Grifters, No More.

[dodger_sister]

Leverage has been canceled.

I am so sad right now, you guys. I just started watching this show in the last year. And writing fanfic for it as well. It’s my new fandom and now the show is over. I bottomed out so fast when I heard the news. I just wanted to crawl back into bed and sleep for hours. Instead I have to go my mom’s and fake holiday cheer and decorate cookies. Ugh.

The Sister & BFF tried to reassure me that the cast will all get work somewhere - and they will, I’m sure too - but they won’t all be together. I had heard rumors that this might happen and I know the show-runners were preparing for it by making this season finale be something that they could go out on, but I still didn’t think it would happen. I thought it would be on for 12 seasons like Monk or something and that it would probably reach Psych levels of just being bounced around and placed in any slot they had available when they needed a filler - but I didn’t think it would end.

I have to call my cousin tonight and tell her the bad news. If you recall, she was without TV for a few weeks recently after she moved and she borrowed a bunch of DVDs, one of which was Leverage. She never said anything to me about it and I was a little worried that she didn’t like it. I had been sort of embarrassed to loan it to her because, let’s face it, Leverage can be kind of stupid and I thought she might roll her eyes at it. She came over a week ago and I finally asked her. Oh, she’d loved it! She’d watched the first two seasons and had been frantically searching for 3 & 4. So I loaned her 3 & 4 as well. She was so happy. She’d caught part of a season 5 on TV and wanted to know what was going on with Parker & Hardison. A week later, she’d watched all of seasons 3 & 4 - in a week! I was so ecstatic to have someone to talk about Leverage with in my RL! ! Not to mention we haven’t had a show in common since we both quit Criminal Minds and Bones.

Now I have to go make cookies, but I just needed to vent this all out first. Leverage will always live on in my heart. You stupid, silly show - I love you.

Comments

[dodger-sister.livejournal.com]

Double sad-face.

:( :(

I want my Leverage!

[vikingprincess]

I know you must be so disappointed - and it probably doesn't help to say that five years is a pretty awesome run, huh? *hugs*

[dodger-sister.livejournal.com]

and it probably doesn't help to say that five years is a pretty awesome run, huh?

I know! This is what I get for coming into it so late, I suppose. Five years is a good run (and I can think of a few shows that should have ended at 5) but Leverage is a sort of ridiculous show (not quite Psych levels but close) and with it being on cable and being a half season, I thought it would run for longer.

Though, I was just saying to someone how it reminds me of The A-Team and you know, A-Team got five seasons and it went out on a high note - (I always contend that season 5 was their best). And you know how I feel about Angel's awesome season 5 and how that show ended, so I guess I should look at it like that.

Except what I really learned from all this is not to watch shows until they are all done with their run - so I know going into it how many seasons I am going to get up front.

[vikingprincess]

what I really learned from all this is not to watch shows until they are all done with their run - so I know going into it how many seasons I am going to get up front.

Nooooo! Watching week to week with friends is the BEST! It's how I watched Buffy from S3 onward, and all of Angel. And you can't do that if you wait til a whole show run is done before starting... or something. I guess you could talk friends into waiting?

I even used to watch some DWTS with online friends, chatting in Yahoo as we watched. Good times!

[dodger-sister.livejournal.com]

You know, I didn't watch Buffy & Angel until it was on DVD and I didn't mind so much. I have two good friends who had been big fans of it, so I just called them and was all, "I just saw this episode. Let's talk!" and that worked fine (I think they were kind of amused and entertained by the whole thing)and then after I had watched the shows through once, I did a rewatch with my sister and got to experience talking about it with someone. Torchwood - didn't watch that until it was over but when I did watch, it was with The BFF so that was fun.

The only downside to watching those shows after the run was over is that the fandoms were kind of fizzled out by then.

[vikingprincess]

the fandoms were kind of fizzled out by then To some extent, that'll be true... but that's the interesting thing about Buffy - new generations (ha!) are always rediscovering it... and even her patterned cow pants are back in style again, sort of (which might be a sign of the Apocalypse all on its own, now that I think about it). In any case, people are still writing LOTS of fanfic for many "dead" fandoms on a regular basis. Especially Buffy.

Anyway, there are bonuses to both styles of watching.

