OBSSE Mailing List: Year 2000 Summary

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Title: OBSSE Mailing List: Year 2000 Summary
Creator: Brother WetLegKik
Date(s): February 2001, describing events of 2000
Medium: online
Fandom: The X-files
Topic:
External Links: OBSSE Mailing List: Year 2000 Summary at News for the OBSSEsed - February 2001, Archived version
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

OBSSE Mailing List: Year 2000 Summary is a 2001 essay by Brother WetLegKik.

It summarizes events and discussions at the OBSSE Mailing List and was published in News for the OBSSEsed #38.

"Every year Brother WetLegKik breaks down the events on the OBSSE mailing list. If you're not on that list and ever wonder what goes on, or even if you are and can't remember the past this is a pretty good indication of the craziness there."

Some Topics Discussed

Excerpts

The year 2000 was an interesting one for the OBSSE mailing list. As the seventh season of The X-Files staggered towards the final finish line, one series star was suing the XF creator/producer over syndication money and was not on speaking terms with anyone at 1013 Productions. He wouldn't even have lunch with them. The other star was telling anyone who would listen that she could not possibly do an eighth season because she was exhausted, emotionally and creatively drained, underpaid, didn't have a thing to wear, and wanted to be a movie star. Loyal fans of The X-Files were openly fighting in the streets, back alleys and online about whether the show should continue its downward spiral towards mediocrity or mercifully die at the ripe old age of seven.

The year began with a bang in an episode that shocked Scully fans around the world and OBSSE members in particular. Our Saint Scully did the unthinkable. She committed a serious crime and then conspired with Mulder to cover it up. The fact that Agent Scully, in her own home, shot and killed the very essence of the devil, Donnie Pfaster, while he was in custody was too much for some OBSSE members to accept. Heated arguments flew across the Internet. Legal outrage versus moral justification, technicalities of the law versus the bigger view, vengeance versus due process, and saint versus mere mortal were just some of the topics of debate. Some OBSSE members in good standing were so upset that they found their way to the Abbey door and left of their own accord in their own Accords. Another less-than-legitimate member of the mailing list had been surreptitiously lying low in disguise, but found she could not remain silent in hiding any longer and marched out the door, upset in a major way by Scully's illegal behavior in Orison. Yep, it was a tense time for the ol' Inbox.

Mulder was abducted near the X on the road in Oregon where it all began, and the seventh season ended with Scully smiling and uttering the words, "I'm pregnant."

A firestorm of protests rained down upon the OBSSE mailing list. NoRoMos went into cardiac arrest. "It's impossible!" they cried. Bead was so upset about Scully's pregnancy that she withdrew into total seclusion, only venturing out after dark each evening to set her VCR to record every freakin' minute of every freakin' show on the WB. Shippers smiled enigmatically and started crocheting baby blankets, planning baby showers, and worrying about how Scully's clothes would fit. The mailing list arguments supporting the obvious reason why Scully could not possibly be pregnant collided in mid-dialup with detailed scientific, biological, and medical explanations as to how it could have happened. The most outrageous SRE: Cigarette Smoking Man had something to do with it. Long, entertaining mailing list threads debated whether the baby would be human or alien? Stay at home or day care? Granny or nanny? Breast-fed or formula? Disposable or cloth? Public school or private? Late night chats questioned the length of the FBI's maternity leave, HMO pediatric care, the J. Edgar Hoover Building's nursery facility, maternity holsters, and post-partum workout exercises.

Then came the announcement from 1013 Productions that there would be an eighth season of The X-Files, but it would be Mulder-lite. David Duchovny's contract was up and he would not be coming back as a full time employee of 1013 Productions. Gillian Anderson was locked up contractually for an eighth season and reluctantly agreed to fulfill her contract. Although she had previously said that she could not possibly do an eighth season, she caused 600 jaws to simultaneously hit the Abbey floor by announcing that she had signed up for a NINTH season! This caused great consternation in OBSSELand, with Richter scale readings of 7.2 julias, causing lots of broken marguerite Glasses at the epicenter, which was located in Boulder, Colorado, USA. Emergency shipments of paper cups, ice, salt, tequila and Beer were dispatched to the affected areas. CathyB ranted, La.. rationalized, and Gen legaleezed, while some of us just scratched our heads and wondered why we shouldn't be happy that Gillian wanted to continue to play our favorite character on our favorite TV show. But the ninth season was a done deal.

However, all of these important issues took a back seat to the most important event of the summer of 2000: The Third Annual OBSSE Fest.

