The "Fandom as an Ex-Lover/Relationship" Meme
The "Fandom as an Ex-Lover/Relationship" Meme
The one who seduced you, screwed you over, broke your heart in a million pieces, and laughed about it: Forever Knight. I am one of many who will never, ever watch another show with Jim Parriott's name attached to it. Ever. Again. Ever. Forever Knight was one I got sucked into by friends who were all fans of vampire shows; they brought me in with the wonderful medical examiner and the cop plots (bad though they were) and the great character work, chemistry, and acting (from the principles). Then the show that was about hope and redemption ended with betrayal, death, misery, and despair...because the writer/producer came back to stake it in the heart over and over. And afterward, the fandom in which I was MOST intimately involved, predictably, crashed and burned in our grief. Yeah. So...that sucked.
The old flame you don't see very often any more but whom you still really enjoy getting together with for a few drinks and maybe a pleasant nostalgic romp: Scarecrow & Mrs. King. I will love this show forever. It's fun, it's light, it's got great chemistry, it's got GREAT UST that turns into lovely RST (even if only briefly before RL, in the form of a very ill lead, interfered), a strong central cast with great chemistry and interactions that seem believable, steady character growth and development, and even the ability to be a Cold War era show that stands up over time despite itself. Best of all, it has a main character with great family relationships with her mother and sons that hearkens forward to Richard Castle and his awesome relationship with his mother and daughter.
The mysterious dark one whom you used to sit up with talking until 3 AM at weird coffee houses and with whom you were quite smitten until you realized she really was fucking crazy: Star Trek: Voyager. Oh, how I loved this show. It was bad and didn't live up to DS9, the one I didn't get to see. It had Kathryn Janeway, whom I adored, and possibly the 'shippiest episode of anything in the Trek franchise. And it had a dynamic where Starfleet rules couldn't always apply, where resources were limited rather than limitless. And I was SO hoping to see them deal with the ongoing lack of supply stations (I'll never forget the story that had them find a HUGE cache of "sweet-potato-like tubers" that were "quite tasty" and that everyone was expecting Neelix to put into everything until everyone HATED sweet potatoes for the rest of their lives)...and instead, we got the neverending supply of EVERYTHING including the SHUTTLECRAFT (which they let Chakotay keep piloting although he kept crashing them--or forgetting them behind planetside--presumably because he was the XO)... And then Captain Katie had a total nervous breakdown in the absence of the backup of Starfleet...and they didn't give us what was needed: let us see them (or, better, the Holo-doc) remove her from command and let us watch her get better. We almost got that arc with B'Elanna, but then it was totally forgotten there too. And Chakotay became boring as hell and just went along with Crazy Captain Katie...and Seven of Borg's jumpsuit became the focus of the show and...I left.
The one who seemed like a sweet, romantic one, until she turned got hooked on scary drugs, developed an angry side, and turned into an abusive asshole overnight: Beauty & the Beast (CBS). Romance, poetry, utopian underground communities of outcasts and misfits making family together and helped by a group of sympathetic helpers with cheesy dialogue but great background music and good acting that made the dialogue almost unnoticeable...delightful despite the shoulder pads. Then the writers, pissed off at Linda Hamilton, took it out on the show and said so in public, published interviews. The CBS trailers for S3: "It's not a fairy tale anymore." Well...the fairy tale was what we were there for. What a train wreck. I think this was the first show I wrote letters in a "Save Our Show" campaign...AND the first where I regretted doing so after what they gave us.
The one you spent a whole weekend in bed with and who drank up all your liquor and whom you'd still really like to get with again, although you’re relieved she doesn’t actually live in town: Firefly. I love this show. I love the dialogue. I love the casting. I love the acting. I love the characters. I love the "no aliens" version of the future and the gritty messiness of trying to settle places we didn't belong and fighting for balance and losing and keeping going anyway. And I LOVE that it was cancelled because they never had time to screw it up and I love the whole thing.
The steady: Doctor Who. Since 1979, when I was nine. Enjoyable. Sometimes cheesy, sometimes timely, sometimes silly, always quippable, always about doing what's right, always about how adventure may well be there right around the next corner or behind the next door. Joyful and always something new and something old folded together.
