Astral's
Phases
When I like something, I really like something--entertainment-wise,
anyway. I don't fall for the pillowcases or lunchboxes, but I usually
find myself collecting tons of unnecessary magazines and books. And
I can't think about anything else until something new catches my eye, at
which point the first thing usually fades from my mind. Lest you think
I'm too fickle, I assure you that these phases, as I call them, often last
for months before shifting around. And it has happened more than once that
I return to a previously-abandoned phase years later, at which point I'm
grateful for the shelf full of books I never got around to reading the first
time (or possibly the second).
In any event, this timeline is an attempt to list all of my major phases.
It will probably never be really complete, but I find it nostalgic
to look back. My goal is to include a representative, but not
comprehensive, list of links to which you (or I) can turn for further
information.
X-Men I
-
This started when I was still in junior high and was hooked, along with all
my friends, on the first cartoon series and the collectible cards. I
think I have at least one or two complete sets of those things and plenty
more partials--I was really obsessive. But, having to wait a whole
week before a new episode aired strained my patience, apparently, and I don't
think I lasted beyond the first run of the first season.
X-Files
-
When did X-Files first air? I can't quite recall anymore, but I didn't
get into it until the third season. I was resisting watching any "network"
shows, but finally the constant advertising and hype got to me. My
first episode was the universally panned "Teso Dos Bichos" or something like
that--it was the one with the killer kitties in the basement of the university.
I just remember Gillian Anderson saying how she hated making that ep
because they had to use fake cats covered in rabbit fur (due to her allergies)
and she got bits of it stuck to her face. Well, it's a bit vague now.
In any event, my second ep was the universally acclaimed "Irresistible,"
and after that I was hooked. From here at the computer I can look over
and see my X-Files shelf--the first four official companions (which are very
nice and thorough, by the way), the first four novels, maybe a dozen of the
commercial videos, several unofficial companions and unauthorized bios, and
about a dozen TV Guides focusing on the show. This doesn't even include
all the magazines and such I've got piled away in the closet. I used
to have more--those junior novelizations and all--but I gave a lot of it
away to the junior high's library. I kept the rest for historic purposes.
-
I think I got into it at a good time--I was able to see the show grow from
a cult sensation mentioned in passing only by sophisticated magazines into
a mainstream phenomenon...and into an aging, old-guard warhorse. The
last couple of seasons just didn't capture my imagination and it became a
chore to watch it each week. So, I stopped. That's the way of
things, after all.
-
As a reader, I dove headfirst into X-Files fanfic. I subscribed to
every mailing list, combed every archive...I still find old disks labelled
"X-Files Fanfic Yellow" and "X-Files Fanfic IV." I just love fanfic
in general, really.
Avonlea
-
Oh, I loved Avonlea. It was a lovely family-friendly show from
Canada that used to air on the Disney Channel every week and was based on
characters and situations created by L.M. Montgomery (the author of Anne
of Green Gables). It followed the turn-of-the-(20th)-century adventures
of the King family and their friends in the little farming-fishing community
of Avonlea, on Prince Edward Island, and it was the very definition of good
clean fun that actually was fun and not preachy or dull. And
the Avonlea fans I met online were some of the nicest, most friendly people
I've seen from any fandom.
-
In time, though, my interest in the characters faded. As with anything
on my list, I don't really blame them; it's me and my phases.
Although, it was most disconcerting when they replaced Cecily--the
mousy, overlooked little sister--with a new actress who looked nothing like
her, gave her TB, and tried to wring tears out of us by having her parents
bring Christmas in July to all the little coughing children at the sanitarium.
Very strange also. I wouldn't have believed I was watching
Avonlea if the credits hadn't assured me of it.
-
Important note: This series was also, maybe really, known as Road to
Avonlea. Don't ask. I've heard that the Disney Channel also showed everything
out of order.
-
One lingering effect of Avonlea is my interest in the career of Sarah
Polley, who starred (at the beginning) as the meddlesome but imaginative
Sara Stanley. Now she's a young woman with a passion for far-left politics
and a love of art-house movies.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine I
-
I'm not entirely certain of the chronology on this list, so I'll stick this
right in here. I'm a Trekkie, I admit to it. Like the vast
majority of the fans, I don't dress up in the costumes or name my children
after the characters, but I enjoyed Star Trek in its first three
incarnations and Deep Space Nine is my favorite. I started watching
it at the very beginning, but after a few years Starfleet got into a very
long and depressing war with the Dominion--the plots became very much about
politics and intrigue and battle after battle, and you couldn't understand
an episode unless you'd seen every one that came before it that season. As
I understand it, in the TV world this is called building a mythology and
is a very highly praised thing, but it made life difficult for me.
-
I enjoyed DS-9 above the Next Generation because DS-9
was a little darker, a little more ragged, and the characters actually had
to stay in one spot and face the consequences of their actions instead of
warping off into the sunset at the end of the day. Just a different
type of show. Uh, so I guess the reason I liked DS-9 was because
it was building a mythology...I never said these phases made sense,
did I?
-
My favorite character and actor, above all, was Dr. Julian Bashir, played
by Siddig El Fadil, later known as Alexander Siddig. Yummy yummy yummy.
