An open letter to Shiban, Spotnitz, Gilligan, and all the "creative" people at 10-13 Productions responsible for tonight's X-Files episode, "Jump the Shark":
Gee, thanks a lot, guys.
Thank you oh
so much for tonight's "conclusion." Was it ever.
Thank you for bringing to life such
amazing characters, three brilliant (if wacky) dreamers who stole
their way into our souls over the years, making it cool to be geeky,
admirable to be idealistic, sexy to be smart, three true heroes to
anyone who has ever felt outcast or misfit, three voices for the
average man and woman...and then destroying them before our
disbelieving eyes.
Thank you for taking the time and
efforts of hundreds of fans across the country, and the world,
who spent precious time in crafting schemes to resurrect your craftwork--stamp
after stamp to send letters, postcards, various objects to FOX
Network in hopes that Our Heroes would return--hours and hours
researching phone numbers, addresses, e-mails--weeks and months of many
late nights deciphering HTML and JavaScript and graphics
programs to build dozens of pages supporting TLG (over a year
in my case)--and treating it all like so much toilet paper, making it
worthless, collectively giving us all the finger.
Thank you for creating a light in the
darkness--one of the too-few pleasures of this last year--and making
it painfully gruesome, snuffing it completely--in the end, leaving
one less escape from the harshness of reality.
Thank you for raising our hopes,
teasing us with rumors and snippets and promos into fantasies of a
happy resolution to the TLG cliffhanger, making us wait weeks and months
in giddy anticipation...and then dashing our spirits, ruining our
illusions, reminding us that even in the fantastic dream world of the
X Files, that it's useless to try, hopeless to strive, impossible to
win. I know, I know, "noble sacrifice" and all that
bull$#!%. But in the end, the Morris Fletchers of the world
survive and succeed yet again, and the hopeful dreamers get crushed.
Again.
Harsh words? Unquestionably.
Overreaction? You betcha. "Grow up, it's
just a TV show"? Too true. But damn it, tonight HURT.
Reality's dark enough; why did you have to ruin our dreams?
There had to have been half a dozen ways, at least,
for the Gunmen to prevail without paying that oh-so-terrible
price. They were silly stories, silly characters, a silly TV
show...maybe not worth much in the grand scheme of things.
But...it was so nice seeing heroes that weren't perfect,
weren't so pretty, heroes who didn't always get it perfectly right,
were kinda clumsy, but who believed, no matter how insignificant they
might have seemed to others, that ideals were worth believing in,
that what little three average people could do would make a
difference. They were heroes, but human...like those of
us who watched. They were so easy for us to identify
with, so when their show was threatened, we joined the
fight...like they would have. We did it for ourselves, for the
Gunmen, and for you. We've fought so hard for
your creation, to give you guys a second chance, to share
those wonderful stories you wanted to tell. I think after the
first few months we knew it wouldn't work...but we still tried.
And tonight, you made it all futile. It would have been so easy
to give them--and us--a way out, to let us dream of them off
somewhere in our collective dreamland, righting wrongs and fighting
the good fight, forever...a little hope, however unreal, in a world
already choking and drowning in death, destruction, killing,
hatefulness. But no, you couldn't give us that much,
even after all we did to give you another chance. You made it
all worthless, in the most painfully possible way.
You killed them.
You destroyed their dreams...our
dreams, and wounded that part of us--of me--that wanted to believe.
You made me cry like a lost child.
You broke my heart.
Thanks a lot, you bastards.
Never again yours,
CrusherJen