The alluring stranger whom you’ve flirted with at parties but have never gotten really serious with: Castle. I love this show. I love Nathan Fillion. I love Susan Sullivan. I love Castle's family. I love Beckett. I love the slash-tasticness of Esposito and Ryan. I love the 'ship and the friendship/s. I enjoy this show like crazy...and never write it, never read it, never meta it...and that's okay.
The one you hang out with and have vague fantasies about maybe having a thing with, but ultimately you’re just good buddies: Eureka. EVERY time I watch this show I enjoy it. Every time. I love the sci-fi tropes. I love the unabashed non-seriousness with which the show takes itself. I love the characters. I LOVE the quirkiness. And I keep meaning, I KEEP meaning to get caught up. And, for over 1 1/2 years or more, I've been stalled back in early S3 and never gotten past the part where Henry shaved his head.
The one your friends keep introducing you to and who seems like a hell of a cool person except it’s never really gone anywhere: Due South. I liked "North." I appreciated the "Victoria's Secret" arc. I recognized how good an actor Paul Gross was and that the show was well done. I cringed but also giggled at Paul Gross writing himself getting to fetch hairpins out of someone's cleavage...with his teeth. But...ultimately I was just...bored. It didn't hit any of my kinks or faves and despite seeing the whole bloody series at least FOUR times...nope. Not y thing.
The one who’s slept with most of your friends, and you keep looking at them and thinking, "How the hell did they land all these cool people?" Supernatural. This is the OMG the All Boys All Slash show that I could not care less about and that became such a HUGE thing...and I couldn't understand. Even folks who hadn't previously been all about the boysex seemed to find it with this show. I've seen a couple of eps, and the funny ones work for me as silly little B-monster-movie-of-the-week shows...where the main characters take themselves too seriously. And the fandom...had wars on a level of taking the show SO much more seriously than I thought it EVER merited. Nope...just didn't get that one.
The one who gave you the best damned summer of your life and against whom you measure all other potential partners: Farscape. Oh, when was anything ever this good, and this harsh, and this funny, and this tragic, and this well-written, and with this much SMOKING HOT RST, and with this kind of quirkiness, and this kind of total awesome, with actors who minded after the continuity and CARED about the characters and the story and the show and were themselves geeks (more and more common) and gamers and sci-fi completists and who, along with the writers/producers actually CARED about the storytelling...and then made sure the rest of the story got told (even if in shorthand in places) after their 5th season was cancelled out from under them? And a show we distributed across international and state lines...it was just...hot and alive and special and brilliant and ridiculous. Anything that can measure up and then land too? Oh, yeah.
The one you recently met at a party and would like to get to know better: Leverage. I think we've made it through part of S2. Maybe. I really enjoy it. I want to see it all. Characters, writing, ensemble, Gina. Bellman. OMG the HOT that is Gina Bellman! But we've just not gotten around to seeing more. And I want to.
The old flame that you wouldn’t totally object to hooking up with again for a one night romp if only they’d clean up a bit: Robin of Sherwood. Oh, how I LOVED this show. And I mean LOVED. It was my gateway fandom. It got me into paganism. It got me into filking. It got me out and about and travelling for fandom. Without it coming first, my FK experience would have been totally different (and lesser). I love the mood. I go back and enjoy the show. But...there are bits that I find distracting in ways that I didn't at the time, and I just can't quite re-immerse and love it the same...and part of that is that I haven't been able to get anyone else into it, so it remains mostly in the past.
The one who stole your significant other: Stargate: Atlantis. Yeah...I blame Bonnie Hammer, the SyFy/Sci-Fi channel, and their desire to expand the Stargate franchise for the loss of FS after S4. Also...just...the boyslash dogpile... *sigh* And the show is just so DULL and should have been SO much better.