Snowy River
-
Ah, Snowy River. I saw it on the Family Channel (back when there
was such a thing)--actually, my mom insisted we watch the first episode
and it immediately grew on me. It was basically a turn-of-the-century
Australian soap opera/Western, focusing on the adventures of the upstanding
rancher family the McGregors and their assorted friends and enemies. It's
actually based (loosely) on a very famous Australian poem called The Man
from Snowy River by Banjo Paterson. It had the most beautiful scenery
of any TV show I've ever viewed--great sweeping vistas of the snow-capped
mountains of the Australian High Country. And it also had its share
of hunky Aussie men speaking in their hunky Aussie accents and riding around
on horses looking tough, so what's not to love?
-
Ironically, I think Snowy in the end fell victim to that lush scenery--it
was finally cancelled after four seasons because its production values outweighed
its ratings (as I recall). I've met a couple Snowy fans who
are/were even more persistent and devoted than I, and together we created
a very nice Snowy River page with information about the episodes and
cast. Unfortunately, both of the page maintainers have had to drop
out due to that pesky thing called Real Life, and I have no idea when or
even if they'll become available again. If you want to create your
own Snowy page, as some have, please ask me and I will most likely hasten
to offer you anything from the old page that you want, provided (of course)
it's properly credited. I think that sort of permission falls to me.
-
I guess I should confess right now that hunky Aussie heroes aside, my favorite
character was the sniveling, pathetic villain Frank Blackwood, whom I
affectionately dubbed Crazy Frank. Oh, he was so sniveling, and oh,
he was so pathetic--his daddy Oliver was the local rich supervillain (although
I don't remember him ever laughing maniacally, I'm sure he did so in private)
and try as he might Frank could never quite measure up to his standards of
evil. He was always in the wrong place at the wrong time, making the
wrong decisions and relying on the wrong people, until you started to wonder
just how smart Oliver really was, to keep using him at all. I don't
know why I fell so hard for Frank. I really don't. It's strange,
even for me.
-
Lasting effects: Snowy River gave us Guy Pearce, who made a smashing
American debut as the white knight Ed Exley opposite Russell Crowe in L.A.
Confidential (a very good movie) and turned in another smashing performance
in Memento, which is a very good movie also and not as confusing as
it sounds.
Profit
Law & Order
-
I'm currently in a Law & Order phase, and as with all phases I
really can't imagine it ever ending. Still, speaking as objectively
as possible, I think Law & Order has more going for it than any
of these previous series I've mentioned: its focus is almost completely on
the cases under investigation and prosecution, with only snippets thrown
in here and there about the characters; almost every season has featured
some sort of cast change, so viewers (like me) aren't thrown off balance
by more; and it's a very popular and critically-acclaimed show that's unlikely
to be cancelled any time soon.
-
I was introduced to this show through the constant reruns shown on A&E,
and thanks to those reruns I have been able to get every single episode
on tape. Yes, that's right, every single one--a feat that eclipses
my recording of Snowy, Avonlea, X-Files, everything.
Oh, I forgot to mention my obsessive recording of my favorite shows.
Well, now you know. I'm a completist.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine II
-
Okay, this began again in early 1999 or thereabouts, whenever I heard that
the show was ending after seven years. For some reason, I fell back
and fell back hard for my earlier love, watching the season finale and spending
the next semester or so recording episodes I had missed through the miracle
of nightly reruns.
-
Colm Meaney, who played the delightful Chief O'Brien, is one of my favorite
character actors.
-
I've also grown quite fond of Nana Visitor, who played Kira Nerys, and you
can imagine my delight when I discovered that she and Alexander Siddig were
a couple.
-
Unfortunately, when my schedule change didn't allow for 11 pm TV anymore,
DS-9 was lost to me a second time. Still, you never know when it might
pop back up.
X-Men II
-
July 2000. That's when it started. I was excited about seeing
the X-Men movie because I'd enjoyed the cartoon series (although I
didn't remember much about it) and because I love summer popcorn movies,
and I found the movie to be utterly entertaining. And then I went online
to check out the sites and I was sucked into a vortex of fanfic from which
I have only begun to recover.
-
Oh, those Marvel marketers and merchandisers are clever people, certainly
worthy of their paychecks. They've strung me along expertly, injecting
something new into the picture every time I started to fade out--reruns of
the original cartoon, a new cartoon (X-Men: Evolution), the
movie's video release. I've got books, although I'm being smart this
time--no new book until I finish reading the old one. Okay, I haven't
stuck to that completely, but I'm trying. And fortunately I'm not really
one for comic books, because I'd go mad trying to collect the various and
sundry X-Men series.
-
But fanfic is my true love in this genre, possibly because the medium allows
for the easy creation of alternate universes--the official company has
already created different versions of the same characters, whether
for various comics series, the cartoons, or the movies, so further modification
by fanfic authors seems almost natural. If I were a writer of fiction,
the greatest honor I could ever receive would be piles of fanfic created
about my characters, because fanfic means people love that universe so much
they want to see more of it, and faster than I could ever churn it out.
They want to explore angles and histories and relationships that they
know could never be officially sanctioned. My characters have become
their characters, and maybe some of them think they could even write them
better. It would be wonderful. Of course, I couldn't read any of the
stories until I'd decided to never write about the characters again, lest
I unconsciously steal something, but it would still be immensely flattering.
-
I think this phase is finally beginning to fade. It's still there,
at the moment, but it's much less intense than it was earlier. I still
troll the sites looking for good fanfic, I just don't do it every waking
moment.
Future Phases
You can e-mail me at
astralj@hotmail.com if you care
to.
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Last modified May 18, 2001