What is "fanesia?" It's a word I made up to describe a moment on a TV show that causes TV fans to get amnesia that the moment even happened. They just forget about it, because they think it's such a bad move that hurts that show, that when they look back on the show, they just forget that it ever happened. It doesn't matter to them and they don't consider it anymore when thinking about the show as a whole. In short, "fan amnesia."
Read on to discover my five...
- The Lone Gunmen dying on The X-Files. What a horrible decision this was. Why in God's name would Chris Carter and other writers decide to kill off such fan favorites? Hatred of fans? Fed up with the show? Who knows. But it was really a stupid thing to do in general, and specifically because it had zero impact on the plot or story arc of the show. It just seemed to happen and then things went on. So why do it? In my mind, Byers, Frohike, and Langly are still alive, in their headquarters, helping Mulder and Scully from afar. Let's hope Carter and company ressurect them somehow in the next movie.
- Edith dying on All in the Family. What a weird, depressing thing for the people behind AITM to do. What, this would show that Archie really did love her? Regular viewers already know he did. No, in my mind, Edith is still alive, married to Archie, cooking meals in Queens. (And another fanesia moment from this show: Mike and Gloria getting divorced. Nope, in my mind, they're still married, and that Gloria spinoff never happened.)
- The last episode of Seinfeld. First off, I don't believe these people would let a guy get carjacked and just stand there and laugh, I don't care how "selfish" these four were supposed to be. And the whole plot, with the trial and the former guest stars coming back to testify...ugh. Larry David came back to write this? It's almost as if he didn't understand his own creation. Yeah, I get the whole "they got what was coming to them for their selfish ways," but they always got what was coming to them! That always happened on the show. And having all these guest stars come back...it was like a clip show, and they already ran a clip show before showing this episode, so it was especially odd. Whenever this ep is shown in repeats, I don't even watch it. It never happened.
- Fitzwallace dying on The West Wing. Isn't it weird when they kill of a long-running character from the show? You can't even watch the old episodes without thinking, "oh, he dies later. How depressing." That's how I feel with Fitz (John Amos) dying. So he's still alive in my book, only retired.
- Higgins "possibly" being Robin Masters on Magnum, P.I. Another case of where the writers either forgot what happened for the first several years of the show or they thought that viewers did. Please: there's no possible way that Higgins could be Masters, because they had several scenes with Higgins completely alone in a room, talking to Masters on the phone (unless Higgins was insane, a la Norman Bates in Psycho). This was just a case of the writers getting too cute and clever, maybe extending some kernal of an idea fans had or someone had written some place. I'm happy that Higgins said in the last episode that he lied about being Masters, but by then it was too late. It was silly to bring it up at all, because it couldn't possibly be so.
What are your top 5 fanesia moments?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-23-2005 @ 2:41PM
Keith McDuffee said...
There has GOT to be more I'm not thinking of, but the first that comes to mind is when Doyle died on 'Angel'. Noooooo!
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10-23-2005 @ 4:03PM
Keith McDuffee said...
Actually, I'd say when Niles and Daphnie got together on Frasier would be another fanesia moment, but that's more of a jump-the-shark moment, isn't it?
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10-23-2005 @ 8:08PM
Emily said...
My fanesia moment goes all the way back to M*A*S*H when they killed off Henry (Colonel Blake) by shooting down his plane on the way to Tokyo. Although the announcement by Radar was moving, I will not accept that the character died.
I have even read reports that many affliates refused to run that heartbreaking scene.
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10-24-2005 @ 12:33AM
Vince said...
**cough** Alias season 4 **cough** there's only seasons 1,2,3 and 5 in my mind...the fourth one never happenned NEVER..just a bad dream with a big shiny red ball and some zombies in Russia...
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10-24-2005 @ 9:34AM
B said...
I actually liked the last Seinfeld episode. The trial itself was kind of dumb, too much "Ohhh, remember that scene, that was funny," but the idea behind the episode was genius. The characters are so self-absorbed that they probabally would have watched and laughed at a car-jacking. Well, not Kramer, but everybody else would have. And what really made the espisode was the final scene with Sienfeld performing his act in prison as if nothing had happened.
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10-24-2005 @ 2:39PM
Tripp said...
I think of the season finale of Quantum Leap (which nearly ruined the series for me) and the whole last season of Roseanne (along with the series finale).
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10-24-2005 @ 3:32PM
LC said...
Just to nitpick, The Lone Gunman died in the last episode of their spinoff series. A dumb move nonetheless, but it was their ghosts who came back on an episode of the X-files.
I don't think they wanted to kill off Edith Bunker, but she would not renew her contract and they wanted to bring the show back in one form or another, so they killed her off and changed the show to Archie Bunkers Place.
My Fanesia moment that comes to mind was the killing of Trip on Enterprise. There was absolutely no reason for this, or for that lame holodeck finale altogether. His character had been in tougher situations that he at least tried to get out of without trying to kill himself in the process. I still think it was the producers way of saying F.U. to the fans.
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10-24-2005 @ 6:39PM
bibliowench said...
Does it count if it's a film version of a tv show? If so . . .
Spoiler
. . . I'll offer my complete denial of Wash's death in Serenity. Never happened. He's fine. Has several kids with Zoe. Lalalalala.
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10-25-2005 @ 12:59AM
SamMalone said...
Maybe series finales are prone to this disease. Dawson's Creek - the last episode. I'm sorry the whole series was about two soul mates, and we're supposed to be happy with Joey hooking up with someone else? It never happened, she was possesed by an alien and hooked up with some gone psycho actor on the $20mill list.
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10-26-2005 @ 5:48AM
phish73 said...
My fanesia moment was the final season of Angel, when all the humans died (wesley, cordelia, fred, gun)! If you noticed, the series finale of Buffy, all the demons died (anya, spike)
was joss trying to prove a point?
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10-26-2005 @ 2:57PM
Brent McKee said...
I never thought that the point of plot "Higgins is Robin Masters" was that Higgins was Robin as much aas it was that Magnum - who didn't obviously see the scenes where Higgins was alone in a room talking to Mr. Masters - believing that Higgins was Masters. Of course it's possible that Masters could have died without anyone excpet Higgins and a few others knowing and someone else (higgins?) taking on the part to keep them all in the style to which they've become accustomed. But yeah it was a case of writers being cutesy.
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10-27-2005 @ 7:05PM
David Lee Ingersoll said...
Sorry, the death of the Lone Gunmen did happen on the X-Files. The episode was tying up the loose ends from the cancelled LM series. And yes, it sucked. And yes, since we never actually saw the trio dying in agony from the hideous plague, it's pleasent to assume that their deaths were faked and that they live on ferreting out conspiracies of evil doers wherever they exist. Or something.
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