Season 8 Musings

[SpaceAnJL]

11a Velociraptors picking shards of bone out of their teeth after having eaten Bernadette
11b Velociraptors picking shreds of cardigan out of their teeth after having eaten AFF

This probably constitutes cruelty to animals, though.

[Louise]

11b Velociraptors picking shreds of cardigan out of their teeth after having eaten AFF

[Toad]

[Louise]

In one of my recent posts, I said that canon-supporters are watching a portion of this franchise that I have chosen not to experience.

In the book version of Jurassic Park, Ian Malcolm dies. In the movie version, he lives. Which one of these is correct? Which one is true? They both are. Same character, same name, but two separate things. That is how I am choosing to view the early seasons of BBT versus the recent seasons.

If there was a series of books with eight volumes, and I chose not to read all eight volumes, that would be okay. If there was a trilogy of movies, and I chose not to watch all three, that would be okay. If a singer had a number of different albums and I liked a few of them but not all, that would be okay.

If I chose not to read all the books in a series, you might say "Well, you don't have the full story." Well, I don't want the full story. If I find a point in that story that seems like a natural ending-place, I can stop there, if I want to. And so, for me, the story *is* complete.

Now, you might say my Jurassic Park example is not a good one, that it's not a valid argument, because you might argue that the book-version and movie-version of a story are clearly intended to be two separate things, whereas the seasons of a TV show *are* intended to be a unified whole. You might say this is not a good comparison.

Well, if that's the case, why are they both called Jurassic Park? There are so many reboots of Spider Man that I've lost track, but they're all called Spider Man. Why can't I regard the earlier seasons and the later seasons of Big Bang Theory as two separate canons?

The name is nearly all that the recent seasons of BBT have in common with the old ones, isn't it? They keep shedding/discarding more and more of the original ideas, jokes, characters, situations, etc. If Leonard moves out in S9 and he and Sheldon are no longer roomies, what will remain of the original premise, and even the original setting? I'd argue nothing. Tell me what S9 will have in common with S1, aside from the name, and the presence of the same actors. And then, try to defend the notion that these two things are any more similar than, say, Godfather 1 and Godfather 2. They're not.

You can't tell me I don't have the full story or I haven't seen anything of significance if I haven't watched Jaws 2, for example. Who's to even say what the full story is? Some canons are so huge and long-running, encompassing so many different types of media, that to be a completist would be almost impossible. I'd like to see the BBT canon-absolutists tackle a larger, older, more complex fandom and try to determine which parts are "valid." Their heads would spin.

Yul Brynner played the King of Siam more than four thousand times. Ask them which one of those performances was the "real" one.

Let's imagine that I watched the movie version of JP, but I didn't want to read the book, because the idea of Malcolm dying was upsetting for me. Well, I don't want to accept or acknowledge the later seasons of BBT because the characters being humiliated and diminished is upsetting for me.*

You can tell me that the characters have done awful things, and had awful things done *to* them, but you're telling me about a segment of this franchise that I have chosen not to partake of, and it's as irrelevant to me as Adam West's Batman is to Christian Bale's Batman.

You can tell me Howard is married to Bernadette and he did such-and-such, but that's like saying "Ian Malcolm is dead."

*this is just an example, I've read/watched both.

[SpaceAnJL]

In other words - Embrace the Multiverse. (There are bound to be cookies in one reality or another)