Series TV as Treasure Hunt?

Alan Sepinwall of New Jersey's Star Ledger has a really interesting story about deleted scenes from shows such as "The Office" and "Friday Night Lights." One or two networks are starting to air deleted but narratively essential scenes only on the internet.

That's why most fans of "The Office" -- those of us who love the show but may not be obsessed enough to pursue it online -- had to wait many weeks to find out why Andy (Ed Helms) was suddenly missing. A deleted scene that was available at nbc.com and at iTunes weeks ago explained that Andy was required to take anger-management classes, but those classes weren't mentioned on the show until last Thursday's episode.

I hate to be cranky -- OK, I don't hate to be cranky -- but this kind of fracturing of a narrative bugs me. I wrote a story about the way the networks are working to push TV viewers onto other platforms -- to go to their websites, to buy cell-phone "mobisodes," to pay for extras that are essential to storylines but not available on TV. For example, an exclusive prequel to season 5 of "24" was included on the DVD package for season 4.

This deleted scene business is an extension of the same movement. Greg Daniels, a producer of "The Office," describes the anger-management scene as a failed experiment; "It was the most important piece of information that we ever left out of an episode without fixing it in the next episode, and it was sort of an experiment," he tells Sepinwall. "We had the idea that the online fans would somehow transmit the information to the fans who just watched the show, and they didn't."

I can't say I'm sorry it didn't work. I love watching TV shows; I hate treasure hunts.