Oh, verily! I used that argument myself just the other day. I try to keep my complaints to things that could have easily been fixed just by a simple dialogue tweak, or over something that was a mistake unaffected by budget, actor availability, or time constraints, and try to look at everything from both inside and outside of the narrative.

Talk you again when you post your review for Outcast?

I look forward to it.

If there are/were any problems with any aspect of Pink Raygun, please, don’t hesitate to contact us. If there aren’t trackbacks where there should be, let us know, and we’ll do what we can to fix the problem. I’d hate to think that anything we are (or aren’t) doing might have led to any kind of problem.

For now though I’m heading off to bed. Talk you again when you post your review for Outcast?

And that seems to be JoeM’s thinking too. Me, I find it an important excercise for my own writing to always be on the lookout for possible holes. I make every effort to eliminate all holes — even in my comedy. And so I hone my eye for holes in my own stories by looking for them in all works. I even rewrite weak passages I read in novels. XD

Well there IS a HUGE difference between what can be done on a tv show/movie and what can be done in a book or fan fiction. Sometimes things just have to be done a certain way to save time/money when working on a tv show or movie. Or they have to be done a certain way to make sure the plot works. Or maybe some visual effect is ALWAYS going to look “fake” simply because we don’t have the technology to make it look “real” (at least not yet). Sure there are times when they get a bit TOO sloppy with the plot holes and could do much better but still my first thought is usually “they probably did it that way to save time/money” or sometimes even “well that was rather silly of them” not “OMG what were they THINKING? They’re so STUPID for doing that! OMG!” – and really even the writers/producers admit later on that they should/could have done better with some plot element.

I think sometimes things look good on paper so they go with it and then visually it ends up “looking bad” but they don’t have time to go back and fix it. Not to mention the times they’ve had to cut scenes for time and lost important moments – like in “The Tower” when Shepperd DID actually kick the woman out of his room but that part was cut for time – resulting in John looking worse than he was.

Joe M has said that “Irresponsible” ended up going badly and being his least favorite episode but they still aired it so obviously even when they KNOW something is wrong they can’t not air it. I’m sure there are other episodes some of them would have liked to be able to change and fix as well.

I think sometimes fan fiction writers forget that a lot of effort goes into making the show and sometimes there just isn’t TIME or enough money to consider every plot hole, or fix every issue that comes up. Like when they do the episodes with out Sam and people start asking why there couldn’t just be one scene with her approving a mission. There are actual behind the scene REASONS why they can’t JUST do that.

Anyone can write a fan fiction story that includes any character they want to include but its not always possible to have that character actually be in an episode for one reason or another.

And as a side note – I really actually am more fussy about books I read than tv shows and movies. I tend to figure book authors have more time to get things right so I expect more from them than I would a tv show or movie. (Its probably why I’m so fussy about fan fiction as well – they have the time to research the show and use beta readers to make sure they’re story looks good – but some don’t even bother to get canon facts right, or they let fanon influence them far to much).

And for all I know maybe it IS true that I expect too little from tv shows and movies.

And that seems to be JoeM’s thinking too. Me, I find it an important excercise for my own writing to always be on the lookout for possible holes. I make every effort to eliminate all holes — even in my comedy. And so I hone my eye for holes in my own stories by looking for them in all works. I even rewrite weak passages I read in novels. XD

But I’m not going to apologize for my view either – that sometimes looking to deeply at a show ruins the fun of it. If I took things half as seriously as some people seem to I don’t think I’d be watching ANYTHING on TV or reading any science fiction or fantasy books. And maybe I’m totally misunderstanding just how seriously people are taking things…

It’s like the people who keep asking why everyone speaks English on Atlantis (or any other science fiction show – they really would be better off if they just accepted the fact that it’s a TV show and they need to have everyone speak English in order to save time and money (it would take far to long to have to have everyone translate everything. Sure some people would love it any think it was cool but just as many would get bored and annoyed quickly and want the story to move on). – basically sometimes the simple (on the surface) answer is the best answer.

I do thank you for reading as long as you have — if you continue to read, great! Feel free to post or not post as you see fit. But if you don’t, I understand.

re: suicide ~ Yeah, that’s definitley one of those situations where we’d have to agree to disagree — I feel pretty much the exact opposite of you on the topic, it seems. Granted, I have run across fics on the subject that were too melodramatic even for me, but I’ve found more that suit my tastes than not. I have my reasons, you have yours. *shrug*

And I do get what you’re saying about Rodney fans really not letting Rodney “getting away with things” just that the other characters actions are more noteworthy – but at the same time I still believe there are times when people (not you but Rodney fans in general) focus on defending Rodney while ignoring the reasons why the other characters may be reacting to him the way that they do – right or wrong they usually do have an understandable reason for it. And the thing is that its the same thing in every single fandom – there seems to always be ONE character who gets defended and the other characters are accused of being to mean to that character. And honestly I’m sick of it.

I also have to be honest and admit that your reply to one of my posts where you said you liked the “driven to suicide” stories bugged me more than it probably should have. But that has more to do with my personal feelings about suicide than my thoughts on if the characters are actually capable of being driven to that point (and I usually don’t think they are). That and those stories tend to end up being more about character bashing than anything else.

I have no control over the trackbacks — I have no control over Pink Raygun’s site in any way, shape, or form, no editing power or webmastering power whatsoever. I turn in the column to an editor, who post the column *for* me. But the trackbacks are working for me — they aren’t for you? Maybe it was just a site glitch?

As for the linkbacks on your blog, as I said, this is the internet – everyone has the right to post or not post any links they see fit on their own site. I appreciate the links, but it’s you’re blog — the decision should always be entirely yours, one way or the other!

Obviously the best thing for me to do right now is keep from commenting on your reviews. If you’d like me to stop linking to your reviews from my blog as well I’ll do that (though the “trackbacks” seem to be shut off on your reviews already).