Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick seem to specialize in tales of angst in various configurations. They covered the teen years with My So-Called Life, blended families with Once and Again, and middle age with thirtysomething. Their latest offering, quarterlife, is about friends in their mid-twenties struggling to make sense of their lives and careers. thirtysomething was an award-winning series that lasted four seasons and My So-Called Life is considered by many (including myself) to be a cult classic. Have Herskovitz and Zwick struck gold again with quarterlife?

Let me give you a run-down of the characters and the situations. Dylan is a timid girl who wants to be a writer but she is stuck in a job as an intern at a magazine. To express herself and vent her frustrations, Dylan starts a videoblog in which she talks about her friends. This gets her in trouble, of course, because her friends don't want their business all over the internet. She lives with Debra, her best friend from high school, and Lisa, a bartender and aspiring actress. Across the courtyard of their apartment complex, a couple of guys named Danny and Jed move in. Jed is a film-school graduate with high ideals who has partnered with Danny to make TV commercials. Debra starts dating Danny almost as soon as they move in.

For someone who seems to be timid, Dylan is a bit of blabbermouth. In the pilot, she tells the world that her roommate Lisa drinks too much and sleeps with anything in pants. She also lets it slip that Jed is in love with Danny's girlfriend Debra. The only time Dylan refrains from hitting the "send" button is when she is tempted to reveal her own business -- like the fact that she is in love with Jed. Meanwhile, it becomes clear rather quickly that Danny almost wishes that Jed would steal Debra away from him. Danny is not ready to move in with Debra but instead of telling her, he flirts with the actress in his latest commercial and jokes about Jed taking Debra off his hands.

Just to make the show well-rounded, the writers threw in some career drama. Dylan gets her idea stolen by her immediate boss. She attempts to stand up for herself, but then backs out at the last minute. Lisa projects a sexed-up persona to hide the fact that she has a fear of performing. Danny and Jed disagree about how to shoot their commercial, which causes Danny to admit that he is just the salesman in their partnership while Jed is the artist.

What did I think about this show? Honestly, the only thing fresh about quarterlife is the fact that it started as an internet-only series in November 2007 and made the transition to TV. The plot and setting are nothing new, but then how many new ideas are left out there? My criteria for ensemble shows is that if I like at least one character in the pilot, then I will give the show another shot. Lisa, the aspiring actress, intrigues me so I am willing to stick with it a little longer. As for family-friendliness, it is too early to tell. The pilot is safe enough for my 15-year-old and my younger kids wouldn't even be interested in it. However, I will have to watch a few more episodes to see if the subject matter becomes too intense for my teenager.

Whether I will get to watch more episodes of quarterlife on TV is questionable. The show is supposed to be moving to its regular time slot starting Sunday, March 2, 2008 at 9p. However, the ratings for the pilot were so low that there is talk that NBC may not even air the second episode. The only good news here is that, since quarterlife started out on the internet, the episodes are still available online. So if you liked the pilot or just want to see a few more episodes to make up your mind, you have several options. Besides the official quarterlife.com site, you can also find quarterlife on MySpace and YouTube. Those three sites will give you a more immersive experience with comment pages and extra videoblogs recorded by the characters. If you prefer a more traditional TV experience, you can find the eight-minute online episodes edited into six ready-for-TV episodes on Hulu.