The mailing list was strangely quiet during the week of Fest. Those of us who could not attend wondered if maybe the entire group of Fest goers had been abducted by people with Scandinavian accents and forced to eat bland food and sing corny songs. We shouldn't have worried because Sister "Bossypants" Nanners had her Fest 2000 Foto Album WEB Site uploaded and available for worldwide viewing early Sunday evening, before some Festers had even pranced through the airport metal and cheese detectors on their way home from Minnesota. Judging from Nanners' photos and more photos by the lazy slackers who couldn't get their photos uploaded before Monday morning, Fest 2000 was a big success, with lots of fun, frivolity and a very nice buffet table. And leeches. The sisters of OBSSE (along with a few token brothers) proved again that if something is worth doing, it is worth overdoing, in extremis. It didn't take long before the mailing list was awash with neeners and inside jokes that made the rest of us just want to hurl.

Arriving back home in Colorado after another successful OBSSE Fest, Wielder of the Holy Trout, Sister Autumn "Where's my freakin' beer?" Tysko had not even had time to unpack her fish when she found out that she had been invited to join Gillian Anderson in Washington, D.C. for a NF, Inc. Congressional Luncheon. That sounds real fancy schmanzy, but all it meant was that Autumn would get to go to D.C. and schmooze with Gillian and other less important people (like Senators and Congressmen) and eat rubbery chicken. Although Sister La.. is the chief NF muckety muck in OBSSE, she could not accompany Autumn to Washington, D.C. because she is terrified of Gillian Anderson's hair and poor fashion sense. Instead Sister "It's my freakin' newsletter" Paula went along with Autumn. Shortly afterwards, the mailing list was filled with neeners and photos of Gillian playing grab *ss with Autumn. It made the rest of us unfortunate low-lifes just want to hurl.

In the midst of all of these charitable goings on, one particular member of OBSSE seemed to forget that discretion is the better part of valor, and uncharitably boasted about her own charitable contributions to charity. This did not go over well on the list and it soon threatened to rip apart the very fabric of OBSSE. Fortunately the fabric of OBSSE is polyester, and it merely stretched instead of ripped.

After the OBSSE Fest in Minnesota and the Schmooze Fest in Washington, D.C., things quieted down on the mailing list through the "dog" days of summer. Well, they were quiet until late July, when 1013 Productions announced that Scully's new partner had been created and that Agent John "I'm a man's man" Doggett would be played by actor Robert "Who is he?" Patrick. Then the 1013 Spin and Hype machine went into action, informing all of us that Doggett would be different from Mulder. Apparently, after seven years of watching Mulder's every move on TV, none of us realized that he was such a girly man. Doggett would be different. He would be a manly man. If Mulder had one ounce of testosterone, Doggett had a hundred gallons. The mailing list was immediately flooded with questions regarding exactly how well the manly Agent Doggett measured up (in inches for U.S. residents, centimeters for all others).

October was a difficult month for the OBSSE mailing list. Snippiness raised its ugly head as the effects of a long summer of Scullynemia began to take its toll. As the autumn leaves began to drop, AutumnT began dropping some major spoilers for the premiere episode of Season "Who Let The Dog Out" Eight. Spoiler virgins lived in fear that in a moment of passion, a determined spoiler post would slip through their protective devices and ruin five months of celibacy.

[...]

While the non-believing heathens suffered through the month of October with no X-Files and baseball on TV almost every night, the enlightened ones sat back and rejoiced in our gifts from the baseball gods. We enjoyed our salted-in-the-shell peanuts and Cracker Jacks, knowing that we would soon get to quench our thirsts on November 5th with a delicious, Big Gulp of Dana Scully. Ahhhhhh.

The OBSSE Elders were concerned, however, about the long-term effects that five months of no new Scully was having on the huddled masses. This concern spawned a major event on the mailing list: Pandering Week. Rather than simply voting for our favorite Scully-centric episodes to be screened during next year's nationwide Scullython Fundraisers for NF, someone (La..) decided to allow mailing list members to actively campaign for their favorite episode (Never Again) to attempt to sway the voting in their favor. Simple plain text-only (PTO) mailing list posts pleading for votes quickly gave way to heavy-handed HTML, JavaScript-enhanced, Flash-assisted, multi-media-equipped WEB Page Panderings (HHHTMLJSEFAMMEWPP). It was not a pretty sight. Shameless would not even begin to describe the depths to which some members (Rania) were willing to plunge to get their favorite episode (Teso) added to the Scullython playlist. An elder-organized counter campaign containing not-so-veiled threats and fishy-smelling scare tactics was quickly implemented to encourage the electorate to vote against certain episodes (Teso) and for certain episodes (all things). The Republican Party took note and used these same tactics in Florida to win the American presidential election. Although the OBSSE voting machines had very little problems with Chad, Scully's pregnant dimples did cause some snags. But there was no doubt that the OBSSE Scullython vote count was very accurate, and in the end, all things worked out well, except for Field Trip being included at the expense of some good episodes. We can all hope that the bad blood caused by this experience can be forgotten and that lame episodes are never again included in such a prestigious exhibition of Dana Scully's best episodes.

