The Great Blake's 7 Fannish Outrage Game!

[aeshna_uk]

There has, of late, been a fair amount of fannish wailing and rending of garments over certain developments in Torchwood: Children of Earth, protests that certain things Should Not Be Done on TV shows where people might have some sort of emotional investment in the characters. Things that, frankly, I have absolutely no problem with whatsoever! But then I thought that, actually, that might have something to do with my early exposure to genre shows, back in the days when spoilers meant reading the Radio Times (which we didn't get). I can remember being upset when Adric died (hey, I was 11!), and then there was the great and glorious (see previous age disclaimer) Blake's 7....

So, here's a fun game! Imagine, if you will, that the same level of fannish entitlement computer and internet access existed back in the days when B7 was first airing. What online reactions and campaigns could we expect to see to each character death? Each replacement character? The destruction of familiar sets? Separations? Solo stories? Random blondes? Never mind the way it all ended! I'll admit to having only hazy memories of much of it, but I know there are folks out there who are much more familiar with it than I am.

Thoughts, rants, wails, rended garments (any of which may, or may not, bear a passing resemblance to certain more recent fannish storms), etc in comments, please. Go on, you know you want to. ;)

(Please feel free to pass on.... :))

Comments

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

stop inciting mingmerciless to rebellion and mouth-foaming, you.

[mingmerciless.livejournal.com]

No inciting going to happen - I loved the high casualty rate in B7 and the often futile ways they died too e.g. final end: Avon kills Blake over a misunderstanding and he and the rest get wiped out by the Federation not because of some cunning trap on their part but because of simple bad timing. Brilliantly bleak stuff!

Never mind that, imagine the outcry over the deaths of good characters in Band of Brothers. "OMFG! Who cares if, historically, he died because he happened to be lying where the shell landed?! What's the point in watching the series and investing in characters if the Germans could randomly kill them at any moment?!" Having fun imaginining save[Insert para name here].com websites ;-)

[aeshna_uk]

Hey, given the fanfic he was threatening to write last night, this is the safer option! And besides, couldn't you imagine the campaigns to send empty washing-up liquid bottles and sticky-backed plastic to the BBC so they could build a new Liberator?

[mingmerciless.livejournal.com]

What do you think? Would it garner me a fatwa or two?

[aeshna_uk]

You know, you joke about that.... ;)

[angharaddu.livejournal.com]

That was going to be my suggested protest to the Beeb as well

[aeshna_uk]

Maybe we should just send them all our recycling and let them puzzle it out. ;)

[mingmerciless.livejournal.com]

I'M OUTRAGED BY IANTO'S DEATH. HE SHOULD HAVE GOT A BULLET IN THE HEAD TWO SEASONS AGO AFTER CYBERWOMAN!!!!

[aeshna_uk]

While I can't disagree with that, personally I'd have gone for having him carved up by the cannibals two episodes later. They had the cleaver to his throat and everything.... ;)

[telepresence.livejournal.com]

To this day, even thinking about Cyberwoman... ugh, I can still see Ianto's squinchy blubbering face as his Terminator Barbie kills people.

[aeshna_uk]

It was the squinchy blubbering face that first made me want the character dead - not least because he ended up looking (and, indeed, sounding) like Beaker-the-Muppet....

[eledonecirrhosa.livejournal.com]

protests that certain things Should Not Be Done on TV shows where people might have some sort of emotional investment in the characters

Um, so they only want big, emotionally impactful plots in shows where the characters are blanded out bits of cardboard that no-one CARES if they live or die???

Offhand, I think B7 would have had these fannish campaigns:
- bring back the original Travis
- and the counter campaign, No don't - the new one is fine.
- bring back Blake
- and the counter campaign, No don't - the new guy is fine.
- bring back the Liberator
- and the counter campaign, No don't - the new ship is fine.

Repeat ad nauseam for Cally, Jenna, the whole crew, etc.

[aeshna_uk]

Um, so they only want big, emotionally impactful plots in shows where the characters are blanded out bits of cardboard that no-one CARES if they live or die???

That does seem to be the argument - or at least that there should be the Untouchable Few and the Redshirts, of which only the latter category may die, so as to prevent any emotional trauma. Or, you know, drama. But it rather takes all the interest out of a show if you have a guaranteed outcome every time. It's not as if you do in real life, after all!

B7 got through characters at a fairly amazing rate and was all the stronger for it - it's a lot more involving when there are no guarantees! :)

[aeron-lanart.livejournal.com]

Or we can go all Star Trek and decry the loss of a strong female figure in Tasha Yar and go on about how it proves that Trek is misogynistic. And send knickers or something.

Funny thing about Adric dying was that I was more shocked that a companion was killed, rather than upset about it being Adric (who was annoying - I was 14). I remember being gobsmacked to hell and then having the 'silent' credits after that was just like OMG they really did that!

Then there was B5; Marcus and Kosh and a whole host of others went out in a blaze of - well nothing really. And don't even get me started on Highlander! I suppose I can't really count that as fandom on t'interwebs had taken off by then, albeit on a lot smaller scale. Seeing the state of some of the batshit TW fans makes me all nostalgic for Clan Denial and the outcry about Richie - in comparison Clan Denial was full of very sensible and sane people. *snicker* Oh yeah, I was a member...

