Quarterlife, the heavily-hyped serialized drama from the creators of thirtysomething and My So-Called Life, is a bomb.

Views for the show have plummeted, going from nearly 800,000 YouTube views for the first episode to just a few thousand for some recent episodes. That’s fewer than sleeping kitties, graffiti videos and even a video of Sims in labor.

The series, created by Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, has been hyped as the first television-quality production for the Web. Unfortunately, it is also shaping up to be the first high-profile television-quality bomb for the Web, too.

“I just want a chance to let this thing happen,” Mr. Herskovitz said. “I am determined to succeed on the Internet.”

Herskovitz and Zwick could learn a lot from people like Rocketboom’s Andrew Michael Baron, who recently told us that “Videos of spectacle translate on the net.”

There’s no spectacle to Quarterlife – it’s a slow-paced TV drama sliced into short chunks, with some faux-vlogging thrown in for good measure.

Herskovitz and Zwick could learn from the fact that the no-budget mutant spider woman video is more popular than their show.

They could learn something from the fact that people like watching Potter Puppet Pals better than watching the type of television drama that worked twenty years ago with thirtysomething.

They could learn a lot from the fact that their show is getting spanked by a sexy philologist.

Most of all, Herskovitz, Zwick and mainstream media in general needs to learn that people are attracted to Internet video because it offers an alternative to television. No amount of advertising or hype is going to get people excited about safe, boring content that’s brought to you by Tide and Ford.