TVSquad

ABC's Lost was the most watched TV show online in May, ranking up more than 36.4 million total video streams, according to Nielsen VideoCensus. Another ABC show, Grey's Anatomy, was the second most watched show online with the network's Desperate Housewives rounding out the top three. All three ABC shows brought in about 80 million online viewers for the month.

Variety posits that May's season finale cliffhangers put the ABC shows on top of the list. That's a fine theory, but here's another one – ABC led the online pack because Nielsen VideoCensus doesn't count any viewing done via Hulu, arguably the most popular site for streaming free online video content from TV networks.

When I'm not pumping out my latest TV rant for the ol' Squad here, I write pretty infrequently for another blog with some old college roomies called The Suite Spot. It's really nothing more than a bunch of disgruntled twentysomething males talking about whatever we want.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, my buddy Keith wrote something that astounded me: he's canceled his cable TV service. And not just cable - I mean everything. Basic service too. The man is TV-less.

Wha?!? Just how the heck can a red-blooded American male say no more to cable TV? Good-bye ESPN? So long crappy late night soft-core porn? Farewell Desperate Hou... wait, nevermind. That one sounds great, but you get my point.

Is Keith still watching TV? Sure, tons of it. But he's doing something that many of us only use as a supplement to our normal TV viewing. He's watching everything online.

In honor of Lost's return, ABC launched Lostscape, an online game, late last week. The game, which doubles as a contest, allows users to explore the island and view clips from past episodes of the show. Fans also have the opportunity to view a scene from an upcoming episode. The goal of the game is to collect significant items, like Locke's knives and Charlie's guitar.

Once you've found seven of the thirty-four items (along with a special item), you can enter the contest. The prize is a trip for two to Comic-Con in San Diego, which includes airfare, hotel accommodations, preferred seating at the Lost panel, and a meet-and-greet with the show's cast and executives. The contest's deadline is June 30.

This is disheartening. ABC has been looking to Lifetime as a new home for Men in Trees and October Road. Both dramatic series have not as yet been picked up for next year, and now this report makes it clear they are both skating on thin ice. The powers that be at Lifetime were given copies of both shows to review and chose not to pick up either of them. They basically threw the ball back to ABC, forcing the network to decide the fate of these two shows.

On the heels of yesterday's upfront presentation, ABC has put up short clips of its new fall pilots on their website. All of the shows introduced, including the mid-season replacements, have clips on the site (the soap Dirty Sexy Money has two clips), including a brief scene from the much-anticipated and already-maligned Cavemen.

I've got to tell you, that feeling of "blah" I got from the pilot descriptions yesterday didn't go away when I saw the clips. None of them look nearly as compelling as what ABC or the other networks had to offer last year; the clip for Cavemen in particular looked pretty bad. The only one that got me interested in seeing the pilot was the clip for Miss/Guided, which won't even premiere until mid-season.

Oh, well. Like most critics, I'll be getting the rough-cut versions of the pilots soon, so we'll see if my "blah" feeling goes away at that point.

[via Pop Candy]

Alias-Media has a bunch of Alias news today. Not only is there a rumor that a special box set of all five seasons of the show will go on sale around Christmas (with lots of extras), but there is also news that next month, ABC.com will be auctioning off clothing and props from the show.

Sure, some might go for Syd's wigs or clothing, but I want one of the Rambaldi artifacts! Or, if I can't have one of those, maybe one of Marshall's gadgets.

[via TVshowsonDVD.com]

ABC announced today that it will offer episodes of Lost, Desperate Housewives, Commander in Chief, and Alias on its web site for free. The episodes will have ads that cannot be fast-forwarded through, but they won't cost the $1.99 that the ad-free version -- available from iTunes -- would cost. The experiment will start in May and run through June; the entire season of Alias will be available, as will current episodes of the other three shows, which will be put on the site the day after they air.

It really is getting to the point where you don't even need a TiVo if you miss something, doesn't it? Just go online and watch it on your computer. Not a bad second option, despite the ads (and smaller screen)...

So, you're all set to watch the last episodes of Alias starting in March, leading up to the exciting series finale in May? This news might tick you off a little bit.

ABC this week announced their plans for the midseason and beyond, and oddly, Alias is hardly mentioned at all. It was supposed to come back in March with new episodes. But now this article says it's a "schedule orphan," and there's a chance that it won't come back til summer. Gah. Ugh. $%^&*#$!

Of course, this isn't set in stone, so maybe everything will be okey-dokey come March. But right now it looks like Simon Cowell's new show American Inventor is going to be on Thursday nights, surrounded by Extreme Makeover and Primetime, which means no room for Sydney and friends. Unless they move it to another night. But what night?