Ctrl: Season 1 (2009)

Ctrl is a fast-paced, hilarious, and endearing Web series from NBC. (Instead of 22-min episodes broadcast as a TV series, Web series generally have 3- to 8-minute webisodes that pack a lot of creativity into the smaller space. Examples of other Web-based series include The Guild, Children's Hospital, and Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog.) Recaps are necessary but rapid and take up only 10-15 seconds not a minute as some complain. As our story begins, Stuart's annoying and incompetent boss Ben spills Nestea on his keyboard, causing the Undo key combination (Ctrl-Z) and other buttons to affect time and space in ways Stuart can only learn by trial and error. Episode 1: Ctrl (Stuart tries telling Ben's secretary that he loves her, hitting Undo for a "redo" after every mistake), 2: Ctrl B (Stuart tries the keys for Bold, tells off Ben, and gets fired), 3: Ctrl Z (Stuart succeeds in hitting Undo and keeps trying to woo Elizabeth), 4: F1 (Stuart clues Elizabeth into his secret as they test more key combos and Stuart pastes three copies of himself), 5: Ctrl C, Ctrl V (Stuart tries to hide, explain, or eliminate his duplicates), 6: Ctrl Home (pressing Home sends Elizabeth back to the Philippines), 7: Ctrl X (Ben learns about the keyboard and confronts Stuart with a baseball bat, but Stuart hits Insert and Recycle Bin), 8: Ctrl Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz (Stuart accidentally goes back 15 years in time to the day he met the brat who would become his boss), 9: Ctrl Y (Stuart's advice to the boy changes everything on his return -- he is the boss but Elizabeth is engaged), 10: Ctrl Alt Delete (Stuart and Elizabeth finally admit their feelings for each other). Richard Karn has a cameo and Cat Jahnke sings the musical theme. 4.5 stars.