Leah wrote:
If Blake had destroyed the Federation and set up a new, democratic form
of government, would there be anything left to write about 20 years later? >>
In the hands of a good writer? Oyez, oyez. Off the top of my *un*talented head, Blake discovering his beloved wife has cheated with former ally and rebellious foe Kerr Avon. Cally has brought back the Auronae and are waging war with humans in retaliation and vengeance that Blake doesn't feel entirely unjustified. Orac has created a humanoid avatar (much like Rommie) who works with Avon and is every bit as difficult and obnoxious as his former incarnation, and Avon can't pull his key anymore. Servalan had her consciousness transplanted into Jenna's body a long time ago, and is secretly scheming behind Blake's back, undetected. And Tarrant has never forgiven Avon for getting Dayna butchered at Gauda Prime, and leads Blake's troops against the rebel. I'd watch.
Well, to be honest, it sounds a little soapy to me; I'd probably watch it once, but I'm not sure I'd revisit it. That's too far away from the original premise for my taste. A current example of this is La Femme Nikita - from originally being a dark, brooding, stylish, tightly written tale about reluctant covert anti-terrorist operatives with a romantic subplot, it's gone to being a rather unbelievable hodge-podge about the empowerment of the title character leap-frogging her way past older and more experienced operatives in an effort to find her long-lost father, who just happens to be the head of this covert organization. It's not the same show, and I'll probably never watch the last two seasons again. And this is a show that was resurrected from cancellation by fan demand - and from what I can gather lurking in the NGs, most of the fans are regretting it as much as I am.
A different sort of problem that arises with 'giving the fans what they want' is that often you have two (or more) large, vocal groups of fans that want completely opposite things; when it's known that the franchise actually pays attention to what the fans want, it can lead to some deep rifts in the fandom. That's what's going on in Buffydom right now, with the whole Spike storyline - and I think I'd better stop there.
I guess I'm thinking in terms of too many cooks - I'd rather see one person's or team's artistic vision on the screen than something calculated to appeal to as many fans as possible. Let them put up their best effort and let me decide if it's to my taste or not. After all, B7 is a tiny niche fandom here in the states; if my local PBS station were trying to program to the most viewers, I'd never have seen it.
Mistral