Cult-TV Theme Watch: Internet Search Engines

Where would our society be, in 2016, without the Internet Search Engine?

Whether you use Google or Bing, you likely utilize a search engine at least once a day to search out answers you seek.

Cult-TV history is replete with references to search engines, mostly fictional ones.

Not always fictional, however. 

As early as 1997, Willow (Alyson Hannigan) mentioned the word “Google” as a verb (as in to google-one’s self) in a first season episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003).

Since that time, search engines appear all the time on genre programs as characters attempt to research topics of all varieties.

The most famous fictional (TV) Internet search engine is Finder-Spyder, which has been utilized in Journeyman (2006), Breaking Bad (2008 – 2013) and limited series The X-Files revival (2016), to name just a few.

Private investigator Veronica Mars (2004 – 2006) seems partial to the search engine known a “Planet Zowie.”

Dexter (2006-2013), meanwhile, uses a search engine called “Netwrangle.”

The TV show Sherlock (2010 - ) prefers the search engine called “Quest Search.”

The characters on Community (2009 – 2015) use “Searchsies,” while the Winchesters of Supernatural (2005 - ) prefer the generic-sounding “Search the Web.”

Pick your (Internet) poison.