Rest in Peace
Feb. 17th, 2004 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynI haven't wanted to write about my feelings regarding Angel being cancelled. For a lot of reasons, probably mostly that I don't feel like anyone else has said they feel, and I've been avoiding a lot of the FL anyway because so much of people's reactions annoyed or hurt me. Yes, I know it's stupid to be hurt by things people say in the LJs, but I can't help it: I feel like somene took a cheese grater to my heart, and reading about people kicking the corpse of the only fannish show I had left airing in current time just... hurts. I'm astonished, even after all my years in fandom as a Very Old Fan from back before the dawn of time, to see how compassionless and unempathetic people can be -- all the smug "I hate the show"s and the "I gave up on it years ago" and the "it's crap anyway"s made me run away from my own FL, and that's not a good feeling when most of the time, the LJ community has been a positive and ... dare I say it, nurturing place for me.
Too, this is happening at a big emotional time for me -- I'm out of work and terrified of my future, I am a born fan who has nothing currently to feel excited about on TV if Angel's gone, the shows I do watch loyally such as Alias and 24 and Gilmore Girls are disappointing me this year, and I'm working on a Firefly vid that is reminding me each time I load clips that the one thing that would have been that fannish successor to Buffy and Angel is gone, as well. I'm bouncing all over the place emotionally, and it makes the loss harder, and the harshness of other voices crueller. People are entitled to say what they want, of course, wherever they want, but I wonder sometimes why. As much as I dislike Smallville, for instance, outside of a few rare anti-SV rants, it would never occur to me to get on my LJ and talk about all the reasons why I don't like it, and kick the corpse if it got cancelled. I guess I'd want to be there for my friends and feel some empathy if they were losing their big fandom show.
I almost gave up on Angel during S3, for a number of reasons, but mostly because with the baby story, I felt like it was turning into crap. But I kept with it, and they rewarded me with an incredible kickass story. And it's been up and down since then, but that's okay, because all shows are up and down. The richness of the universe, the character growth, the stylishness of the show, the darkness of the stories... these were all so wonderful to me that if eps went up and down in quality, I was okay. For every bad story, there would be a good one, and even if ME didn't always go in the directions I wanted (especially with Spike on this season), I was happy to pay them my ticket and go on the big E-ride.
A few years ago I got into a disagreement on a list I belong to, when someone made a snide comment about how she'd have to be sick to want to watch Angel. I took umbrage, and defended it, and it turned into a big thing that had sadly lasting repurcussions with some folks. But I felt like my show was being attacked, my guys, my taste. For some reason some of the more vituperative comments people have made about how this is good riddance reminds me all too well of that argument.
I know I can still vid and write in the universe. But I've always been excited to create by the new material, by trying to make sense of the new directions a show goes in, or characters change in. Fandoms drop off after shows are gone because people graze and move on now (back in the day, the Trek and Professionals fandoms really only got huge after they were off the air, but things are very different now) -- look at how small XF is compared to its heyday in season 4-5. And I wonder what on earth I can write about here if not reviews and dissections of the show, which feels like the community is shrinking again. It's already shrunk a lot as people have moved on post-Buffy, and while I realize a lot of folks will stick with the Jossverse, it feels like much of the reason for being here, the connections, will become redundant and disappear. That's sad to me.
Mostly, though, the simple fact is, I love Angel. I love the show, the character, and the people he works with. I love the world that Joss created when he moved Angel to LA, I love peeling away the layers of each new episode and finding what's at the heart of this creation. I love the snappy repartee and the in-jokes and the dark questions of what evil and good mean, and I love hair that sticks up and coats that flow and vampires who fly and smart guys with English accents and pretty men everywhere the eye can see. I love Angel with Buffy, without Buffy, with Lindsey and Lilah, with Spike, with Wes, with Cordy and Fred and Gunn and Lorne and Doyle, with everyone, and without them.
And I don't know exactly how to let go of that. I haven't let go of Buffy yet, really, and the hurt's still there. This Firefly vid reminds me of how much *that* hurt. No one does shows that speak to my fan brain as well as Joss does. He's like a magician to my fannish soul, pulling out all these incredible tricks, making some boo-boos, and always keeping me interested. The show seemed to be in a great creative place lately, to me, anyway, and I really thought the WB would stick with it since the ratings were okay, and they don't really have a lot of good stuff for their fall slate. It's like my job -- I thought I was safe because I was so busy, and got kneecapped by the evil new guy. Angel seemed to be doing all right, but they got kneecapped for doing all right. I don't get it; I never will. This network desire for the lowest common denominator never has made sense to me. Tonight there's a new episode of Keen Eddie we never got to see on Fox, and it just reminds me that this smart little cable place like Bravo had the sense to pick it up, and to show Queer Eye. And I wonder why there can't be more people out there with a bit of vision *before it's too late*, like with KE.
I am doing too much mourning right now in my real life to cope with mourning my last connection to the Buffy world I fell in love with so many years ago. It's just not in me. It's a lot easier to write about stupid stuff, and I probably will. My friend joked, well, you can always write about grammar. Which is depressing -- what's connected me so far has been the love for these entertainments I've shared with others. I just don't want to lose that, and can't quite accept it yet.
