Then came along a tv show. It started with mystery and the promise of a resolution to that mystery that got more and more interesting as the interconnectedness of all its components was revealed. It delved into the question of science vs. religion, seemingly spun out of equal parts philosophy, science and faith. It had characters to love and hate, often at the same time and those characters and the mysteries of their lives touched off a fan movement unlike anything before it.
People cared, deeply. They speculated on the possibilities. They shared their theories en masse. A small group gathered in one spot online and eventually this blog and a discussion forum grew out of all of that. It was glorious.
Looking back, it seems obvious that all of that was unsustainable. Part of the show's premise was to set up a fight between faith and science. It should have been foreseeable that something with a schism at its heart would spawn divisiveness in its fans. At first it was friendly, affable and fun. As the years wore on, that changed. As I said, none of this should have come as a surprise.
What I find most interesting in the history of this one small group of fans chatting about a show, then disagreeing about that show and then eventually really arguing about it is just how much its a micro version of what internet fandom in general has become in the last decade.
It makes me sad to see that those fans of Game of Thrones that didn't like the twists and turns of the final season have moved on from petitioning for a redo of season 8 (yeah, that'll happen -- and dragon eggs will shoot out of my butt) to petitioning for the removal of GoT showrunners from their next project, a yet to be named Star Wars movie.
Can you imagine? It's not enough to vocally criticize someone's work anymore. Let's demand they don't get to do anything else in the future. Yeah, that's reasonable.
Most people who know my history with LOST are still a bit shocked that I have never actually seen the last dozen or so episodes of it. Here's one of the show's most devoted fans, a recapper for a then major website, host of a discussion board and he stops watching?
How? Why? You may well ask. The answer is simple. That's the only control I exert over a show or a movie and that's as it should be. The creation of art is NOT a democracy. You don't like it? Turn it off. You don't like the ending? Sit down at a computer, write something better and find a way to get it out there.
If you've signed one of these bullshit petitions, you're in the wrong, period. Vote with your wallet, not some imagined fan clout. One and a half million people have voted for the ridiculous redo of season 8 of GoT. No matter how you "redo" season 8, one and a half million other folks will think the redo is awful and should be redone. It's nonsense. If you hated season 8, cancel your HBO subscription, don't buy the season set on blu-ray and that's the end of it. If you think you'll hate the Star Wars these two guys are going to make, when it comes out don't go see it.
As much as we love to praise and bitch, unless you are on the crew of a show, you don't get a vote. There is this weird perception in fandom that somehow the fans are owed the show they want. Bad news. We aren't owed a damned thing. They make the shows, we pay to see them or we don't. If enough money comes in, they make more. If we were owed the show we wanted to see, I might have remained a fan until the end of LOST.
If fans had the right to say how things go, every show would be a choose your own adventure like what Netflix recently did with Bandersnatch. I can foresee a day when that is the standard but I hope like hell I'm long dead by then. The idea that the audience controls the content is the death of any art form you care to name. An experimental piece like Bandersnatch is interesting. An entire landscape of television shows like it is terrifying. Let's give all the patrons of the Louvre crayons and chisels and see what happens, shall we?
Critics don't create.
"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so."
Peter O'Toole as Anton Ego
Ratatouille
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