beActive Launches Multiplatform Interactive TV Series, "Final Punishment"

beActive, the Portuguese company that created the high-profile multiplatform interactive TV series, "Sofia's Diary" and "Flatmates," contacted [itvt] Monday to let us know that it is launching its first horror-themed multiplatform interactive TV production, in partnership with Brazilian telco, OI Telecom. Entitled "Final Punishment" (with episodes located on a dedicated Web site, http://www.castigofinal.com.br), the show centers on eight women imprisoned in a high-security Brazilian prison. beActive describes the show's concept thus: "These women, convicted for violent crimes, find themselves trapped in an experimental prison controlled by a computer system where there are no rules and where darkness has only one meaning--death. In a place where they are guarded by surveillance cameras and locked in by electronic doors, there is little need for guards. When the surveillance connection to the block is lost, the women find themselves 'abandoned.' When no guards come, they suspect a rebellion in another block but things are a lot worse than that. A shapeless executioner is killing the convicts in the same way they committed their crimes. In a race against time, the prisoners will have to overcome rivalries and suspicions to find the missing link that can set them free. Who brought them there and for what purpose? Can they escape the darkness or will the merciless punisher make them all pay for their crimes?"

According to beActive, "Final Punishment" features an alternate reality game that invites viewers to visit "dozens" of Web sites and social media profiles related to the show's characters, and to search for clues on Facebook and Twitter profiles that will enable them to figure out a password that will save the prisoners (however, the company notes, "week after week, one of the prisoners dies, so the clock is ticking"). The show's supplemental Web content includes video, Flickr photo albums, blogs and more, beActive says.

The show also features a range of supplemental content for mobile phones, beActive says, including an IVR service that allows viewers to call its fictional prison and talk to the prison's director; interactive voicemail services; SMS broadcast services; two Java puzzles; a WAP site; and mobile video downloads.

The show's alternate reality game will culminate with the broadcast on OI Telecom's OI TV channel of a four-part fake documentary featuring footage supposedly acquired from surveillance cameras inside the show's prison. According to beActive, the documentary will allow viewers to "find out what really happened inside the prison and get the final digits for entering the correct password and save the remaining prisoners from certain death." beActive plans to market the show at the upcoming MIPCOM event in Cannes.