I'm off to Escapade on Thursday, though, where I hope my friends will raise a glass to the show with me. The companionship of the con is going to be needed now, more than even before when I got laid off. Even the forecast of rainy cool weather won't let me be too sad, I hope.
Too, this is happening at a big emotional time for me -- I'm out of work and terrified of my future, I am a born fan who has nothing currently to feel excited about on TV if Angel's gone, the shows I do watch loyally such as Alias and 24 and Gilmore Girls are disappointing me this year, and I'm working on a Firefly vid that is reminding me each time I load clips that the one thing that would have been that fannish successor to Buffy and Angel is gone, as well. I'm bouncing all over the place emotionally, and it makes the loss harder, and the harshness of other voices crueller. People are entitled to say what they want, of course, wherever they want, but I wonder sometimes why. As much as I dislike Smallville, for instance, outside of a few rare anti-SV rants, it would never occur to me to get on my LJ and talk about all the reasons why I don't like it, and kick the corpse if it got cancelled. I guess I'd want to be there for my friends and feel some empathy if they were losing their big fandom show.
I almost gave up on Angel during S3, for a number of reasons, but mostly because with the baby story, I felt like it was turning into crap. But I kept with it, and they rewarded me with an incredible kickass story. And it's been up and down since then, but that's okay, because all shows are up and down. The richness of the universe, the character growth, the stylishness of the show, the darkness of the stories... these were all so wonderful to me that if eps went up and down in quality, I was okay. For every bad story, there would be a good one, and even if ME didn't always go in the directions I wanted (especially with Spike on this season), I was happy to pay them my ticket and go on the big E-ride.
A few years ago I got into a disagreement on a list I belong to, when someone made a snide comment about how she'd have to be sick to want to watch Angel. I took umbrage, and defended it, and it turned into a big thing that had sadly lasting repurcussions with some folks. But I felt like my show was being attacked, my guys, my taste. For some reason some of the more vituperative comments people have made about how this is good riddance reminds me all too well of that argument.
I know I can still vid and write in the universe. But I've always been excited to create by the new material, by trying to make sense of the new directions a show goes in, or characters change in. Fandoms drop off after shows are gone because people graze and move on now (back in the day, the Trek and Professionals fandoms really only got huge after they were off the air, but things are very different now) -- look at how small XF is compared to its heyday in season 4-5. And I wonder what on earth I can write about here if not reviews and dissections of the show, which feels like the community is shrinking again. It's already shrunk a lot as people have moved on post-Buffy, and while I realize a lot of folks will stick with the Jossverse, it feels like much of the reason for being here, the connections, will become redundant and disappear. That's sad to me.
Mostly, though, the simple fact is, I love Angel. I love the show, the character, and the people he works with. I love the world that Joss created when he moved Angel to LA, I love peeling away the layers of each new episode and finding what's at the heart of this creation. I love the snappy repartee and the in-jokes and the dark questions of what evil and good mean, and I love hair that sticks up and coats that flow and vampires who fly and smart guys with English accents and pretty men everywhere the eye can see. I love Angel with Buffy, without Buffy, with Lindsey and Lilah, with Spike, with Wes, with Cordy and Fred and Gunn and Lorne and Doyle, with everyone, and without them.
And I don't know exactly how to let go of that. I haven't let go of Buffy yet, really, and the hurt's still there. This Firefly vid reminds me of how much *that* hurt. No one does shows that speak to my fan brain as well as Joss does. He's like a magician to my fannish soul, pulling out all these incredible tricks, making some boo-boos, and always keeping me interested. The show seemed to be in a great creative place lately, to me, anyway, and I really thought the WB would stick with it since the ratings were okay, and they don't really have a lot of good stuff for their fall slate. It's like my job -- I thought I was safe because I was so busy, and got kneecapped by the evil new guy. Angel seemed to be doing all right, but they got kneecapped for doing all right. I don't get it; I never will. This network desire for the lowest common denominator never has made sense to me. Tonight there's a new episode of Keen Eddie we never got to see on Fox, and it just reminds me that this smart little cable place like Bravo had the sense to pick it up, and to show Queer Eye. And I wonder why there can't be more people out there with a bit of vision *before it's too late*, like with KE.
I am doing too much mourning right now in my real life to cope with mourning my last connection to the Buffy world I fell in love with so many years ago. It's just not in me. It's a lot easier to write about stupid stuff, and I probably will. My friend joked, well, you can always write about grammar. Which is depressing -- what's connected me so far has been the love for these entertainments I've shared with others. I just don't want to lose that, and can't quite accept it yet.
I'm off to Escapade on Thursday, though, where I hope my friends will raise a glass to the show with me. The companionship of the con is going to be needed now, more than even before when I got laid off. Even the forecast of rainy cool weather won't let me be too sad, I hope.
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-18 07:26 am (UTC)Me? I've been talking with friends about the state of television and am on the verge of deciding that it's time to go back to X-Files fandom and read again, and maybe write. There's so much there that was good, and it's been a few years, or at least enough time for me to go back to enjoying the characters, even if so far it's not enough time for me to write again. But some time soon, I'm hoping.
We're still on for dinner at Escapade, right?