Postmortem on Witchblade

[viridian5]

I've been trying to find the time to write this entry for over a month, so it may strike some of you as really old news.

I was heartbroken when Witchblade was cancelled, especially considering the Gabriel-related cliffhanger ending of the season two finale, but I have to admit that the writing staff lost its way during season two.

Comments

[anonymous]

I loved the series as well, I saw the same missed opportunities in the second season, and I hate unresolved cliffhanger endings.

What I wonder is why there isn't more Witchblade fanfic? Gen, case related/or episodic fanfic. There's a good batch of various shipper fics...but one of the reasons we used to write fanfic is to change canon, and to prolong the 'universe' of a series after cancellation. Nowdays, it seems that early cancellation of shows leads people to drift to the next shiny new obsession.

[viridian5]

I've wondered about the dearth of Witchblade fanfic too. Where was everybody? At least I wrote two. *snerk*

The lure of the shiny new thing is hard to resist. I think the suckage of the end of season two didn't help, since we didn't have enough time to build a relationship with the show that would make us keep watching for a long time in the hope that they'd pull out of the nosedive after all. (See The X-Files as an example.)

[anonymous]

Now, I'd have thought the suckage of season two would have inspired more fanfic...at least in the plain gen side of fandom usually when things get way weird in canon, a bunch of outraged fans try to 'fix' the direction the show is taking. But like I said, the only Witchblade fanfic I've really seen is shipper/slasher stuff...where the Witchblade universe and canon/fanon lore is less important than how cute Sara and Gabriel are, or Ian and Irons' twisted relationship.

Guess I'll have to write it myself.

[viridian5]

I have never understood what's up with Witchblade fanfic. The fandom didn't follow any of the rules my other ones did on how it operated....

[cloudtrader]

See, I loved the show, too. Great summarization, by the way, and I agree with most of what you say. I did like the Fight Club episode, although I enjoyed season one Conchobar better.

I wish there were more Witchblade fanfic.

Yes, Witchblade is on my list of shows-cancelled-too-soon along with Brimstone and the two you mentioned, which also are sadly lacking in fanfic.

[viridian5]

I preferred season one Conchobar too, and when you consider that I didn't like him much season one, think about what that means for the season two version....

Oh yeah, Brimstone! Another Fox Friday casualty that died too soon.

[flyingtapes]

Ooh, Brimstone. Good, good show.

I adored the first season of Witchblade. I watched it religiously. I cried when Conchobar died; I talked for weeks after the reset, which I loved.

The second season was an incredibly disappointment, unfortunately. The writers seemed to have no clue whatsoever about how to proceed; there was no clear delineating arc, like there was in the first season. It was as if the didn't expect the show to live beyond the first season.

Unfortunately, I managed to tape nearly all of the second season and none of the first. Sigh. I would dearly love to see the first season again. Lovely, intelligent post, V5.

[viridian5]

Thanks! I was obsessed enough that at the beginning of second season I wrote posts like What Is Gabriel Bowman? trying to see how the second season would fit with the first. How was I to know that the writers soon wouldn't care anymore?

I have first season on tape, but the picture is so fuzzy and muddy that, combined with first season's darkness, a lot of the time I have no idea who's on screen doing what. I shudder to think of what a second generation copy of that would look like. Sorry.

Re:

[flyingtapes]

This is from forever ago, but I'd take fuzzy S1 Witchblade over no WB at all. If you're willing, can we talk tapes?

[viridian5]

I'm sorry, but I have no way to make copies anymore. I only have the one VCR.