selenak

Got a new beautiful icon of the SpyParents from ~~Godot~~ ~~G'Kar~~

sabine101. You know, I'm really looking forward to see what Ultimate Drew and Jeff Bell are going to make of the Alias characters, and hope for at least one great flashback ep from Drew Goddard, concentrating on the Jack & Sloane backstory. And/or Jack/Irina flashbacks.

Speaking of writers: it seems in Potterdom 'shipper wars have momentarily been suspended by pro/con JKR wars. You know, if I had a penny for every time in every fandom I've read statements to the effect of "creator X/writers Y and Z/all of the above don't deserve this character, fanfic is so much better, they were just lucky when stumbling across the character/the universe" I'd be a millionaire. It still manages to tick me off. I like fanfic as much as the next fangirl. I don't always agree with all the decisions TPTB in question make in several of my fandoms. But this sense of entitlement, this idea that "the fans" (by which the poster usually just means "me and my friends who have the same preferences I have", or just "me") are more "deserving" of a fictional universe and one or several characters in it then the writer(s) who thought it up and put years of their lives in it just strikes me as incredibly presumptious.

In the specific JKR case, this post rather sums up my own thoughts on the matter. But since I couldn't care less about Draco, or who ends up with whom romantically, I admit this is pretty easy to me. So, let's get specific about some characters I did care about and whose storylines did not go the way I had originally hoped in other fandoms instead. Not to beat a deceased equine, but I thought, and still think, the DS9 writers made a mistake when turning Dukat into a one-dimensional demented villain in the middle of the sixth season. However, this does not mean it ruined the show for me - I didn't watch DS9 for Dukat, I loved many, if not all of the characters, appreciated their stories, and am for the most part very content with their ultimate fate - nor that I think that Ira Behr & Co. had it in for Dukat, hated the character, didn't appreciate him enough, didn't deserve him, etc. (My own theory is that they needed a physical oponent for Sisko to battle in the finale, since at that point it was already appearant that Sisko wouldn't be instrumental or even needed in the resolution of the Dominion and Cardassia storylines - that was for Odo, Kira and Garak.) They made a decision. I don't think it was the right one, but it was theirs to make. Not mine. It certainly did not diminish their great contribution to the ST universe, or make DS9 less of a show.

While we're talking Star Trek:

alara_r has posted a great essay about Q. Which gave me a TNG nostalgia, though my experience of becoming a fan was vastly different from Alara's. I had watched TOS as a child and liked it a lot, had loved STII and III in the cinema, but I didn't feel any original fan "how dare they?" indignation when TNG began to air. The very shaky first season didn't entrance me, but I liked enough of what I saw to stick around for season 2, and was very glad I did. (Most people date TNG getting better from Best of both Worlds, the season 3 cliffhanger, but to me, season 2 was when I started to fall in love.) It's become fashionable to denigrate TNG these days, as if that was the only way to praise other tv shows, whether it's Trek's own DS9, or Farscape, or Babylon 5, or Firefly. And I don't understand the necessity of it.

kathyh recently told me she thinks TNG ushered in a golden age of genre tv, and that is how I remember it as well. It's not my greatest love within the Trekverse (that would be DS9). And DS9 just barely falls behind B5 in my overall sci-fi love (though it's a close match). But that doesn't mean I don't have fond TNG memories.

What connects this to the earlier subject? Well, back in the day, when TNG was a fledgling show, it changed head producers in the second season. From the second season onwards, a young turk named Rick Berman was in charge, replacing Gene Roddenberry who was still around till his death, but only in a consulting fashion. That would be the same Rick Berman who is regularly reviled ever since Voyager, together with the second boo-hiss-evoking guy in Trek fandom, Brannon Braga. Who also came on board during those early TNG years.

It's seventeen years of uninterrupted work later, and I do think Berman & Braga are exhausted, and should let it go. Not surprising, considering the timespan. Still, this doesn't negate in any way that it was Berman who, as head producer of TNG, found and hired such talents as Ira Behr, Ronald D. Moore, Richard Manning, Hans Beimler, Peter Allan Fields, all of whom were going to be instrumental in shaping DS9 and honed their craft during those earlier TNG years under his aegis. Family, the episode following the Borg two-parter Best of Both Worlds, and arguably the first Trek episode ever to break the reset button rule - i.e. it followed up on traumatic events which happened to a character earlier, in this case Picard's assimilation by the Borg, was written by Ron Moore. Reunion, the first Trek episode which plays a "character put between Federation ethics and own ethical code" a scenario and lets the "own ethical code" win (Worf kills Duras because Duras murdered his lover K'ehleyr against Picard's strict orders) was written by Moore, and, wait for it, Brannon Braga. The Drumhead, aka Trek does MacCarthyism and presents not just our guest star of the week, but several of our regulars subsceptible to it? Written by Jeri Taylor, who went on to co-create the least favourite child of Trekdom, Voyager. Each time I read another rant on how Berman & Braga "ruined" Star Trek, I remember that they gave me a show I cherished. As I said, I think they should let it go now, and do what Moore and Manning did, who (after DS9) moved on to create/co-create the new version of Battlestar Galactica and Farscape respectively. Doesn't mean I've forgotten their past achievments, or think they never "deserved" the characters/ the ST universe.

Come to think of it, Babylon 5's JMS seems to be the only creator/headwriter of a universe who didn't get the "doesn't deserve/doesn't understand the characters as we do/ruined" treatment from the fandom at one point or the other. I mean, of course he got critisized for several things, but not in those particular terms. Though, I wait, I dimly recall some Marcus fan or the other complaining that Marcus (with or without Ivanova) was the best part of the show, and that his death "ruined" it, but that wasn't a majority opinion or huge controversy. (For the record, I might be prejudiced because to me Marcus was one of the least interesting characters, but I think that even if I had loved him to bits, I wouldn't have assumed he had any important role in the overall storyarcs - you could remove Marcus entirely from season 3 and 4, and those would not be changed except for Ivanova's fate at the end of 4 - , and B5 was all about the arcs.)

While we're talking B5:

kangeiko has written a great G'Kar ficlet. And I coaxed

andrastewhite into writing a G'Kar essay for