the Hollywood and Highland mall, that the mainstream world doesn’t know anything about web video, that this is still a secondary industry to the TV and film world.

The reaction to the Streamys this year is strictly about the presentation, not about the winners. Look at the winner’s list and you see some of web video’s greatest talents recognized. While watching the show, every time someone accepted an award — whether it be established talents like David Wain and Illeana Douglas or the web-originated Bernie Su and Mark Gantt, all of whom seemed to truly value the recognition of their peers — the true potential of the Streamy Awards as a celebration of talent shone through.

When asked about next year, Brim-Deforest said that the Streamys would definitely be back, and while he and the other four principles of Tubefilter will definitely be involved, they are seeking out a line producer to manage the show as experienced awards show producer Gary Smith did in the ceremony’s first year. “We’re not sure who will do it, but we’re already looking for candidates,” Brim-Deforest said. Something else Brim-Deforest promises is a simpler execution and a real celebration of this community, which at its core is talented, proud and vocal.

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Best Actress in a Drama winner Rachel Hip-Flores (right) finds a new use for her cupholder.

The winners are…

Visionary Award: Chad Hurley (Co-founder & CEO, YouTube (sw GOOG))

Audience Choice Award: Agents of Cracked

Best Comedy Web Series: Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis

Best Drama Web Series: The Bannen Way

Best Hosted Web Series: Diggnation

Best News or Political Series: Auto-Tune the News

Best Animated Web Series: How It Should Have Ended

Best Branded Entertainment Web Series: Back on Topps (Topps, Dick’s Sporting Goods)

Best Directing for a Comedy Web Series: The Guild (Sean Becker)

Best Directing for a Drama Web Series: The Bannen Way (Jesse Warren)

Best Writing for a Comedy Web Series: Wainy Days (David Wain)

Best Writing for a Drama Web Series: Compulsions (Bernie Su)

Best Male Actor in a Comedy Web Series: Zach Galifianakis (Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis)

Best Female Actor in a Comedy Web Series: Felicia Day (The Guild)

Best Male Actor in a Drama Web Series: Mark Gantt (The Bannen Way)

Best Female Actor in a Drama Web Series: Rachael Hip-Flores (Anyone But Me)

Best Ensemble Cast in a Web Series: Easy to Assemble (Illeana Douglas, Justine Bateman, Eric Lange, Michael Irpino, Cheri Oteri, Daryl Sabara, Michael Panes, Rob Mailhouse, Sean Durrie, Tom Arnold, Ed Begley Jr., Tim Meadows, Ricki Lake, Greg Proops, Kevin Pollak)

Best Guest Star in a Web Series: “Weird Al” Yankovic (Know Your Meme)

Best Web Series Host: Zadi Diaz (Epic Fu)

Best Vlogger: Shane Dawson (ShaneDawsonTV)

Editor’s note: NewTeeVee was one of the co-hosts of the 2nd Annual Streamy Awards.

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You can’t wait that long, or you won’t make in back in front of your PC in time? No worries, there’s also a live-streamed pre-awards show as well as an iPhone app for all those web video fans on the go. In addition, the player embedded below will show the work of Streamys nominees before magically transforming into a live player a few minutes before the show begins.

The pre-awards red carpet show, which will be hosted by Mark Malkoff of Mark Lives In IKEA fame, is starting Sunday at 4pm PST / 7 PM ET. Malkoff will apparently bring some IKEA furniture to the red carpet, and he’ll be joined by Kristyn Burtt of the Web.Files and Coin-Op TV‘s Cyndee San Luis. You can watch the show before the show in the player embedded below, or at Ustream.tv.

Live TV : Ustream

Finally, iPhone users can follow the Streamy Awards live on their phone with the help of a dedicated iPhone app.

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In Hot for Teachers, a four minute short released Wednesday, Brian Austin Green (who in real life is the father of an eight-year-old boy) is attending a parent’s meeting that consists mostly of shouting. Meanwhile, his girlfriend Megan Fox (who in real life is actually his girlfriend), while waiting for him to finish, is given a first-hand glimpse of the overcrowding and lack of teachers and support staff that currently plague our public schools, thanks to a classroom packed with cute youngsters and an aide from Governor Schwarzenegger’s office, who’s there to assure them that everything is going to be just fine. It’s an extremely bleak look at where we’re headed…

Fortunately, it’s pretty funny.

