Observation...

[syredronning]

When I love a series, I love the series. Point.

It may go strong or weak, have flaws or not - I will view it through pink glasses and find something good even in the strangest development. This applies to TOS, DS9, X-Files, B5 and Heroes. (And maybe Boston Legal.) It does not necessarily apply to movies or spin-offs of said series ;)

Series that I'm not in love with are on the level of "will watch, but will complain lots of time". This applies to TNG, VOY, SPN and many others.

How's your approach to your preferred series, dear fellow fans?

Comments

[illariy.livejournal.com]

(Caveat: I can only answer this for one series, as that's the only one I've ever been properly fannish for. If I ever get another main fandom, things might turn out differently.)

Now as for the actual answer, I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I came to ST:TOS years after the series ended and through a novelisation rather than an actual episode, and I believe I fell in love more with an idea than with the actual product.
There are lots of things that I wish ST had done differently or had elaborated on; some I like to turn around and around in my head pondering possible explanations (which, yes, is fun *g*), some I just ignore, some continue to annoy me whenever I think of them. Sometimes, I don't understand why I ever fell in love with this series.

On the other hand, I do appreciate bad episodes by concentrating entirely on the actors' looks instead of the 'plot':P and by doing the pick-and-choose described above, I took the pieces I liked and created my own version, and I definitely look at that with rose tinted glasses. Hm. So on the whole, 'my' ST is an idealised version but I acknowledge that. Maybe that's the conclusion. ;-)

[syredronning.livejournal.com]

I can relay to that. I couldn't bear watching the episodes for years, and only read the novels, so yeah, the idea counts - and the characters - more than the colorful cheap 60's production.

I fell in love with the visuals more again over time when doing vids, and at one point I desperately wished the newer series were MORE COLORFUL (dark, grey, dark, shady...bleh!).

Most bad episodes have redeeming character moments. And for everything else, we have fanfic to fix it, LOL!