Television Fans and the Age of the World Wide Web
©Buzzy Multimedia
Many things have changed as a result of easy access to the net. You don’t have to run out in a blizzard to send a nifty present to your Uncle in the back woods of Maine. Instead you can browse through a zillion stores, make the purchase online and have it to him as soon as the next day if you are willing to pay a little extra for shipping. The internet has something for everyone and provides a way of sharing information and thoughts with an unbelievable amount of people almost instantaneously. It has given people who watch television a way to turn a one way medium into an interactive community. Televison fans find their way to sites that worship the show or individual characters and actors from the series. Eventually they reach forums that discuss every aspect of the show as well as the cast, characters, writing staff, directors and producers. This is the breeding ground for fan movements that existed in the pre internet world but now reach numbers that could only have been dreamed about in the past.
Many true television fans are aware or at least science fiction and fantasy fans are aware, “Save Our Show” movements began in 1968 when a woman name Bjo Trimble and her husband began a massive letter writing campaign to NBC to renew Star Trek for a third season. This couple was able to gather a lot of Star Trek fans many of whom were also SCA (Society for Creative Anarchism) to march on NBC while wearing costumes. I wish I could have seen the look on those folks at NBC when people wearing full medieval garb mixed with people sporting upswept slanty eyebrows and pointy ears showed up at the gate. These Star Trek fans were called Trekkies and later Trekkers. Fans stayed loyal to Trek and after NBC canceled the show these people fought for 10 years to keep the dream of Star Trek alive. They began to have conventions and invited its creator Gene Roddenbury, and the actors William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelly, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nicols, George Takei and Majel Barret among others to appear and interact with the fans. Soon there were commercially run conventions that popped up all over the U.S. and the world. In the fullness of time Paramount who had acquired the rights to Star Trek from Desilu was looking for something to compete with Star Wars and realized that they could do a film with Star Trek. Thus was a franchise born that kept Paramount very happy for a long time. I will say something that NBC and later Paramount never said…Thank you Bjo & John Trimble and thank you to all those people who found self expression and a community all from the love of a television show.
We have gone from the days of mimeographed newsletters to email alerts. In 2007 fans of the series Jericho got together on the net to bombard CBS/Paramount with nuts to make it clear that the fans thought they were “nuts” to cancel Jericho. The result - May 29, 2007 CBS New York received 10,000 pounds of nuts and the total for the campaign was 40,377 pounds. The result? Another 8 episodes were produced and aired. Not all internet born fan campaigns have been so successful.
Firefly was canceled by Fox before a full season was produced and aired. This Joss Whedon produced series had and still has an almost rabid internet savvy fan base that did all possible to resurrect the show. These guys who call themselves Browncoats were unable to bring back the series but they did get a big screen theatrical released film called Serenity and that film has helped to keep the fans hoping for more.
Farscape fans were hung out to dry when the Sci-Fi channel chose to cancel the show after the cliff hanger to end all cliffhangers had just been aired. The two characters most central to the show were turned into crystals not unlike Folger’s instant coffee and not having any follow up episode is enough to make a fan’s blood boil. The campaign to bring back Farscape was done in the most professional manner possible but the Sci-Fi network executives seemed immune to fan pressure. Finally the fans did get closure in the form of a 2 hour made for TV movie.
Babylon 5, J. Michael Straczynski’s epic tale with a five season story arc was threatened with cancellation repeatedly and like Quantum Leap found itself bounced to any time slot the network felt like putting it in. Fans followed and though both B5 and Quantum Leap may have lost some casual viewers along the way both shows were able to wrap up and have a decent time to write decent endings
Before Farscape and Firefly there was the Crimetime after Primetime line-up. The name of the show was Forever Knight and while it had little money for things like special effects it took root in the hearts and minds of the people who had started watching it in the wee hours of the morning. These people took emotional ownership of the show and the fan base had some of the most creative minds you are likely to have come across on the net. They hung on while there was an 18 month wait till the second season aired. Then there was the move to the USA network. USA “jumped the shark” and managed to get one episode to feature a wrestler and instead of the angst ridden journey of an 800 year old vampire trying to repay society for his sins and somehow find salvation it teetered close to farce. The ratings were not giving USA the demographic of enough 15-30 year old males so it was killed after the third season and unlike the vampires that the show featured it was never to rise again.
The most recent and perhaps singular save our show movement is for a show that has not even begun to air. It is Dollhouse, a Joss Whedon production, that is to air on the notorious for early cancellation network FOX. I’m not sure if this is being generated more by Whedon fans or Eliza Dushku fans but it is a move that surprised even me.
While I could list dozens of shows where internet based fan groups have tried to save mainstream programs it is in the genres of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror where fans have really gone the distance. Genre fans have been know to conduct letter writing campaigns, telephone campaigns, signing petitions, sending telegrams, paying for television and newspaper ads, ads in trade publications and even infiltrating the all professional conventions of the national television broadcaster association and national television critics association conventions. Genre fans have done an enormous amount of positive things for the general community. The amounts of money raised for charity by the fans of such shows as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series was staggering though not to be outdone by the long term efforts of Trekkers. In addition to that there have been library projects to furnish libraries with books and DVD sets of their favorites. They send care packages to people in the military, especially military hospitals. Shows that feature supernatural themes with vampires have had blood drives resulting in giving tens of thousand of pints. Not that that blood drives are limited to that one aspect of fandom but these fans seem pretty willing to part with a pint. What Buffy fan could resist Spike (James Marsters) or Angel (David Boreantz) when they asked them to give?
All in all the effect of the World Wide Web on television fans has been pretty positive. Communities of like minded folk have sprung up, friendships have been formed by people who sometimes live a world away, and people have learned to have a voice and speak their minds. In some ways this type of thing helped to create the phenomena we are now beginning to see in the political arena. Regular “ordinary” people who want to be heard and are willing to communicate and work with others can do so almost instantaneously. Few people would say that letting television network executives know that there is more to counting viewers than the Nielson ratings alone can show. Forming caring communities out of a bunch of strangers separated by distances makes me hopeful for the future of the net and society in general. There is a chance here to really see the world through many different eyes. The web is quite transparent so when people filled with hate go out onto the net they are exposed in a way that no newspaper, radio or television expose could ever manage. All in all the pioneer work of television fans on the web leaves me with a good feeling and reminds me to write a letter to make sure that True Blood sees another season although think it’s holding its own.
By June Williams
V.P. Buzzy Multimeida Publishing
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