FAIL: If this plays for you, please let me know in the comments!

Wow, I think will be the first Watch List video with pre-roll advertising.

I knew that Dan Harmon from Channel101 was the creator of NBC’s Community, but I didn’t know that he played the dean.

I haven’t covered many web series that I consider to be “top down” driven. You know, like Prom Queen and stuff like that. But I do really like Community (What? You thought I only watched web series?) so I was excited to see what it was about.

The ad played right away. The actual episode was locked in a swirlie forever, so I reloaded the page. Watched the ad again. Then waited for the episode to play. Went over to check my twitter feed. Glanced at my email. Found a new series, Co-op of the Damned. Episode never played. It also never played the six or seven times I had to reload it to do this post.

So, here’s my review. Why does it seem to me that any time an actual broadcaster tries to get me to watch something on their player, it doesn’t work? At least, for me. I have never successfully watched an official broadcaster’s flash player. Broadcasters, I know you’re a corporation and you don’t want to share with other corporations, but at least YouTube works. Even Vimeo or Blip would be fine. Who convinced you that you had to build your own custom flash video player? Was it Brightcove – they of the very successful B2B sales department?

All the effort put into making a webisode and it won’t play. You’d think that would the number one concern.

Community: Dean Pelton’s Office Hours Ep.1