• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, November 19, 2007

With the Writers Guild of America strike dragging on into its third week, NBC has apparently come up with a contingency plan: Come January, the network will start running the new Web show "Quarterlife" on TV.

The show, created by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick of "thirtysomething" fame, debuted last week on MySpace.

The show is touted for bringing TV-like production values to the Web, but three years ago ABC passed on the series. Of course, the strike has obviously given TV execs reason to rethink what shows are ready for prime time.

Still, "Quarterlife" was drawing buzz even before the strike started. What's more, the quality of Web shows has steadily increased in the last few years and, with start-ups like Joost promising TV-like images, the viewer experience is likely to continue to improve. Even YouTube, already the most trafficked Web video site, is taking steps to up the quality of its clips, according to recent press reports.

It shouldn't really be a surprise that Web video is migrating to TV. In many ways, it's similar to the trend that began years ago with text, when broadband wasn't as widespread as it is now. Just as bloggers became book authors and magazine writers, it makes sense that video created for the Web will surface on television -- with or without a strike.