Letters

Quote of the Month: "I was amazed. I was disappointed. I got the creeps. I wish I hadn't read it. I'm so glad I did." -- Kathryn Ash, on "The Carter Conundrum"

It's the summer of 2000. Buffy and Angel have long since lapsed into rerun, movie theaters are slogging out Scary Movie drek, and the most famous relevant genre name of the moment is none other than Richard Hatch -- well, Richard Hatch the Survivor guy, anyway. So what's a sci fi/horror fan to do? We at 11th Hour understand your pain, and therefore, in the name of giving you something that'll take the whole damn summer to read, we gave you pisher's three-part opus, "The Carter Conundrum." A sampling of your always impassioned response on that -- and on issue 14 in general -- is available below.

They like us, they still like us!

I'm sure you hear this a great deal, but I love your site... Just found it, so it's taking me awhile to READ everything, but anyone who understands just how perfect a specimen of maleness Vin Diesel is has my undying loyalty, hands down... and baby, they are on the floor. I appreciate the devotion to Buffy too. Lisa Kincaid and Rachel Hyland, you guys are terrific. And I will be happy to talk about how Buffy can be used in your average California High School Social Studies class anytime! Thanks for making my month every time.
-- Sophia

Thanks to you I have an inspiring place to go to on the web. That's it. There's not much else to say unless you want me to wax eloquent. And I'm not particularly good at that. So thank you for the lloooonnnng article on Chris Carter and the X-Files problem, the reviews of current movies, the review on Lost Boys (by Orson Scott Card, and yes, I do love his work), and all the rest. I haven't gotten to the rest yet, but since none of us know how long we'll be here on this earth, I just wanted to get the thank you's said now, rather than later.
-- Vicki Lingle
Somewhere in SoCalifornia

The Grand Disillusion

Well, you've single-handedly done what no amount of newsgroup posts or chat room rants or friends spouting off the cuff have managed to do in the seven years of The X-Files... You've disillusioned me about Chris Carter. And at the same time, you made me laugh out loud on many occasions by the wit you employed in the telling of your dastardly tale ;) Thank you and I hope 11th Hour continues!
-- Sif

I just discovered your magazine through a link in an X-Files newsgroup. I must say I was very impressed. I spent a couple hours poring over the whole series of Chris Carter articles -- and since this time was spent at work, I thank you for that alone. I'm not completely swayed that Carter is a thief; although the author seems certain, some of the evidence seems circumstantial. Maybe there are only so many ways to stage an alien invasion. However, I found it heartening in itself just to see echoed in print my own dissatisfaction with the last couple years of the show. I think pisher was spot on when he alluded to how Conan Doyle wanted to kill off his Sherlock Holmes creation. This can be the only excuse for how low the show has gone. Nevertheless, God help me, I'll still be watching season eight. Thanks for a great read.
-- Mickey Asteriou
Brownstown, MI

Thank you! After reading "Its a Zen Thing", I feel like the unbearable weight of being one of the apparently few feminist X-Files fans has been somewhat alleviated. Other than the stunningly insightful commentary on the death of Christ (Carter), I appreciated the asides on the general rape of female characters, despite Carter's assertion that he was reversing gender roles with the creation of Mulder and Scully. Namely: "Were we beginning to see a theme here, of women being used for reproductive purposes against their will -- and liking it?" Ick. It makes me feel dirty. What are women in Carter's failed 1013 empire other than the afterthoughts of the male protagonist Mulder or Carter himself)? Even Scully, the *man* of science, excised of sexuality, is punished for having a uterus and ovaries-- for the sake of one man's struggle to validate his obsessions (again, Mulder or Carter?). And then there is the latest show of woman-as-vessel/plot-tool: Pregnant indeed. Who's the daddy? Can we say "Created by Chris Carter"?
-- Sally Puleo

