{ the resurrection of fandom }

[delga]

Edit: There are explicit Spooks, S4 spoilers in the post below.

So, after much to-ing and fro-ing, a once cancelled trip to Hunstanton is back on - just me and Esme. It should be a good day; I'm looking forward to getting away from The Village (dude, are we even a village anymore? But can I really call it town when every urban area within a ten mile radius is town?) It also means I don't have to plan things to do next Tuesday, so yay.

Still haven't heard from the university re:accommodation/term dates. Am nervous and am emailing because my nerves? Mondo, mondo frazzled. In order to deal with this, am concentrating on fact that Spooks is back a week today. I'm actually pretty interested in how they're going to play out Fiona's death on Tuesday. At least, I think it'll be Tuesday's episode; she only filmed a couple. I may look on Sosnovka's website for news on her pregnancy and see if there's more Spooks information there. I'm not just excited about this in terms of plot - I'm also pretty excited about the fanfic opportunities this will hopefully raise. It's no secret that the inkwell's been fairly dry recently and that writing hasn;t been coming easily. Post-eps are a great method of writing for fanfic writers, I think, because of the sense of immediacy and the strong canonical links. Last year, I made three ventures into canon and then jumped off the bandwagon (um, that might be flist locked), somewhat. It's the most fanfic I've written for a single fandom, ever. In fact, it's the first fandom I've written for since I wrote a very, very bad Tribe fic (which featured some shockingly awful Mary Sues - yes, plural - and a convoluted religious angle that was very difficult to explain). Since then, I've written drabbles, ficlets and two of three-part fic concerning Don Eppes. A fic that I am incapable of finishing. So, hopefully, with the new series, I'll be able to get back into it.

The problem, as I have tried to explain to three people today, is that I don't watch TV just for entertainment anymore, at leats, not in the way that I used to watch it. Before, I could watch a show and just enjoy the story. Now I look for consistency in plot and characterisation, skill of writing, skill of performance and direction. I worry about how shallow characters are or how ridiculous plots are. With Spooks I don't bother with most of these things; I sit there and get suckered in by the stories. It's a nice change.

For the past four weeks, I've been trying to write a multi-fandom/meta post about characterisation and the evolution thereof. I'm still not quite there but I do want to write it. In that vein, d'y'all think you could answer some questions for me?

• Do you watch shows for character interactions or intricate plotlines?
  
• Have you ever been a fan of a character who underwent a massive overhaul over the course of a series?
  
• If yes, how did you feel about that change?
  
• Do you think characters should change over time or should they stay true to the form in which they first appeared?
  

I suspect that most of my issues with characterisation come from the fact that I watch procedural dramas and get annoyed when they enter the realm of soap opera. I know a lot of people watch these shows for the character stuff; I used to watch CSI and wait for the very Sar-centric episodes. But in the past year, since my focus has changed with regards to tv itself, I find myself approaching my fandoms in a different way.

OK, enough of that for now. Comment, let me know what you think to the above questions. Go off on a tangent. I'd like to know what people think. Oh, and I'm leaving this post public. Pimp out the questions - here or in your own journals. I'm looking forward to a substantial report and hopefully some debate, especially because I don't think people talk enough about the bones of fandom. (And I'm such a comment-whore).