Written by John Koch and Ari Posner, directed by Eric Appel and shot at Wonderland Elementary (where both Koch, Posner and Green’s children all attend school), the short is very much an exaggeration of the current budget crisis, ending with a call-to-action from Fox and Green encouraging those who watch to speak out via the usual means: petitions, phone calls, etcetera.

Its genesis was much like any feature film: Once the parents of Wonderland got the idea for doing the short and Koch and Posner had written it, Koch, whose work in public relations had already lead to him collaborating with Appel on an earlier FOD short, took the script to the site with Green and Fox attached. Funny Or Die paid for the production and owns the rights to the video, but the Wonderland parents were able to use it to promote their cause. Via phone, Koch credited Green as being the reason the video got made, and also said that contrary to what happens in the actual video, Fox didn’t hesitate to give out as many autographs as requested.

What’s notable about the sketch is that it points the finger of blame not at Republicans or at the state legislature, but entirely at Governor Schwarzenegger — he’s set up as a straw dog right from the beginning, and some of the better jokes get a lot of mileage out of his “legendary” achievements, factual and fictional. The tag’s use of the Terminator theme is an especially bold choice (given how much rights to Brad Fiedel’s score for the original film must cost) though appropriate, given that Green also starred in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

The big question with this is will it work? Perhaps. Hot for Teachers has one advantage over one of Funny Or Die’s previous political statements, Prop 8: The Musical — it isn’t occurring after the fact.

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I mention this because I gave St. Clare a shout out today before loading up the pilot episode for My Deaf Family, a reality web series which launched on YouTube last week and is produced by Marlee Matlin. See, I LOVE Marlee Matlin, mostly for her work as Joey Lucas on The West Wing, but in general she seems cool and ballsy and funny and she won an Oscar in the 80s, and c’mon, St. Clare, I really don’t want to have to say mean things about Marlee Matlin!

And TAKE THAT, atheists, because My Deaf Family… Well, it’s okay. 10 minutes in length, the pilot introduces us to Jared, a pretty typical 15-year-old except for the part where his family is deaf, and he is not. Anchored around him, the show sets up the clear conflicts, ranging from all-too-familiar parent vs. teenager drama to the difficulties deaf Americans face in dealing with day-to-day life.

Approaching it purely on a character level, this isn’t a family that’s tailor-made for TV, especially Bridgetta, Jared’s mom, who makes a point of interfering with his life and didn’t strike me as terribly likable. But the pilot does a lot with the details of deaf life, from small things like how they might order pizza to larger issues like Jared’s inability to help his parents understand music, and the portrait created as a result definitely has potential for a full series. The point, as Leslie, Jared’s father, says in a closing interview, is that they believe being deaf isn’t a disability, but instead a part of their identity similar to being black or a woman. “It comes from inside,” he signs while a translator speaks.

Because of the show’s focus, a great emphasis has been put on its use of YouTube’s new closed-captioning features, including translations into other languages. The availability of closed captioning for web content is definitely an important issue, one that Matlin expressed to the LA Times in a recent feature.

The future of My Deaf Family is uncertain, as the pilot, shot in two days, is all that exists currently, and there’s no intention for it to be anything other than a proof of concept. For, per the LA Times piece, Matlin isn’t looking to create a web series and is instead seeking out broadcast distribution for the idea — the pilot was put up simply to prove the idea could work and get it some attention. In the cable world, where shows like Jon and Kate Plus 8 can be hugely successful, it seems like My Deaf Family ought to be able to find a home elsewhere. But Marlee, if it doesn’t work out, then I imagine that the web will be waiting.

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And that’s exactly what is delivered in the first three episodes to premiere last week on Babelgum.com — Allie (Anne Griffin), a future single girl sick of being seen by men not as a sex object, but as a means of repopulating the human race, is convinced by her cat-alien roommate Ruthie (Brooke Lyons) to date outside her species’ gene pool via an online dating site.

