Pioneer One - First TV series funded via donations and released for free

I think this is a great. The traditional television networks have outlived their usefulness. I've been waiting years for a production company to bypass the network and sell their product directly to audiences. There are so many great productions that many people never get to see, because they are not 'picked up'. Likewise, the production of many programs have lost their way, concentrating more on limos, assistants to the assistants, expensive catering and massages than actual production of creative content.

I was hopeful when The Guild became popular enough to get funded by Microsoft. Then again when Joss Whedon, a major producer/director/writer, created Doctor Horrible (and it became profitable). Now, with an actual 'television' series perhaps we're finally going to see the beginning of the transition to online distribution?

Fingers crossed.

Sometimes I have to wait at least a year before I can legally watch some movies that I read about on the internet, that are already available in parts of the world. With today's technology, this is utterly painful for movie fans.

I will support this because it's a very good model for movie distribution and we will learn a lot from it. I see this catching on really fast.

Here is another interesting take on distribution through torrent: http://www.thetunnelmovie.net . People get to purchase "frames" of the movie, and one lucky frame picker will receive 1% of the movie's profits.

Hey -- I'm one of the people involved in vodo; would love to hear questions/comments from HN!

I think this is a fantastic model for a tv show. I feel much better about paying for a show online if it hasn't already made a bunch of money through networks. People will more likely pay for art when they believe the money goes to the artists. It sort of reminds me of Dr. Horrible, where all the contributors worked for a share of the profits. Does anyone know if this is the case here? The site says that people worked for free on this project, but doesn't explain how the future money gets divided up.

What could make this concept really take off, IMHO, is if a big established player jumped on board (kind of like what Radiohead did with In Rainbows and the whole "online first/donationware" thing).

For example, if David Chase or David Simon decided to produce a series of 10 episodes and make it available online exclusively at first (either via torrents & donations, or paid iTunes/Amazon/etc downloads), and if if it was a success, that would make others pay attention.

I do hope that there will be a Y combinator for tv shows and maybe even movies. Of course, there are some things like Campus Movie Fest that help find good budding talent and then that could be used as an application even to get funded.

Like the distribution/production idea (quite a gamble). Like the plot. Like the indie look and feel.

I hope we don't have to wait too long for them to get the funding they need to continue making episodes.

I just finished the first episode. It's pretty good. I'm looking forward to seeing where they take it. It feels like an episode of the X-Files for anyone that is curious if it is worth the download.

Love it! Bravo. Can't wait to see the next episode. Fans of The X-Files or SF in general may want to check it out. Has an indie feel to it, but still pretty slick.

Nothing has gotten my money faster.

i watched this a few days ago. clever story.

Just watched the pilot. The story really caught me for a number of reasons, one being its plausibility. I would not be surprised to see Hollywood steal or buy this.