Now, you just settle back and let me tell you the story of my List of Vengeance. A story about a carefree, happy wee lass, who loved running in the fields and chasing the butterflies. Well, one day this girl -- and she looked a lot like me -- turned on the television, because it was time for Dr. Who and... and... the Doctor was a different person! Where was her silver-haired, velvet jacket-wearing Doctor? Who was this upstart with his long scarf and his big ol' mop of Mr. Brady hair?

Well, they tried to tell me that it was my same Doctor, and that he just looked different -- but I knew better. And my hatred of the BBC was born.

Of course, I was young then, and foolish. The BBC, Dr. Who producers and professional fuck-ups, were probably not directly responsible for Jon Pertwee's disappearance. And, well, there is no denying that Dr. Who is winner and still champion when it comes to volume of cast changes. With nine incarnations of the Doctor, and over forty different companions (many of them scantily-clad), I eventually became inured to it. Desensitised even. Who is the Companion this week? Does she scream as well as the last one? Well, then, okay. Whatever.

But that doesn't mean other genre shows have not the power to hurt me.

It's a story we see again and again on genre television. A beloved character, whether a series regular or occasional supporting dufus, dies a horrible death, and the universe from whence they came is irrevocably changed -- very rarely for the better.

Unless it's Star Trek. 'Cause no one ever dies for good on Star Trek. In fact, if you're a regular on a Trek show and you haven't died at least once, you just haven't lived.

Kirk, Spock, Scotty. Yar, Worf, O'Brien, Dax. Voyager's Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) has died so often that I'm beginning to fear it'll actually take one of these days. But it probably won't. Whether resurrection comes through the miracles of future modern medical science, or alternate dimension selves, or the built-in redundancy system that allowed Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) to be replaced by Ezri (Nicole de Boer), death is only ever a temporary state of mind in the 24th Century. It's no wonder that no one in Star Trek seems to mourn for their fallen comrades very much. I mean... what's the point?

At least those folks in The X-Files, they know how to grieve. Which is a good thing, 'cause there's a lot of it going on over there. Deep Throat, gunned down. Mr. X, finger-painting in his own blood. Melissa Scully, in the wrong place at the fatally wrong time.

And Pendrell. Poor, darling, goofy, brilliant Agent Pendrell, played by the dearly mourned Brendan Beiser.

Let me set the scene: a crowded bar, in the midst of a really dumb episode. He's a little drunk, a little loopy. He offers Scully a drink, she brushes him off, a guy with a gun shoots -- and Pendrell is down!

To be continued...

It's okay! we cry. He's gonna be okay! We'll tune in next week, and, you know, he'll be up and about, back in his lab, making with the puppy dog eyes at Scully once more. But, noooo. No, he's not. He's dead, dammit, and it's all your fault, Chris Bloody Carter!

LabBoy, as Pendrell is affectionately known on the Web, was in a mere ten X-Files episodes -- and in one of those, "Max," he was just gasping for breath and bleeding copiously. And yet he already had himself a vocal and enthusiastic fan base, called the LabMice, who were so opposed to his death, and so anguished over his disappearance from the annals of the FBI's cutest, that they retreated into denial. In fact, some even went so far as to concoct elaborate conspiracy theories in an attempt to account for the unaccountable.

Did they stop watching The X-Files as a result of his death? Well, considering what happened afterwards, it would have been better for them if they had. In fact, that's it! Pendrell died and it all went to hell. That'll teach you, Chris Carter! Or maybe not... didn't nearly half the cast of Millennium -- you know, the interesting people, like Lara Means and Bob Bletcher -- leave after the second season? Didn't he go so far as to kill Frank's own wife?

Well, perhaps the rest of those murderous genre people will learn from his mistakes. But I doubt it.

For example: What do you think of when I mention a detective show that features a good vampire on a quest to restore his humanity? That's right: Forever Knight! (What, did you think I was referring to something else?) Detective Nick Knight, centuries-old vampire and kick-ass crime fighter, had a partner. His name was Donald Schanke. He wasn't the most attractive of men, but boy, we liked him. He was greasy, and smarmy, and hardly politically correct, but Schanke had personality, and his own distinctive sidekick-y style.

So, of course, they killed him. Grrrr.

There are times when I wonder if all of this rage against those responsible for such deaths is entirely healthy. If my overwhelming need for revenge -- which, by the way, is the best revenge -- has clouded my judgment. Sometimes I think I am just too obsessed with fictional people.

My only consolation is that I am not alone. A cursory glance at the Web -- well, not all of the Web, I'm going for a PG rating here -- reveals the secrets of genre fans hearts all-too-clearly. We loved Marcus. We loved Dax. We loved Pendrell, and Highlander's Richie, and even that stodgy Andy from Charmed. And those producers, and writers, and goddamn creators made them leave us! Cruel, heartless souls to a man -- yes, even you, Aaron Spelling!

Granted, it is not always the decision of a show's production staff that a character leave a series. Both Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar) and Terry Farrell, for example, abandoned starship to advance their careers (did you even read a Becker script before you signed on, Terry?), and how can we begrudge them their freedom from typecasting?

But for the way in which they went out -- oh, that we can blame those production people for. Tasha was killed by effluvia from the Exxon Valdez. Dax was offed by a silly special effect. And Voyager's Kes (Jennifer Lien), whether she is still alive somewhere or not, left the series by becoming a special effect. As though to punish them for their alter-ego's departures, the characters were treated shamefully. And that's not right. Is it?

There are times, of course, when a character won't die. He'll just leave. Or be replaced. Literally.