The one you should have broken up with before they got arrested for stealing your TV and selling it on eBay: Quantum Leap and, to a lesser degree, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. QL...oh, how I loved it. And it holds up decently. But, oh, after Bellisario and Deborah Pratt divorced and Bellisario took QL in the settlement because SHE cared about it and could do it better? I should have walked away, but I didn't know at the time. So I didn't...and I watched to the end and the messy, confusing, nightmare of a final ep I hated (though I hate it less having fan-wanked it in my head extensively). B:tVS...yeah...Joss Whedon got the angst high in S2 with the Angelus arc...and spent the next, oh, FIVE YEARS trying to get back that same first-hit high. That never works. And it didn't.
The one you're glad you broke up with early enough that you can still remember her fondly rather than the subject of that embarrassing tabloid story with which her name is now irrevocably linked: X-Files and, to a lesser degree, Angel. I watched XF until after the 1st movie, then watched a few S6 eps (apparently I hit all the good ones!). I walked away from Angel the week before Darla had the baby. And, in both instances, I'm glad.
The one you had a torrid and exciting group thing with that was fun and interesting and exciting...until it just got old and a little boring (but you still look back on fondly): Stargate SG1. Oh, how I loved this show. I still love it. I marathoned it with wiliqueen. It was fantastic. I love Jack O'Neill. I love Sam Carter. I love Teal'c. I love General Hammond. I love the FS-does-SG1 show that was S10. BUT I haven't seen all of S9, nor have I seen all of S10. I just...ran out of steam. I wrote a lot, and meta'ed a lot...but I never got to the end. Maybe someday, by dribs and drabs.
Your hot new flame: Bones. I've been totally obsessed with this show since right after S2, when I marathonned S1 and S2 and then watched S3 in real time with an obsession that knew no bounds. I have a story that's longer than anything else I've ever written and is still only 1/2 to 2/3 done that is for this show. I'm going to have, if I get all my stories written, written more for this one show than anything else except possibly SG1. I love Brennan. I love Emily Deschanel. I love the chemistry. I don't love everything. I am withholding judgement until the end, and not expecting to be happy with where it ends or how it gets there, but, oh, how I'm loving it and obsessing over it. We're going INTO S7 and it's still my Shiny New Fandom and total Hot New Flame, even five years in.
The one who seduced you, screwed you over, broke your heart in a million pieces, and laughed about it: Forever Knight. I am one of many who will never, ever watch another show with Jim Parriott's name attached to it. Ever. Again. Ever. Forever Knight was one I got sucked into by friends who were all fans of vampire shows; they brought me in with the wonderful medical examiner and the cop plots (bad though they were) and the great character work, chemistry, and acting (from the principles). Then the show that was about hope and redemption ended with betrayal, death, misery, and despair...because the writer/producer came back to stake it in the heart over and over. And afterward, the fandom in which I was MOST intimately involved, predictably, crashed and burned in our grief. Yeah. So...that sucked.
The old flame you don't see very often any more but whom you still really enjoy getting together with for a few drinks and maybe a pleasant nostalgic romp: Scarecrow & Mrs. King. I will love this show forever. It's fun, it's light, it's got great chemistry, it's got GREAT UST that turns into lovely RST (even if only briefly before RL, in the form of a very ill lead, interfered), a strong central cast with great chemistry and interactions that seem believable, steady character growth and development, and even the ability to be a Cold War era show that stands up over time despite itself. Best of all, it has a main character with great family relationships with her mother and sons that hearkens forward to Richard Castle and his awesome relationship with his mother and daughter.
The mysterious dark one whom you used to sit up with talking until 3 AM at weird coffee houses and with whom you were quite smitten until you realized she really was fucking crazy: Star Trek: Voyager. Oh, how I loved this show. It was bad and didn't live up to DS9, the one I didn't get to see. It had Kathryn Janeway, whom I adored, and possibly the 'shippiest episode of anything in the Trek franchise. And it had a dynamic where Starfleet rules couldn't always apply, where resources were limited rather than limitless. And I was SO hoping to see them deal with the ongoing lack of supply stations (I'll never forget the story that had them find a HUGE cache of "sweet-potato-like tubers" that were "quite tasty" and that everyone was expecting Neelix to put into everything until everyone HATED sweet potatoes for the rest of their lives)...and instead, we got the neverending supply of EVERYTHING including the SHUTTLECRAFT (which they let Chakotay keep piloting although he kept crashing them--or forgetting them behind planetside--presumably because he was the XO)... And then Captain Katie had a total nervous breakdown in the absence of the backup of Starfleet...and they didn't give us what was needed: let us see them (or, better, the Holo-doc) remove her from command and let us watch her get better. We almost got that arc with B'Elanna, but then it was totally forgotten there too. And Chakotay became boring as hell and just went along with Crazy Captain Katie...and Seven of Borg's jumpsuit became the focus of the show and...I left.