The split between the sci-fi and romantic comedy genres is weighted slightly more heavily on the rom-com side, but that doesn’t mean the show’s setting is ever ignored. There’s no attempt here to accurately capture what a future Earth might actually be like, the series instead taking the clever approach of riffing on sci-fi tropes without demanding an extensive nerd expertise from its audience.

That’s not to say that there isn’t an attempt at world-building, though; in fact, one of Date A Human‘s greatest charms is the level of detail built into each scene and character. The level of creativity on display here is truly impressive, especially when it comes to the creature design — the aliens with whom Allie mingles wouldn’t look out of place in the background of the Mos Eisley cantina, and the practical and digital effects bringing them to life are top-notch.

The production values behind the show are great and the acting is uniformly solid — even Charlie O’Connell, Jerry O’Connell’s less famous brother, seems to have improved since his days on Sliders in his guest appearance in the first episode. However, the characters at this point lack full definition, especially Allie, whose resistance to the idea of making babies because “Even one child is too many!” is understandable from a 21st century perspective — but doesn’t really make sense in the face of the human race’s extinction. It’s definitely interesting that she prefers to be childless and thus at odds with the dominant messages sent by both society and biology, but the issue is brushed away instead of fully addressed.

The only motivation that the episodes to air hint at is that she doesn’t want to procreate because her mother, a still-active breeder, is so gung-ho about it. But not wanting to do something because another character wants you to do it isn’t quite enough reason for such a huge decision, and as much as I wanted to sympathize with Allie, I couldn’t help but side with the survival of the human race on this one.

The show does represent great strides forward for Babelgum’s fledgling brand of sci-fi comedy originals, which began with last fall’s disappointing Occulterers and Hurtling Through Space At An Alarming Rate. The major fault with both shows, looking back, is that they were rushed into production and thus didn’t get enough development in pre-production and enough time for refinement in post. In comparison, Date A Human is tight, well-written and polished — a good pairing for the similarly-toned antics of The Crew and a potentially strong future brand for the site. Provided, of course, that they don’t run out of story ideas — or fake alien fur.

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With the announcement release came a nice picture of Paul Scheer, but rather than post that, I’m going to link to an example of the dude’s ability to work a live audience. Here’s a clip from the 2009 Comic-Con, when Scheer ambushed Lost producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse at their panel on the final season of the show with a painting of them with a polar bear.

Because here’s the thing — as funny as this clip is, it was much funnier seeing it in person. Which hopefully speaks well for Scheer’s hosting abilities come April 11.

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For example: the new YouTube setting that transforms most videos into ASCII art is beautifully executed and fun to play with…

But does the fact that they cite it as a cost-cutting measure (“By using text-only mode, you are saving YouTube $1 a second in bandwidth costs”) mean we should be more skeptical about analyst claims that the site will be profitable this year?

Plus, sure it’s cute that Google is rebranding itself as Topeka today — but it’s a move that seems to signify a longing for simpler times and places, one that might mean Google is exhausted by this complicated world of ours.

College Humor warns that its site is under investigation for un-American activities — a joke which might have played better during the more paranoid days of the Bush Administration, but might also have been seen as a too-possible usage of the still-in-effect Patriot Act. Still, the prank invokes a healthy fear of authority that jibes nicely with the site’s sensibilities. (Also, it gives me an awesome idea for an film: Jake and Amir Go To Guantanamo Bay.)

This year, Funny or Die followed up on last year’s Reba or Die stunt with an even better get — Justin Bieber, who’s taken over the site and is now reenacting viral videos and telling you what he thinks of you (by the way, are 15-year-olds allowed to chain smoke in Canada? Because, girl, you sound thrashed).

As fun as it is, though, Bieber’s presence underlines one of the key facets of Funny or Die’s existence — its addiction to celebrity star power to drive views. Is this joke really just a desperate cry for help? Will Dr. Drew need to get involved?

The one prank this year that I don’t find any deeper meaning in is Hulu’s “confidential training and orientation video (sadly unembeddable (accessed by clicking on the new “3D” feature), which is narrated by Alec Baldwin and posits that television is a secret alien plot to rot American brains.

The thing is, we’ve heard that before from them. And, frankly, it’s probably true.

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