[dodger-sister.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I noticed Buffy seems to be one of those fandoms that never dies out completely. That's kind of awesome, actually. But hell, I am still writing fic for fandoms five, six, seven years old. Come on, I started out in Lord of the Rings - the fandom that never dies!

It's just the 'dead-show' fandoms themselves aren't as active so it's harder to get interest when you have fannish musings and works. But put that vs the heartache of having a show you loved canceled. Idk which way works best.

You know, last year there was a long snow-week where the weather was so bad the schools were all closed for several days. Kev told me that his daughters hadn't gotten dressed or seemingly moved from the couch because they had randomly decided to stream Buffy, which they had never watched in their lives (being 16/17 years old). Then they went crazy over it and loved it. I had to just reel myself in from sending them all the fanfic links ever!

[vikingprincess]

I think it's because Buffy actually shaped a lot of television shows with quirky heroines, or heroines with special powers. We wouldn't have Veronica Mars, or Lost Girl, or Nikita, or Vampire Diaries, or even Supernatural (not that it has girl heroes, but I suppose Jo and Bella owe their existences to Buffy inspiration, too), to name but a very very few, as long running TV shows without having had Buffy first.

As a matter of fact, I think even teen sitcoms changed because of Buffy - they used to always have a male lead, but now, the lead is much more often female. I know there are college courses in feminism dedicated to Buffy studies.

She changed the world. A lot.

[dodger-sister.livejournal.com]

a) I would be sad to live in a world with no Lost Girl. Truth.

b) Currently my sister is reading something called "Sex & The Slayer, A Gender Studies Primer for the Buffy Fan" - Description on Amazon reads - 'During its seven-year run, Buffy the Vampire Slayer attracted a wide range of viewers and almost unprecedented academic interest. Sex and the Slayer explores one of the most talked-about topics in relation to this pioneering TV series--gender. As fantasy, Buffy potentially opens up a space for alternative representations of gender. But how alternative can popular television be?
Taking a feminist cultural studies approach, Jowett explores the ways in which the series represents femininity, masculinity, and gendered relations, including sexuality and sexual orientation. Written for undergraduates, Sex and the Slayer provides an introduction to the most important theoretical and historical underpinnings of contemporary gender criticism as it examines a range of thought-provoking issues: role reversal, the tension between feminism and femininity, the "crisis" of masculinity, gender hybridity, the appeal of bad girls, romance, and changing family structures. Through this introductory analysis, Jowett shows that Buffy presents a contradictory mixture of "subversive" and "conservative" images of gender roles and as such is a key example of the complexity of gender representation in contemporary television.' - I can ask her more about it if you are interested.

c) I agree we wouldn't have those shows without Buffy, including SPN. Not because it just opened doors for women, but it really opened the doors for that 'supernatural' genre. We had sci-fi already and we had fantasy, but we didn't have that whole 'ghosts, vampires, zombies, etc' in the mainstream like we do post-Buffy era. Buffy & The X-Files really opened that door.

She changed the world. A lot.

That she did. That she did. (I feel like you just gave the eulogy at her funeral or something).

[vikingprincess]

b) That sounds so freakin' cool!

Ha ha, I was paraphrasing her gravestone from season 5: "She saved the world. A lot."

And on another note: THE PRESENT YOU SENT ME IS BEYOND AWESOME! THANK YOU SO INCREDIBLY MUCH! You know I'm going to end up reading it cover to cover, right?

[dodger-sister.livejournal.com]

And on another note: THE PRESENT YOU SENT ME IS BEYOND AWESOME! THANK YOU SO INCREDIBLY MUCH! You know I'm going to end up reading it cover to cover, right?

YOU ARE SO WELCOME!!!! I KNEW YOU WOULD LOVE IT!!

My sister picked it up for The Nephew and left it sitting out for like a week and I could not stop looking through it - it was so cool. I also kept thinking how it was the perfect gift for you and how much I wanted to buy it for you. I mean, sure you can technically look all this stuff up on the internet, but the book is too freaking awesome to pass up! I suspected you would read the whole thing from cover to cover. ;)

I am so thrilled you liked it!!!

I'll tell you, it was the first present The Nephew opened at our Christmas party and I thought he wasn't ever going to put it down long enough to open his other gifts - that's saying something when a 6 year old isn't just tearing through all of his presents.

[vikingprincess]

Well, he's intelligent, creative, and a reader - so of course he loved it!