In a message dated 2/16/01 3:30:56 AM Eastern Standard Time, ragan@sdc.org writes:

<< I don't think it's so much that fans write about stuff they feel is "mishandled" (although I think there is at least in some fanfic an element of "No, here's how *I* would have done it!"). I think it's more that there are a lot of gaps left unexplored in the show, a lot of possibilities that were hinted at but not a whole lot was done with, a lot of interesting stuff that was never fully developed. So you want to leap in and fill in the gaps. I think that's the sort of think Jenkins was talking about, too. >>

I'm sure it was, and it's safe to say that fanfic has *always* been about doing what the producers couldn't or wouldn't do because of limitations of budget, creativity, availability of cast, limits on time and limits of censorship. But I was responding to the contention that part of the reason we become fannish is because of a tension between that which was great and that which was lousy about a show. I simply opined that the truly lousy (not the unfinished, or unsatisfying) is ignored as a sort of general fannish suspension of attention (instead of disbelief).

Leah