(no subject)

[olivermoss]

Paul De Meo, co-creator of The Sentinel, has passed.

I miss the days of Sentinel fandom, even though I never managed to be part of it. I think the show was over by the time I came across it.

Comments

[highlander_ii]

I was peripherally in Sentinel fandom. Or came in near-ish the end or something. I do know the fans are responsible for bringing the show back for the last season b/c they all lost their shit about the end of s3 or something (i'm fuzzy on the details, though i agree w/ the rage).

I'd love to be able to watch more than s1 - b/c the series is prohibitively expensive at the moment. I mean - i do have the remainder of the series on old school vhs tapes where i taped 'em off the TV - but ugh.... i think they'll look awful on my HD tv.... /o\ (1st world fan problems)

[olivermoss]

I didn't have any access to the shows for most of my life. I picked up the box set of all seasons when it finally came out. I get into it via fanfic and discussions. I briefly had terrible VHS copies.

I feel like there needs to be project on the show's impact on fandom and fanfic at some point.

[highlander_ii]

This fanlore article has a pretty good start on general fan history from the show: https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Sentinel

there's probably plenty more than can be added.

I watched the show when it was on UPN and then, I think it ran on SciFi in syndication for a long time.

there were yahoogroups for Burgi and the show... i think there are still bits and bobs of old discussions at https://www.sffchronicles.com/forum/sentinel/ - tho, looking, it's kinda dry and not a lot of discussion happened after a while... (that section was originally part of a forum called ascifi.com that was merged into sffchronicles)

[olivermoss]

Yeah, fanlore exists but somehow Sentinel gets overlooked when people talk classic fandoms, or ones that had impact. Just like the show was a thing you knew about or didn't, the fandom seems somewhat forgotten.

I lived in a weird coverage gap for UPN type shows. No Sentintel, no Highlander, no Xena.

I was on mailing lists back in the day. I even gave valuable LJ codes to some fanficcers. But yeah, it's just a me thing. I never manage to be part of the crew.

[highlander_ii]

Obviously Highlander was a thing for me. XD And I hit several pretty 'obscure' shows - Sentinel, 7 Days.... probably others i can't think of right off.

I watched weird stuff too - American Gothic, rolled back around to Forever Knight long after it was over b/c a friend was into it, Brimstone, etc.

But, yeah, Sentinel gets overlooked, despite it being, i think, sort of the originator of the kind of 'soul bond' type fic stuff, iirc. (wasn't my cup of tea, but it was prevalent).

[olivermoss]

People write sentinel/guide fic these days not knowing that it's from anything. I think soul bonds predate it a bit, but a lot of forms and tropes came out of Sentinel. It was somehow massive and hidden at the same time.

[highlander_ii]

Yep.

It had, at least, 2 virtual series - regular & slash - and lord knows how many fic archives and other websites.