Rabid Fandom

I am finding that in the aftermath of the Lost finale last night there are many on the social network sights that are inconsolable or are not taking well to being teased for their attachment to a show that I never quite got in its six year run.  Fans of Lost show it a reverence that is a bit bizarre in my book and are bereft that it is gone. 

Don't get me wrong, I love television. I especially love good writing, and was very upset when some of my favorite shows were cancelled, (I actually wrote to the network to try to get them to reconsider the cancellation of Joan of Arcadia), but I have never been one to analyze an end of show episode the way these folks have.  It is almost spooky.  I made what I thought was a harmless joke as a comment on one person's sight and he lashed back at me and called me intolerant for mocking his love of the show.

I wonder if these same fans are upset with Jimmy Kimmel for his series of  Lost the"alternate endings" one of which I hear includes a surprise appearance by Bob Newhart.  I didn't see those either, but I bet they were funny even if you hadn't ever seen the show. 

Maybe I have a different perspective on the whole thing because I am a writer myself and I realize that all of the things these people are hotly debating are just stuff that somebody made up (as my husband says).   In the grand scheme of things it just doesn't matter.   Tomorrow, or next week, or next season a new show will come around and people will like it or they will find it oddly familiar in style.  Then they will notice that the  people who wrote for the show they were crying over the demise of last season are now writing for this new show.  Life will go on.

Pax