No Picket Lines Online

The characters of "Roommates" are written to resemble the overblown, self-absorbed histrionics of many reality-TV participants. The characters in "Roommates" and "Quarterlife," which launched in October and November, respectively, have their own MySpace profiles.

"What's fascinating about 'Roommates' is the extent to which the users don't just sit back and watch the shows," says Jeff Berman, the general manager of MySpaceTV. In the first week, says Berman, "the show had 1.2 million views of episodes. . . . What's incredible is that one of the characters got 40,000 messages from MySpace users in that week."

"Roommates," currently on hiatus, begins its second season in early February.

"So when are ya'll starting season 2????????? I hope soon!!! Because there really isn't much to watch on TV these days," wrote fan Tiffany Harris, 25, on the "Roommates" MySpace page.

Harris, from Ellensburg, Wash., is a convert to Internet TV: "I don't have cable anymore, all I have is cable Internet," she says. "I can watch what I want online. Cable is a waste of money to me now."

Fortunately, there's more to Internet shows than youth dramas. In the realm of sci-fi, the computer-animated "Afterworld" has attracted a dedicated fan base. The series debuted on Bud.TV, an extremely low-traffic video-sharing site launched by Anheuser-Busch, but it has picked up fans this fall as it spread to YouTube and MySpace. Again, the best place to catch up on the show is at its dedicated Web site, http://www.afterworld.tv.

The series follows a man who wakes up one morning to find a world where people have disappeared. Alone, he makes his way across the ghost cities of the United States searching for his family.

If you're looking for reruns with a twist, Sony Pictures Television has repackaged classic episodes from its archives into five-minute versions -- famous punch lines and basic story arcs preserved -- that run on MySpaceTVs Minisode Network. It's quite the library of shows: "Charlie's Angels," "Diff'rent Strokes," "Starsky and Hutch," "The Jeffersons" and "Who's the Boss?" An hour of Ricki Lake can be a bit much to take, but how about the "I'm in Love With My Cousin" episode edited down to five minutes? A bite-size helping we all can appreciate.

But the Internet is most entertaining as a grab bag of quirky entertainment -- the sexy philologist of " Hot for Words," the juvenile slapstick of YouTube's most-subscribed channel; the comedy duo Smosh; "SNL's" Fred Armisen's homemade sketches at ThunderAnt.

And don't miss the outrageous David Blaine-mocking street magic videos of ThoseLilRabbits.