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

Marcus Is Not Dead. He's just... very chilly. ;)

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

...and he wants to get out of this *box*! =:o>

(Has anyone rediscovered the tape of that yet? Put it up on YouTube, perchance? [GOES HUNTING] )

[mingmerciless.livejournal.com]

My favourite recent example was the penultimate episode of Sarah Connor Chronicles where Derek just walks into the same room as a Terminator and it just shoots him through the head before he has a chance to react and carries on without missing a beat. Brutal, casual and so plausible.

[aeshna_uk]

Hee! I have the nasty feeling that sending knickers to Roddenberry might have given him entirely the wrong idea.... ;)

B5 and HL were both internet-era, though on a much smaller scale - I was never one of the B5 mega-fans but I can remember all the fuss when, after months of the American fans chucking spoilers around with abandon, British TV overtook them for a few episodes and things got a tad messy! ;) Was never into HL but while I've heard of the ructions over Richie, it sounds as though things were saner than with Ianto. Mind you, I guess there were other major slash pairings in that fandom, and there are few who wouldn't appear sane compared to some of the nutters currently running around!

[parmanya.livejournal.com]

Actually, if we're talking about internet-era fandoms, I think a better equivalent would be "La Femme Nikita"'s 6th season.
This was a fandom where some of the writing staff actually hung out on the alt.fan.* newsgroup, and literally would put in small things that the fans had requested (I kid you not, and was confirmed).
And then, the final season made a "lie" out of all the things fans had invested in during the previous 5, killed off several loved characters, made you hate others, and also had plot-points that were *directly contradicted* by previous episodes (camera-POV-omniscient, so it wasn't just character-perspective issues). They left scorched earth behind, while destroying the aspects that fans had loved - and I think that's how people are feeling in regards to COE. Just my $0.02; ymmv and all that.
Thank you for this thought-provoking thread!

[aeshna_uk]

Not a show I'm familiar with at all, but it sounds like a good example of why the writing and the fan sides of a show really should be kept utterly separate - which is, I think, one of the great strengths of TW/DW, that they're aware of fandom but deliberately choose to ignore it. Which makes sense (and is certainly what I'd do in their situation!) - the current creative teams are long-time fans themselves and likely well aware of some of the mindsets involved. They're not going to get flattered by the attention!

It sounds like LFM had a messy ending there and was rightly loathed for it, but CoE followed on quite nicely from previous series, for me. And it's not as if it was hated by everybody in fandom - I'm a TW fan, always have been, saw the cinematic previews for s1 and s3, was writing fanfic for the show 6 months before there was a show, and I bloody loved it: no scorched earth issues there! :) Some fans like some aspects, some like others, but for me, at least, the fundamentals are still there and the show is now in a position to change and evolve to suit its new audience. And the non-fannish viewers - who are, after all, the vast majority and the target audience - seemed to love it!

(Note: I like both slash and het, though I usually write gen. For me, the show is about Jack and his immortality, about Gwen and her (and Rhys) becoming a part of his world, and about the Institute itself over time - I adore the underlying sense of history to it, the fact that the 'team' is a fluid and ever-changing thing. And just as it has the history, it has a future, and I'd quite like to see it evolve away from the "five people in a Cardiff basement" format (much as I loved the first two series) into something bigger and more BBC1-friendly. And new fans will come and some old ones go and that's just the way it should be... :))

Thank you for this thought-provoking thread!

You're welcome. :) It just seems so odd to me that a lot of what I found so exciting about the shows I grew up with - the real sense of danger, the fact that things did change and characters die - are now considered such utter no-nos by some online. But if everything always remains the same, it just makes the show dull and the characters uninvolving.

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

All these years later, that ending to Blake's 7 still hurts. I was actually nervous about watching it when I got the DVDs, and was able to see it for the first time in twenty-five years. And it still hurt. It's bloody good, though. :)

You can imagine it back in the day, can't you. Hate campaigns against Chris Boucher. Fans threatening to send the BBC endless packages of Avon cosmetics. To be fair, I have actually written B7 "they all survived, honest" fanfiction in my time, mostly involving freakishly complicated plot twists (I was a teenager, it probably seemed like a good idea). Part of me still does quite like the idea that they escaped. Having finally seen that episode again, though... it's good just as it is, damn it. It really, really is. Painful, but good.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm just away to start up a "Bring Back Tarrant And Dayna NOW, Damn It!" campaign. I plan to send the BBC lots of home perm kits, and dolls dressed in very tight leather. Also I will stand outside TV Centre chanting favourite lines of dialogue, and threatening myself with a rubber monster.

It will work. Oh yes.

[aeshna_uk]

You know, I'm not sure that I've ever rewatched it since it was first aired! But it's one of those televisual events that is just burned into my memory - painful, and bloody unexpected at the time, but it fitted the show and it was a great ending in all its messy misfortune.

Home perm kits are a good idea... though they'll probably forward them on to ITV (or direct to Martin Shaw), figuring they're from a disgruntled Professionals fan! As for Dayna - I think Josette Simon has spent the last couple of decades trying to pretend she was never in anything so lowbrow. So actually reminding folks of her involvement could almost be funny. ;)

It will work. Oh yes.

Hey, it's no weirder than some of the things I've heard suggested over the last couple of weeks!

[mingmerciless.livejournal.com]

As for Dayna - I think Josette Simon has spent the last couple of decades trying to pretend she was never in anything so lowbrow. So actually reminding folks of her involvement could almost be funny. ;)

Oh yeah. A friend once said she wanted to attend some awards ceremony where Josette Simon was receiving some award so she could stand up and yell "WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO SNOG AVON?"