Maius Intra Qua Extra

I made a thing! This is inspired by a conversation with romanajo, about a Facebook response she'd seen in which the person hijacked a perfectly normal BF announcement about a Sarah Jane and Harry audio to complain about how terrible the modern series has been ever since "The Stolen Earth". (Which seems an odd choice to me, since it's neither DT's nor RTD's exit. Or even CT's. Also, I guess the guy thought "Journey's End" was terrible? Because most people either refer to both parts of a two-parter or usually target "Journey's End" as the more significant of the two parts.)

Yes, someone asked what in the world did his rant have to do with BF or the audio in question. And yes, he failed entirely to answer that question.

Click to expand.

Going through the list of TV shows really brought back a lot of memories! If you were to pay attention to the shows I bolded and when they were broadcast, you can probably make out the gist of my TV-watching history (as well as my age). I watched a lot of TV as a kid, both old shows in syndication that played every day in the afternoons, like Gilligan's Island and Hogan's Heroes, as well as new and current series in the evenings. Of course I've seen all of the episodes of Magnum P.I.: I was a straight high school female in Hawaii; I couldn't not! So, my list is full of the TV shows from the 50s through the mid-80s.

Then I went to college and stopped watching TV. No opportunity, since we never had TVs in the dorms. I bothered to get one once I was out of grad school, but found I never used it. When I got married, we got satellite TV and used it so little that after about six years, we discovered that it was unusable because we'd neglected to install a software upgrade that had come out two years prior. We stopped paying for the service at that point.

Since that point, the shows we watch are "curated" in a way. We pretty much only watch things that are recommended to us, and only after we either research it to be assured we're going to like it and then buy the first season, or we finally get off our butts and procure it through streaming or borrowing. Otherwise, we rewatch things we already have.

So, very little on that list from the 90s on, and what's there from that time period is mostly carefully chosen.

A few random thoughts on specific shows.

M*A*S*H: Though this was a current show in high school, it was also re-run every night after the news - every episode from every season, in broadcast order - and I watched it religiously. It was fun, but also had the cleverest dialogue and was not afraid to tackle serious issues. I loved sitcoms when I was a kid, but M*A*S*H was miles above them. And the finale was just... wow.

The Greatest American Hero: This show captivated me in high school. Fantasy/scifi/superheroes were not popular where I grew up, and there were definite overtones of an anti attitude. I remember being fascinated by the first season, enjoying the second season, and then hating the third season (though I did watch it through). I've watched the first two seasons recently, and frankly, they amazed me. Despite the show being a comedy-drama about a superhero in tights, the first season was surprisingly serious. The pilot episode was about the dangers of religious fanaticism. One of the others dealt with teenage depression and delinquency. In what was ostensibly a kids show! Then the network (ABC) told the producer (Stephen J Cannell, the brains behind GAH, The A-Team, and a bunch of other popular very 80s shows) to make it fit a more traditional formula - villain-of-the-day kind of thing - and season 2 came out as more fluffy. And then after that, the network took full control over the show, making it what they wanted, and season 3 tanked.

Forever Knight: This was part of the "Crime Time After Prime Time" set of shows on CBS (I think) that aired at 11 p.m. (five shows with weekly episodes, one shown each weeknight), which was basically an excuse for broadcasting shows with a lot of sex in them. It was after grad school, so I had a TV that I didn't use. During a Christmas break at my parents' house, I happened to turn on the TV and caught the last scene of an FK episode, where Nick had just caught the criminal and was talking him down, and that scene was so fascinating, I had to watch the rest of the series. CTAPT didn't survive the year, but FK was picked up for a second, and then a third, season by another network. (Of the others, only Silk Stockings survived CTAPT, doing a few more seasons on cable.)

One more observation: I seem to really like shows that start with "F".

Ganked from scifirenegade and then lurking_latinist, because I've got a gob.

Show bits
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Fandom bits
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My husband has suggested I start tracking my hours every week, partially because he's mandated a "no more than 50 hours in a week" rule (and he wishes he could bring that down to 40, but he can't) and partially because he's sure that I'm working that much every week. It's Thursday night and I'm at 42 hours so far. I guess he's right.

But this is why I'm doing this meme - to keep my mind off work.

What would make you leave a fandom, or prevent you from getting into it in the first place?

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Last day of holiday. You know, we actually did some housecleaning yesterday. We accomplished something! Woo!

Day 3: You've got your OTP, you have to throw a third into the mix (from the same fandom), creating an OT3. Who is the OTP, and in your opinion, why would they make a perfect third for them?

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I threatened to meme my way through my journal in my last entry, so here it is. I got this meme from purplecat, who got it from the meme originator, trobadora, who put it together from a number of other memes, thus the name, Frankenstein's Meme". I am using it in the same way that Trobadora used it, to get myself posting again (and not about work stuff). I doubt I'll do this every day, but I will my best to finish it. So here goes.

Question 1: What's changed about your fandom life in the last 365 days?

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Full list of questions below the cut.
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I haven't been doing the Snowflake Challenge for a while now, mostly because lazy, but since it's a slow day at work (meaning, I'm waiting on a bunch of things from other people), I thought I'd catch up. This'll be a bit, since the last one I did was #4.

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More later!

I almost missed this one.

Challenge #3

Pimp Your Favorite Communities, Fests or Challenges! Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Fest: There really is no other fest for me: The Doctor Who Minor Characters Ficathon. This fest encapsulates the entire reason I write fanfic: I want to revisit the characters that make DW so vibrant. While the Doctor and companions are the heroes and the focus, to me the thing that sets this type of storytelling - the whole 'go to a new place/time every episode' format - apart from other shows are the people they meet. Those are the people I really want to learn more about and that is entirely what this ficathon is about.

Community: My writing's dropped off a lot in the past couple of years, and one of the things that keeps me at least in the shallow end of the pool is the Doctor Who Fanfiction Contest. It features a writing prompt every three weeks, then readers vote on the entries and winner receives a pretty banner. The community kickstarts my proverbial pen. Participation has dropped off in the last year, since DW hasn't been on the air, but hopefully the new season (which just started with a bang!) will help it along. If you write in the DW universe, please come join us!

Please join us at who_contest for monthly fanfiction challenges based on the popular British sci-fi hit Doctor Who and all its spin-offs.

I did the Snowflake Challenge two years ago and it was a lot of fun. So, I think it's time to do it again, and hopefully it will get me posting more, at least for the short term.



Challenge #1
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