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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Blogs pull viewers closer to TV


Rainn Wilson says a blog is the ideal way for his character from
Diane Werts Newsday

I’ve got a blog, you’ve got a blog, everybody’s got a blog.

Even TV characters.

Dwight from “The Office” explains how he envisions his funeral. Hiro from “Heroes” shares his fresh-from-Japan view of America. (“So many Denny’s.”)

Margene from “Big Love” confides what it’s like being polygamy wife No. 3. And Joe the bartender from “Grey’s Anatomy” passes on gossip regarding those randy Seattle surgeons.

Television cast and crew members are busy writing dozens of ongoing official Web logs, providing their shows’ fans with all the latest details of on-set happenings, offstage parties and other personal/professional secrets.

“It helps the fans get into the show and connect with the themes and the characters,” says Chris Van Dusen, who does triple duty on ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy.”

He’s series creator Shonda Rhimes’ assistant. He also writes ABC.com’s Emerald City Bar blog, in the voice of the hospital staffers’ bartender confidant (played on-air by actor Steven W. Bailey).

And when Van Dusen penned his own first script – for the recent “Grey’s” episode where characters George and Izzie controversially hit the hay – he composed that week’s installment of the series’ writers’ blog, Grey Matter, at ABC.com.

His explanation triggered a flood of reader comments currently approaching the 1,500 mark. Sound like a lot? When “Grey’s” guiding light Rhimes takes a turn on the writers’ blog, it can elicit up to 4,400 response posts.

“Are you yelling and screaming at your TV sets and cursing my name for throwing Meredith into the water and then rolling the credits on you?” she blogged about the February sweeps episode “Walk on Water.”

That kind of give-and-take intimacy clearly thrills the fans – and intimidates the show’s writers.

“There’s a joke around here that writing the blog every week is more difficult than writing the actual episode,” Van Dusen says. “Because it’s your voice and your opinions. You can’t hide behind the characters.”

Sometimes the cyber world even influences what happens onscreen. The producers of “Grey’s” created the Nurse’s Station blog so a fictional hospital staffer named Debbie could gossip online about the show’s characters from an insider’s perspective.

“When they first invented that blog, she didn’t exist in the world of ‘Grey’s,’ ” says ABC.com’s associate creative director, Larry Terenzi. “But once the blog took off, then she made appearances on the show,” in the person of actress Cathy Lind Hayes.

Other blogs by series characters are written by the actors who play them, as a sort of extracurricular play-along.

“It was my idea in the very beginning that Dwight should have a blog,” Rainn Wilson of “The Office” told Variety about his uptight character Dwight Schrute, whose NBC.com journal is called Schrute-Space.

“I think that a blog is a perfect way for Dwight to express himself,” he said. “Most people’s blogs are like boring, pontificating rants, and that is right up Dwight’s alley.”

“Heroes” star Masi Oka has been scrupulous all season about maintaining NBC.com’s Hiro’s Blog. With help from series producers, he offers puzzles and e-mail address links, mixing plot clues with diary ramblings by the wide-eyed geek traveling from Japan to Las Vegas to New York.

The new NBC.com blog Frank Talk, written by “30 Rock” actor Judah Friedlander in the voice of his eccentric writer character, also goes multimedia. It includes backstage photos from the TV-show-within-a-TV-show, plus video windows running clips of hallway soccer games.

NBC.com has extended its blog efforts into “live blogs,” where cast and crew interact in real time with viewers online immediately after on-air special events.

Because those live chats are archived online, “It’s a wonderful resource for fans that come into the show all along the season,” says Vivi Zigler, executive vice president of NBC Digital Entertainment and New Media.

Video blogs are another variation to boost viewer connection. Tina Fey answers fan questions on-camera at the Ask Tina link on NBC.com’s “30 Rock” page.

“Battlestar Galactica” executive producer David Eick directs backstage footage showing fans how the Sci Fi drama is produced. Both he and show runner Ron Moore, who writes a text blog and does audio podcasts, are eager participants in keeping viewers connected.

Eick sometimes delivers inside peeks at directing, makeup and special effects. But he also does put-ons about backstage affairs and missing staffers, using “Galactica” actors as playful co-conspirators.