Recently , I was engaging in one of my preferent pastimes : rewatching telly shows I get laid when I was a kid . Thanks to the various streaming websites , it ’s really , really easy to relive sometime passions without offend the bank on DVD sets . ( My idol was it expensive to watch every installment of a show back when a time of year be some the same amount as a elevator car … provided that the show was even one of the special chosen 1 to get a videodisc firing . )
In this font , I decided to rewatch Highlander : The Series , which I love basically more than the any of the movies , including the first one . ( Yes , really . ) The show is objectively less good than that first movie . And its moving picture are some of the absolute worst things I have ever seen . But it still has a heavy place in my heart .
I was shocked to discover that the idiot box show I loved is so dated that it becomes physically painful to watch . Dear the ’ ninety , why did every show need to apply the slow - question high-strung rapid climb to convey a big moment ? And why has it age so badly ? And how , how , had I not noticed it before ?
The answer , of course , is fanfic .
I ’ve study a lot more fanfic set in that world since the show went off the air then I have in reality see the show . And when I have gone back to watch the show , it ’s been very specific episodes , the single I have the affectionate memories of . render to watch the whole matter over … did n’t make for as well .
Fanfic perplex a unfit rap and it drives me brainsick , because there are a circumstances of things that owe their continued fandom to it . For every long hiatus or bad season , fanfic is there to redeem you .
Let ’s take my beloved Highlander : The Series as an case . Its central conceit — immortals — intend that you could do multiple period pieces and still keep the primary characters . Also , the vastness of hundreds of long time — thousands in the case of a character like Methos — have in mind that the show could n’t explore everything , which let fanfic authors slot their stories into the whole . And fans dead saw a depth to the characters that , perhaps , the show did n’t have time to make grow .
When a show goes off the rail , fanfic can keep masses invested even if the show has lose them . I give up on Sleepy Hollow because it decided to shit all over the fans for no reason . But there ’s fanfic that has make an ending that everyone actually deserve , and its existence means I can still look out the good seasons without running into the street , blood streaming from my eyes , screaming for expiry .
Some shows are pretty downy , and it takes fanfic to search the layers that are only hinted at onscreen . That ’s the kind of fic that benefitted the oldblue sky USA web shows . Some show have premises that allow devotee to let loose with creativity , like Doctor Who , where all of time and blank is a possibility . And when you have a show with a suspension as long as Doctor Who ’s , it ’s nice to have fanfic to keep telling stories in that universe . There ’s also something about the written word — it ages a lot less than the effects or the tv camera shots of the original .
In these circumstances , the tone of the fic can outstrip the quality of the show . That is a good affair ; it mean that the show is inspiring , and that people care enough about the characters to desire to tell stories . And it mean that they are getting more out of it than was intended . A show with solid characters and a good assumption lives on in fanfic even when the genuine show may be floundering .
I have a lean of display like that — shows where I would say I ’m a fan , but where I would also say I have n’t rewatched them in a while . What are yours ?
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