Color me at least slightly boggled that people read fics in fandoms for shows they don't watch.

Heck, it's how I got interested in all my most recent fandoms. I think I'd seen an episode of Smallville before I started reading the fanfic, but due South and Sentinel I hadn't, and Stargate I actively disliked (mostly because in my head it was like the snotty kid who moves in from a big city and thinks she's going to be all popular just because she shops at stores that have last names attached to them (as opposed to, say, "Hank's") so until she settles down she keeps trying to upstage the kid who actually is cool because she's just spiffy and funny and really smart and nice, but for a while you're afraid people are going to buy into City Girl's guff and start trying to act all snotty like her and meanwhile there'll be smaller and smaller attendance at the Grand Pirate Adventure Princess Veterinarian Superspy outing every weekend until it's just you and the girl who used to be cool and she can't help but be a little diminished in your eyes, but then twenty years later you come back and they're all living desperate-to-impress Big City Lives and she's got some wicked cool life in the outback either painting or rescuing wallabies and she sweeps you off your feet and you have a passionate affair after which you live happily ever after and just end up feeling sorry for all the other girls because they too could have grown up smart and cool and had a wild passionate affair and a happy ever after, so there's a sort of bittersweet tinge to your contentment) until the fanfic got me to take a second look.

Whereas I've never been able to really get into fic for shows I don't watch, no matter how well-written and plotted the story as a story. It's a different strokes thing, I suppose.

See, if you don't know the show, it's almost like reading original fiction.

I watched Due South when it was originally broadcast on CBS, and I liked it, but not fannishly. I watch SG-1, but not especially fannishly. OTOH, I loved most of Farscape.

Due South is on in rerun on Canada's Showcase channel.

Hmph.

I have read a few Due South stories, but mostly just flashfic things that friends post in their LJs, that are short enough they're not even behind cut tags. So I read them. I know the basic premise, but some of it escapes me...

But I keep MEANING to watch more, so I can read more fanfic...(yes, I only want to watch the show so I can read the fanfic. It's sad, really)

I think they should film Emily's post and show it every Xmas.

Is that too long to COMM?

See, if you don't know the show, it's almost like reading original fiction.

Very much like, especially if it's good. Actually, I think it's probably good practice (for the people who actually work at it) in that it shows how useful it is to have a fully defined character in mind.

(Also, the wallaby-rescuing wicked cool lesbian lover above was played by Farscape.)

yes, I only want to watch the show so I can read the fanfic. It's sad, really

This is why I watched The Sentinel. I'm not entirely sure it was worth it, mind you.

Is that too long to COMM?

Nah. Hey, if Hec can COMM the Story of Billytea's Testicle...

This is why I watched The Sentinel. I'm not entirely sure it was worth it, mind you.

Me too. And me too. See, I'd like to see more of it in order because otherwise I'd feel strange writing fic for it. On the other hand... it would require watching more Sentinel, and so far I only tend to really enjoy the last five seconds. You know, when they do The Joking Around. Oh, and the bit at the beginning, too, where they go, "In the jungles! Of Brazil," and I always say it along with it and then feel really stupid because I'm not only watching a really bad TV show, I'm SINGING ALONG....

Whew. I blame the drugs.

See, if you don't know the show, it's almost like reading original fiction.

You'd think, but it tends to read very differently. All the artfully-integrated canon that good fanfic lives for reads as something that the author takes for granted that we know, if you don't know what they're talking about. Which, of course, the author does. And I don't mean that as a bad thing -- but it's definitely a different feeling reading it than reading original fiction.

Although, Emily reminds me, there's one exception to the whole don't-read-fic-for-shows-I-don't-watch rule, since it's how I got into SV fandom in the first place. How silly of me to forget that here of all places.

I'm trying to think of something to redeem Sentinel.

Having a hard time.

Except that maybe you get some of the more obscure references in the fic.

Hey! I ENJOY Sentinel.

It's cheerfully bad. And hello? The Gay!Jim flashbacks? With the earring and the 'stache?

Priceless visual comedy,