The first two episodes of the new Season, Within and Without gave all of us fans lots and lots of Scully. She met her new partner, Agent John Doggett. Rather than shaking his hand, she tossed a cup of water in his face. Cheers were heard from Nova Scotia to Hawaii as that scene worked its way across the North American time zones. But a strange sadness hung over the OBSSE mailing list. Even though many members did not miss Fox Mulder at all, almost everyone had to admit that The X-Files just wasn't going to be the same without him. Not only had Mulder been abducted, we also found out that he was dying. Scully was sad and alone. Doggett was stone-faced and couldn't comprehend multi-syllable words. Kersh was as big a jerk as ever. Skinner was wimpy and had taken to wearing pastel colors. Ma Scully didn't answer the phone. There was an underlying melancholy on the show and on the mailing list. Scully had no one to turn to and she was feeling very alone in the cosmos. It was obvious things had taken a turn toward the dark side.

However, the most important thing about the first two episodes was that Scully was right-haired and her blouse was tight. And there was major cleavage. Oh, and the AutumnT Reviews and the Severed Reviews were back!

What do you call it when the climax occurs at the beginning? The first two episodes, Within and Without, seem to be the highlight of Season Eight so far. Starting with Patience, The X-Files appears to be heading downhill. Forgetting about Scully's search for Mulder and reverting to Monster of the Week episodes just left a lot of people hanging from the rafters. About the only good things that happened in Patience were Gillian Anderson now had top billing in the opening credits and she had again forgotten how to button her blouse. Most comments on the mailing list regarding the sudden shift of focus away from Fox Mulder and towards the emergence of John Doggett were thoughtful and fair, with most people giving Agent Doggett the benefit of his doubts. Leading up to the holiday hiatus, Scully lovers found they were getting less and less Scully each week. While Roadrunners was no doubt Scully-centric, it left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. A lot of us don't like it when Scully gets shot, and in Roadrunners she took a big slug right in the back. She was in pain and needed help and Doggett is not a medical doctor. Of course, some irreverent and disrespectful members of the mailing list couldn't resist making light of Scully's slug, and yukked it up big time until they hit their five post limit.

Next came Invocation, and it was so depressing it could barely generate any discussion at all. Even Scully's most ardent supporters grew tired of hearing her say stuff like "this is not normal". If it were normal, someone else would be assigned to investigate the case. If Mulder and Scully had an on-screen electricity between them equivalent to a 1000 watt floodlight, Scully and Doggett have the dimness of a 7 watt nightlight.

While we all knew that eventually we would get some heavy Doggett-centric episodes so we could get to know the manly man better, we certainly did not think that both Doggett AND Scully would disappear from view in the same episode. Redrum was about some stranger having a bad dream. It didn't even really happen. It certainly wasn't an X-File. Maybe they should have had Skinner or Frohike having sexy dreams about Scully. At least it would have been relevant and made Reade happy.

If we needed proof that Season Eight was going into the tank, the fact that the Severed Reviews began appearing a week or two before AutumnT's Episode Reviews should have been like a fire alarm going off. The Severed Reviews are written (penned? hammered out? regurgitated?) by a couple of whacked-out foreign correspondents (one in Britain and the other in the Australian outback) who HAVE NOT EVEN SEEN THE EPISODE they are reviewing. In fact, it could be that they have never seen a single episode of The X-Files, and are actually watching some BBC or OzBC knock-offs of the real thing. Even they were bored to tears just reading about Redrum on the mailing list and took to knocking each other about with a large, spiked club for inspiration. This is not unusual, and sometimes they write better after a few gallons (liters?) of blood have been spilled.

In conclusion, the year 2000 was a good one for the OBSSE mailing list. It averaged 36 posts per day. We endured Orison outrage, only a few flaming skirmishes, intense neenering, pregnant Scully, and lame license plates. We enjoyed shift key impairments, pseudo-offlist weekend, CHarc discussions, RP weekend, Pandering Week, Naked!Ranting, FEST Photos, and Rania!Offlist!Squirrel posts. We busted our buttons with pride at the success of the NF Scullythons, Gillian's amazing episode, The OBSSE Newsletter, and House of Mirth. We were amazed at the blurring of national borders, the breakdown of cultural barriers, the tolerance and camaraderie of good friends we have never met, and the special delivery of a new baby Scullyist.

All things considered, it was a pretty good year...

References

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