"Oh my god, this is my favorite show ever!"
I'm a residential tutor for a summer program here at MIT. For a month I live in the dorm with 40 17-year-old girls, going to classes with them during the day and showing movies and taking them out for ice cream at night. This week we've been watching all the Star Wars movies. One night during the first week, we watched Superman Returns. A lot of them liked the movie but were frustrated by the lack of romantic closure. I joked that if they wanted romance, they ought to be watching Lois and Clark {g}.
On the 4th of July, three of my girls and I were bored and I went clicking through the pictures on my Zen (mp3 player). There were a couple of L&C pictures there, and the girls commented on them. They found Dean attractive {g}. I'd mentioned at some point that I read fanfic for the show, and they'd looked through my DVDs and seen that I had several pages' worth of L&C. They wanted to watch the show. I found that a little weird, but I agreed to show it to them if they wanted. So we watched the Pilot on the TV in my room. They liked that well enough to want to watch the next few episodes (punctuated by some good-natured criticisms and eye-rolling, but also by exclamations of "He is so attractive!"). Later word got around to at least one other girl, who said she loved the show and asked that we let her know if we watched it again.
After that we got sufficiently busy with classwork that we didn't have time to watch much TV, but a few nights ago one of my girls showed up and literally wailed, "When are we going to watch more Lois and Clark? We need to see 'he is so attractive!'"
I pointed out that I wasn't going to force them to watch it, but if they showed up at my door I'd put it on for them. So last night my three girls came back. They didn't want to keep watching in sequential order, so they asked for "something shippy" with character development. I put in Barbarians at the Planet and we fast forwarded through a lot of the non-L&C bits. Then we went to the kitchen so one of them could cook dinner, and we put The House of Luthor on the TV there. Pretty soon we had a bunch of people eating dinner and watching with us. A bunch of them fondly remembered watching the show as kids. Then we watched The Phoenix, because they were upset that Lex Luthor never lost his hair and wanted to see progress between L&C. We finished up by going back in time and watching just the funny bits of Pheromone My Lovely before I had to run upstairs to show the next installment of Star Wars. They especially liked the end, where Superman kisses Lois at the airfield {g}. We watched that bit several times...
Tonight they showed up about half an hour before I was set to show the next Star Wars installment. I warned them that wasn't enough time to watch a whole episode. They didn't care. We watched Tempus Fugitive and fast forwarded to the funny bits. As the music started to swell into the credits, another girl came streaking down the hall and popped into my doorway. "Oh my god! This is my favorite show ever! I heard the music down the hall and came running!"
I immediately cracked up, to the point of not being able to breathe. Because, really, what are the chances of that?! This show was on the air ten years ago. These girls were little tiny kids then! It was weird enough that they wanted to watch it at all, but I really didn't expect so many of them to remember it. And if they did watch it, I didn't expect them to like it. I'm aware that FoLCdom is a small (if vocal{g}) community. And I'm used to thinking of the holes in the show, the corny moments and the things that make us want to throw things at the TV or beat Clark with a Kryptonite 2x4 or shake some sense into Lois. I forget, sometimes, that there really were quality moments there. Some really nice touches. It's refreshing to see it through someone else's eyes. And I'm making little disciples; they're already talking about going home and buying DVDs {g}. (Of course, if I were trying to make disciples of something, I'd have preferred it be Gargoyles, since that property actively needs fans and money, but I suppose beggars can't be choosers. And they've heard lots about Gargoyles, what with the comic, so maybe there's hope there too {g}.)
Their thoughts on L&C, as I remember them:
More of their responses later if I remember them. It's been fun seeing all this "fresh." In the meantime, back to Star Wars...
On the 4th of July, three of my girls and I were bored and I went clicking through the pictures on my Zen (mp3 player). There were a couple of L&C pictures there, and the girls commented on them. They found Dean attractive {g}. I'd mentioned at some point that I read fanfic for the show, and they'd looked through my DVDs and seen that I had several pages' worth of L&C. They wanted to watch the show. I found that a little weird, but I agreed to show it to them if they wanted. So we watched the Pilot on the TV in my room. They liked that well enough to want to watch the next few episodes (punctuated by some good-natured criticisms and eye-rolling, but also by exclamations of "He is so attractive!"). Later word got around to at least one other girl, who said she loved the show and asked that we let her know if we watched it again.
