Remember in the movie "A Christmas Story" when Ralphie gets his secret decoder ring from his favorite radio show (I think it was the Green Hornet), excitedly runs to the bathroom and decodes the message only to find out that it says "Drink More Ovaltine"? 

That’s what first came to mind when I read this article about network TV shows using websites to further hook fans to the show.  But after reading the article I’m kind of impressed by their creativity. Here’s a bit about what the editors of NBC’s crime drama Crossing Jordan are doing:

The network has found a way to keep super-fans like Washburn engaged
with the crime drama: an online diary created by the show’s writers
that asks viewers to help the character Nigel Townsend of the Boston
medical examiner’s office solve the murders.

It’s a drama that
mostly plays out on the Web. Nigel will mention the unsolved murders
occasionally on the air and drop clues for cyber-sleuths, but he will
solve the case only at Nigelblog.com — with the help of Washburn and
other fans.

"It’s not enough to just watch the show," said
Washburn, 47, who works on the case from her Houston home when not
tending to her ailing mother. She’s among 13,000 fans of "Crossing
Jordan" who visited the site within eight days after Nigel mentioned it
in conversation with another character during the Feb. 13 episode.

I wish I had a crystal ball and could tell you what TV will look like in 10 or 20 years.  I don’t, but I can make a prediction that our various home entertainment vehicles are going to consolidate and morph into one big blob.

My hope is my TV and PC will be replaced by a centralized piece of hardware (server?) that feeds various high-quality screens (dumb terminal?) that are networked wirelessly.  My hardware will be linked to my info-entertainment feeds by high speed connections, and my content will be served by networks/publishers on a program-by-program (item-by-item?) basis.

In such a world the creative folks like those working on Crossing Jordan will win. Here’s to hoping.