Malinda Lo

Tonight, Battlestar Galactica returns for its final 10 episodes. I am very excited about this.

But my excitement isn’t quite as fannish as it used to be.

My first taste of fandom was back in the mid-1990s when The X-Files was still good. I was totally drawn into that fandom, the mythology, the various debates between shippers and non-shippers (in fact, I think that X-philes originated the term "ship" to mean relationships), fanfic, mushy music videos about MSR, etc. And then I decided to do a whole bunch of academic research on it, which you can read here and here if you’re interested.

Fandom is really interesting. There are a lot of good people involved in fandom, and they are on the whole an extremely generous-hearted group of people. Sometimes nothing is more satisfying than connecting with others who share your (admittedly) fanatical devotion to something.

After The X-Files died its slow, painful death, I really wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to be a real "fan" again. I don’t mean this in a depressing, melodramatic way, but just that I felt like I’d been all fanned out.

I dipped my toes into some other fandoms just to test things out. I read some Harry Potter fanfic. I particularly remember an entire series of HP novels written from the perspective of Hermione Granger — I thought they were quite well done, and they did fill the void between the publications of those books. But I never got sucked into HP fandom. (I recently read Harry, A History by Melissa Anelli, though, and thought it was an absolutely fascinating glimpse into the HP fandom and the publishing phenomena of Harry Potter.)

By this time, I was totally sucked into Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It took me awhile to get over my ridiculous judgement of the series based only on its title, but once I did, I ended up buying all of the DVDs — all seven seasons. I’ve even watched them multiple times, and they’ve gotten me through more than one difficult time. But I never went beyond the TV shows.

I looked around online at various Buffy fan sites, but I wasn’t interested in reading fans’ reinterpretations of the characters or discussing the various romances on the show. Whatever Joss Whedon gave us was enough for me.

And I think that’s where I am these days with Battlestar Galactica, which I know has a huge online fandom. I know there are endless discussions going on about who the final Cylon is, what’s going to happen next, debates about politics, relationships, etc. But for me, what gets on TV is enough. I believe in the storytellers behind the series, and I’m happy with what they give me.

I think I feel this way partly from having had a career in entertainment reporting, when I had to think about TV a lot and write a lot of analytical articles about what things mean. I loved doing it, but these days, I’m analyzed out. I just want to sit on my couch, turn the lights down, and get sucked into the story playing out in front of me. I don’t want to have to think about it.

So that’s what I’ll be doing tonight with the premiere of BSG. Don’t call me when it’s on.

P.S. Of course I’m going to post a pic of Starbuck!