How do you make sense of something that doesn’t make sense?
| Open Letter | |
|---|---|
| Title: | How do you make sense of something that doesn’t make sense? |
| From: | Judith Ley Page |
| Addressed To: | Beauty and the Beast fans |
| Date(s): | February 1990 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Beauty and the Beast (TV) |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
How do you make sense of something that doesn’t make sense? is a 1990 Beauty and the Beast (TV) open letter by Judith Ley Page.
It was printed in the January/February 1990 Pipedreams very shortly after the beginning of the third season and its explosive plot twist.
Some Topics Discussed
- the death of Catherine Chandler
- the first episode of the third season was poorly written, badly acted, badly directed and shallow
- what this fan felt to be lies and poor treatment to fans by CBS
- fan entitlement
- solace in fanworks
The Letter
How do you make sense of something that doesn’t make sense? As hard as you try, the pieces don’t fit.
D-Day! December 12, 1989, 9:00. The return of B&B. To each of us it was the same and yet different. Each of us shared the same dream in our own way, in our own context, and were euphoric in spite of the foreknowledge we had of the premiere content What ultimately mattered was that B&B had come back to us. And yet within 15 minutes of its beginning, I knew something was frighteningly wrong and for 2 hours I sat in a stupor, my shock and disbelief growing until by the end I just wanted this fiasco called “Though Lovers Be Lost” to be done with. This wasn’t B&B, that wasn’t Catherine dying, and that wasn’t Vincent there on the roof. Strangers were wearing their faces.
My mind and soul are still groping in the dark maze for some answers, trying to find excuses or give credit, but after watching it twice, talking to many B&B friends, and putting some time between me and IT, I still haven’t found anything that redeems it. TLBL wasn’t just bad for a B&B episode. It was bad for a bad TV show. It was horribly written, badly directed, editing was atrocious, acting (dare I say it - bad. Maybe caused by the editing or maybe the cast didn’t have their hearts in it.) It was shallow, disconnected, predictable, and the characters weren’t true (exceptions were maybe Joe and Elliot). It was all that B&B had never been. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise. My feelings never did get engaged in what was happening on the screen and considering the storyline, maybe that was good. But we knew most of the story beforehand, and I was prepared for it. If Catherine had to die, then I wanted it handled in the best way possible and I was confident that the B&B folks could do that and the writers that had given us most of our best episodes were writing it. It goes to show that even the best can do the worst. I hear that Koslow himself wrote the first hour. In spite of his reassurances that we would like what we saw and be richly rewarded, we got NOTHING. Ij was worse than nothing, it was a bad nothing. Considering the worst case scenario of TLBL, our rich reward will be watching Catherine and Vincent’s souls meet after Vincent has been killed off in the worst way they can come up with. However, even with ail the love in heaven, we won't get that kiss there, either.
All I can say is thank the stars for December 13th and "Walk Slowly". It is B&B at its best. It engaged my emotions in minutes. I understood it! I dealt with Catherine's death, mourned with Vincent, Joe, Elliot, Jenny, and the rest of the tunnel folk, loved Vincent's fight with his dark side (WOW!) and learned to very much like this new lady called Diana. The magic that I knew as B&B was still there after aU—it had just gotten lost momentarily in the abyss that was TLBL.
It's been said that we fans don't own B&B and the B&B folks don't owe us anything (even if we did save their jobs for a 3rd season) but that's not true. They do owe us. They owed us all that we deserved and really asked for — the best that they could do. We didn't get it, but maybe they really believed they were. Ron said it often enough. Maybe they thought they were giving us high tragedy. After all, the premiere had to be as important to them and CBS as it was to us, but I And it hard to exonerate such blindness. My faith and confidence is sorely shaken and I fear for the episodes yet to be made.
Our sore hearts and minds, worn and inky fingers, and our fears are still here, but so it is our love for what was, is, and can be and that is something no one can take from us. I wish you solace, I wish you hope, and I wish you love — forever.
Got to go and have another crying jag and then do some sketches for those wonderful fan and fiction zines out there that keep Catherine and Vincent's dream alive, the WAY we want to see it.
Wednesday night is creeping up again and the eternal optimist in me is soaring and floating....floating.