The one who seemed like a sweet, romantic one, until she turned got hooked on scary drugs, developed an angry side, and turned into an abusive asshole overnight: Beauty & the Beast (CBS). Romance, poetry, utopian underground communities of outcasts and misfits making family together and helped by a group of sympathetic helpers with cheesy dialogue but great background music and good acting that made the dialogue almost unnoticeable...delightful despite the shoulder pads. Then the writers, pissed off at Linda Hamilton, took it out on the show and said so in public, published interviews. The CBS trailers for S3: "It's not a fairy tale anymore." Well...the fairy tale was what we were there for. What a train wreck. I think this was the first show I wrote letters in a "Save Our Show" campaign...AND the first where I regretted doing so after what they gave us.
The one you spent a whole weekend in bed with and who drank up all your liquor and whom you'd still really like to get with again, although you’re relieved she doesn’t actually live in town: Firefly. I love this show. I love the dialogue. I love the casting. I love the acting. I love the characters. I love the "no aliens" version of the future and the gritty messiness of trying to settle places we didn't belong and fighting for balance and losing and keeping going anyway. And I LOVE that it was cancelled because they never had time to screw it up and I love the whole thing.
The steady: Doctor Who. Since 1979, when I was nine. Enjoyable. Sometimes cheesy, sometimes timely, sometimes silly, always quippable, always about doing what's right, always about how adventure may well be there right around the next corner or behind the next door. Joyful and always something new and something old folded together.
The alluring stranger whom you’ve flirted with at parties but have never gotten really serious with: Castle. I love this show. I love Nathan Fillion. I love Susan Sullivan. I love Castle's family. I love Beckett. I love the slash-tasticness of Esposito and Ryan. I love the 'ship and the friendship/s. I enjoy this show like crazy...and never write it, never read it, never meta it...and that's okay.
The one you hang out with and have vague fantasies about maybe having a thing with, but ultimately you’re just good buddies: Eureka. EVERY time I watch this show I enjoy it. Every time. I love the sci-fi tropes. I love the unabashed non-seriousness with which the show takes itself. I love the characters. I LOVE the quirkiness. And I keep meaning, I KEEP meaning to get caught up. And, for over 1 1/2 years or more, I've been stalled back in early S3 and never gotten past the part where Henry shaved his head.
The one your friends keep introducing you to and who seems like a hell of a cool person except it’s never really gone anywhere: Due South. I liked "North." I appreciated the "Victoria's Secret" arc. I recognized how good an actor Paul Gross was and that the show was well done. I cringed but also giggled at Paul Gross writing himself getting to fetch hairpins out of someone's cleavage...with his teeth. But...ultimately I was just...bored. It didn't hit any of my kinks or faves and despite seeing the whole bloody series at least FOUR times...nope. Not y thing.
The one who’s slept with most of your friends, and you keep looking at them and thinking, "How the hell did they land all these cool people?" Supernatural. This is the OMG the All Boys All Slash show that I could not care less about and that became such a HUGE thing...and I couldn't understand. Even folks who hadn't previously been all about the boysex seemed to find it with this show. I've seen a couple of eps, and the funny ones work for me as silly little B-monster-movie-of-the-week shows...where the main characters take themselves too seriously. And the fandom...had wars on a level of taking the show SO much more seriously than I thought it EVER merited. Nope...just didn't get that one.
