General thoughts about sharing opinions on shows we watch.

Honestly? And I'm speaking ONLY for me, here, so YMMV.

Being one of the few people who didn't feel the Firefly love, and also disliking The Inside, I didn't generally post in those threads, for two reasons.

(1) It's kind of pointless to discuss why you dislike a show/book/whatever. I mean, yeah, you've got some initial grousing, but after that, what else is there to say? "Yeah, man -- still sucks, yeah." There's really no point -- to me -- in posting, because that isn't exactly intelligent discourse.

(2) In my opinion -- and I expect to be refuted very strongly, here -- expressing less-than-positive feelings about a Minear-related show seems to be frowned upon, at best.

I don't mean that there are smackdowns and declarations of "How dare you not love everything Tim Minear has ever done!" It's just an attitude that seems -- to me -- to pervade the Minearverse threads.

Honestly, this is just my observation, and not meant to speak for anyone but me. And everyone knows what a crackpot I am, anyway.

Minearverse is more of a fan thread than say the VM thread. So people are there because they're fans of his work, as opposed to watchers of it.

At least I'd wager it works that way more often than not, and more often than in the show threads.

Although Tim couldn't care less, his presence in the thread strengthens that.

I don't think the thread can *not* be a fannish thread, given his participation and familiarity. So that's going to make it feel more awkward, I think, to criticise work.

But I don't think people should give into that, anywhere. To a lesser degree another example would be not wanting to trash Eureka in Boxed Set because Colin posts there, and because he's my best friend.

I'd think that what it might positively accomplish is to make the "show sux!" posts more eloquent. Not that we have much problems with eloquence, but it's easy to slam a show casually. If you're slamming it in front of the writer, should probably beef the language up.

To sum up: Feeling like criticism is more unwelcome is probably natural, but don't feel pressured into giving in to that sensation.

I have seen that, but when The Inside was airing I posted that I didn't think it would be my thing without any smackdown. A number of others did as well.

I don't think I am alone in being hesitant to speak ill of a Minear show. I don't have this feeling about Lost or VM or any of the other shows we discuss. Tim has said to bring it on in thread. So fear not, when the time comes I'll toss in my opinions whether they are glowing or not.

Steph, I think you're probably right, and it's likely my fault.

Laura, I don't know what to tell you. I've stated several times now that my "metaphoric punch in the nose" was about personal attacks, not criticism. And you can bet if anyone was personally cruel to you, I'd throw down.

And that I also admitted that my response to Juliebird was irrational, and that I apologized for my stupid issue inthread.

And you can bet if anyone was personally cruel to you, I'd throw down.

I know you would. We're good.

There are huge differences between "that's not my thing," "what a poorly-written piece of crap," and "the person who wrote that must be an idiot." I think we all do a decent job of responding appropriately to each. There's nothing anyone can do about the first, the second would probably lead to discussion, and if the third is about a poster here, it's inappropriate.

Steph, I think you're probably right, and it's likely my fault.

I'm sure that you've contributed, and -- unlike almost all of the other Buffistas -- you have an actual personal relationship with Tim, so your feelings about his work and criticism thereof are justifiably strong.

But you are *far* from the only person who contributes to the Don't Dis The Minear attitude. Seriously.

you have an actual personal relationship with Tim, so your feelings about his work and criticism thereof are justifiably strong.

This...but not to the point where people don't want to discuss things because they don't want to deal with the byproduct.

I remember getting into some pretty decent arguments in Wonderfalls about certain things I couldn't stand about the show.

I also remember (maybe at Worldcrossing?) when I started to really dislike Angel, and it was an unwelcome thing to vent about why.

I think part of that is what you said before about dislike of a show not really leading into much discussion after a while.

I think part of that is what you said before about dislike of a show not really leading into much discussion after a while.

This is the main thing for me. I didn't avoid posting about Firefly because I was afraid people would flame me; I just didn't have much to say that I hadn't already said. My dislike didn't have layers and complexities, like, "And THIS week's episode gave me a whole NEW thing to hate!"

FWIW, I think the tone of a thread varies a lot. I divorced Angel acrimoniously, and got no flak saying so in-thread; I had serious issues with Firefly, and got no flak for saying so in-thread. I wonder, a bit, if I would get flak for saying so now, about that latter, because the only people who seem to talk in the Firefly thread are positivists about the show and/or movie; but I haven't tested that recently.

If Minearverse has a personality problem -- i.e., it's not welcoming the way other threads are welcoming -- how would we fix that? Because, you can slap individual hands, but it's very hard to change a personality.

I mean, I suppose that airing the issue for the general population is one way of trying to fix a thread-personality? Like the irregular metaphor-caucusing we always used to do whenever we worried what the Buffistas would end up being. (Notice how we don't do that nearly as much any more.)