After that we got sufficiently busy with classwork that we didn't have time to watch much TV, but a few nights ago one of my girls showed up and literally wailed, "When are we going to watch more Lois and Clark? We need to see 'he is so attractive!'"
I pointed out that I wasn't going to force them to watch it, but if they showed up at my door I'd put it on for them. So last night my three girls came back. They didn't want to keep watching in sequential order, so they asked for "something shippy" with character development. I put in Barbarians at the Planet and we fast forwarded through a lot of the non-L&C bits. Then we went to the kitchen so one of them could cook dinner, and we put The House of Luthor on the TV there. Pretty soon we had a bunch of people eating dinner and watching with us. A bunch of them fondly remembered watching the show as kids. Then we watched The Phoenix, because they were upset that Lex Luthor never lost his hair and wanted to see progress between L&C. We finished up by going back in time and watching just the funny bits of Pheromone My Lovely before I had to run upstairs to show the next installment of Star Wars. They especially liked the end, where Superman kisses Lois at the airfield {g}. We watched that bit several times...
Tonight they showed up about half an hour before I was set to show the next Star Wars installment. I warned them that wasn't enough time to watch a whole episode. They didn't care. We watched Tempus Fugitive and fast forwarded to the funny bits. As the music started to swell into the credits, another girl came streaking down the hall and popped into my doorway. "Oh my god! This is my favorite show ever! I heard the music down the hall and came running!"
I immediately cracked up, to the point of not being able to breathe. Because, really, what are the chances of that?! This show was on the air ten years ago. These girls were little tiny kids then! It was weird enough that they wanted to watch it at all, but I really didn't expect so many of them to remember it. And if they did watch it, I didn't expect them to like it. I'm aware that FoLCdom is a small (if vocal{g}) community. And I'm used to thinking of the holes in the show, the corny moments and the things that make us want to throw things at the TV or beat Clark with a Kryptonite 2x4 or shake some sense into Lois. I forget, sometimes, that there really were quality moments there. Some really nice touches. It's refreshing to see it through someone else's eyes. And I'm making little disciples; they're already talking about going home and buying DVDs {g}. (Of course, if I were trying to make disciples of something, I'd have preferred it be Gargoyles, since that property actively needs fans and money, but I suppose beggars can't be choosers. And they've heard lots about Gargoyles, what with the comic, so maybe there's hope there too {g}.)
Their thoughts on L&C, as I remember them:
- They all think Dean was hot and are sad he's not as hot anymore. ("Why don't his clothes burn up? That would make this show way more interesting." I never got around to showing them All Shook Up...)
- They like Clark but find Lois rather abrasive.
- They have a hard time putting aside the pseudoscience. This is engineering camp, after all ;)
- They don't understand why Lois doesn't see Clark is Superman ;)
- They like Jimmy; they dislike Cat very much and were glad to hear she disappeared later.
- They don't find Lex attractive at all. They were very frustrated that he had hair.
- They thought the lead-lined robe line was creepy.
- One of them actually threw something at the TV when Clark crossed his fingers behind his back in House of Luthor. In general they found this scene obnoxious.
- They really liked the kissing scene at the airfield in PML. We watched it several times, in the kitchen with lots of people.
- They didn't sympathize with Lois being reluctant to date her best friend. Several of them are dating their best friends and don't have a problem with it. Maybe that sort of thing is easier in high school? Or maybe it's just that they didn't see how painfully long it took L&C to become friends?
- They didn't find Tempus as funny as I do, but it was still good. If we have time, I'll show them Tempus, Anyone?. Maybe just the funny bits.
- During Tempus Fugitive they started theorizing about Superman's descendants' DNA and how superpowers would be diluted. I told them they shouldn't think too hard about the science of a Superman show {g}.
More of their responses later if I remember them. It's been fun seeing all this "fresh." In the meantime, back to Star Wars...