The one who gave you the best damned summer of your life and against whom you measure all other potential partners: Farscape. Oh, when was anything ever this good, and this harsh, and this funny, and this tragic, and this well-written, and with this much SMOKING HOT RST, and with this kind of quirkiness, and this kind of total awesome, with actors who minded after the continuity and CARED about the characters and the story and the show and were themselves geeks (more and more common) and gamers and sci-fi completists and who, along with the writers/producers actually CARED about the storytelling...and then made sure the rest of the story got told (even if in shorthand in places) after their 5th season was cancelled out from under them? And a show we distributed across international and state lines...it was just...hot and alive and special and brilliant and ridiculous. Anything that can measure up and then land too? Oh, yeah.
The one you recently met at a party and would like to get to know better: Leverage. I think we've made it through part of S2. Maybe. I really enjoy it. I want to see it all. Characters, writing, ensemble, Gina. Bellman. OMG the HOT that is Gina Bellman! But we've just not gotten around to seeing more. And I want to.
The old flame that you wouldn’t totally object to hooking up with again for a one night romp if only they’d clean up a bit: Robin of Sherwood. Oh, how I LOVED this show. And I mean LOVED. It was my gateway fandom. It got me into paganism. It got me into filking. It got me out and about and travelling for fandom. Without it coming first, my FK experience would have been totally different (and lesser). I love the mood. I go back and enjoy the show. But...there are bits that I find distracting in ways that I didn't at the time, and I just can't quite re-immerse and love it the same...and part of that is that I haven't been able to get anyone else into it, so it remains mostly in the past.
The one who stole your significant other: Stargate: Atlantis. Yeah...I blame Bonnie Hammer, the SyFy/Sci-Fi channel, and their desire to expand the Stargate franchise for the loss of FS after S4. Also...just...the boyslash dogpile... *sigh* And the show is just so DULL and should have been SO much better.
The one you should have broken up with before they got arrested for stealing your TV and selling it on eBay: Quantum Leap and, to a lesser degree, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. QL...oh, how I loved it. And it holds up decently. But, oh, after Bellisario and Deborah Pratt divorced and Bellisario took QL in the settlement because SHE cared about it and could do it better? I should have walked away, but I didn't know at the time. So I didn't...and I watched to the end and the messy, confusing, nightmare of a final ep I hated (though I hate it less having fan-wanked it in my head extensively). B:tVS...yeah...Joss Whedon got the angst high in S2 with the Angelus arc...and spent the next, oh, FIVE YEARS trying to get back that same first-hit high. That never works. And it didn't.
The one you're glad you broke up with early enough that you can still remember her fondly rather than the subject of that embarrassing tabloid story with which her name is now irrevocably linked: X-Files and, to a lesser degree, Angel. I watched XF until after the 1st movie, then watched a few S6 eps (apparently I hit all the good ones!). I walked away from Angel the week before Darla had the baby. And, in both instances, I'm glad.
The one you had a torrid and exciting group thing with that was fun and interesting and exciting...until it just got old and a little boring (but you still look back on fondly): Stargate SG1. Oh, how I loved this show. I still love it. I marathoned it with wiliqueen. It was fantastic. I love Jack O'Neill. I love Sam Carter. I love Teal'c. I love General Hammond. I love the FS-does-SG1 show that was S10. BUT I haven't seen all of S9, nor have I seen all of S10. I just...ran out of steam. I wrote a lot, and meta'ed a lot...but I never got to the end. Maybe someday, by dribs and drabs.
Your hot new flame: Bones. I've been totally obsessed with this show since right after S2, when I marathonned S1 and S2 and then watched S3 in real time with an obsession that knew no bounds. I have a story that's longer than anything else I've ever written and is still only 1/2 to 2/3 done that is for this show. I'm going to have, if I get all my stories written, written more for this one show than anything else except possibly SG1. I love Brennan. I love Emily Deschanel. I love the chemistry. I don't love everything. I am withholding judgement until the end, and not expecting to be happy with where it ends or how it gets there, but, oh, how I'm loving it and obsessing over it. We're going INTO S7 and it's still my Shiny New Fandom and total Hot New Flame, even five years in.