I have to admit, when I first heard about an article that explored the megalomania of Chris Carter, executive producer of my favorite show, The X-Files, I figured I'd be ready to respond with a seething and passionate defense. After all, maybe the show isn't as good as it used to be, and maybe Chris Carter does tease the fans mercilessly, and with little reward. That's the challenge of the show, and if you can't deal with it, that's just your too bad. Just as everyone attributes the good things to him, everyone is quick to blame him when things go wrong. Then I read pisher's article, and was fairly blown away by the revelations contained within. As a longtime fan of The X-Files, you'd think I'd have encountered enough information about every minute aspect of the show to tell you at least who did what. People are amazed that I can spout off names of writers, directors, and other "techies". If even half of what you assert is true, and Chris Carter really is the credit claiming mastermind you make him out to be, I'm amazed I can even do that.
And in retrospect, what pisher says is true. When you hear about the good times of the X-Files, the names Duchovny, Anderson and Carter are abundant. Maybe you'll get a Darin Morgan mention, if you're lucky. But in all the Entertainment Weeklys, all the Movielines, all the trade publications, reviews and fan conversations, the Glen Morgans, the Wongs, and the Gordons are conspicuously absent. And that's just sad, though I've never had reason (nor the information necessary) to feel bad about it before. Now I'm one of those few fans who admits the decline of the show, yet is willing to stay with it, just for those few minutes of light that make it more enjoyable than many shows out there. I'm not willing to discount it as dead, seeing as how season seven was better, in my opinion, than the somewhat less than stellar season six. And just because the show isn't at the top of its game anymore, I'm still not willing to attribute its failure to one man. Yet, thanks to pisher's insightful article, both well written and persuasive, I'll try and be much more careful about how much of its success I attribute to him.
-- Deepa Janakiraman
student, U.C. Berkeley

No, not that Doyle

Your interview with Jerry Doyle was insightful, long with quality and elicited great responses -- thank you.
-- Kunal Shah

Board Senseless

I enjoyed your article "The Bronze Age." Possibly because it fuels my ego, but even more so because of the "Who knew?" factor. When I created The Bronze, it was just a job. I never imagined that it would become a party, help me make friends, indirectly help me land a much better job, and eventually facilitate the real-life meeting between myself and a Bronzer from Oregon who I eventually asked to marry me (we celebrate our 10 month anniversary tonight.) I don't get the opportunity to post much anymore, but thanks for telling even more people about the site.
-- James Lamb
Warner Bros. Online and Entertaindom

I have to say, we were disappointed to see Rachel's words about us in her bit on message boards. Sure, the site and the forums have changed, and sure, she's entitled not to like the change, and she's entitled to say so. But I don't think it's fair to insult us for what she terms "going commercial" and being a "corporate monolith," as if having banners on our site makes us evil, greedy demons. We're two college students, and we're not independently wealthy. BuffyGuide goes through insane amounts of bandwidth, and the forums use over half of it. Server costs alone are now up to over $700 per month, plus plenty of other miscellaneous costs related to the site and the boards. Unlike Angel, Anya, and Giles, we don't have mysterious, secret wads of cash at our disposal.
Where she comes up with "corporate monolith" is beyond me. We're the same two fans running the site. We're not a corporation by any means. Besides, something Rachel neglects to mention about UGO, one of her message board favorites: They're a competitor of IGN (the site that sells our ad space). UGO sells ads space for sites like ours, and UGO has commercial advertising at their boards. I fail to see how this is any different, and why we deserve to be criticized for that while they don't.
Again, I wish to make it clear that I don't resent Rachel for having decided our forums weren't right for her - I am terribly aware that it's a personal thing. And I don't resent her for sharing her decision with readers. I simply resent the reasons she gives, and the connotations that accompany those reasons, especially given the facts surrounding her choice as a preferred alternative, UGO.
-- Jamie Marie & Jeremy
Webmasters
BuffyGuide.com

Just read the article about the Buffy posting board called the Bronze, a wonderful article, but it got me to wondering... why does nobody ever mention the Thread Bronze??? In the last two weeks, I have seen several articles discussing the unique community that has been created by the posters at the linear board, but no one mentions the threaded. We too have a community. We form friendships, we form clubs, we go crazy, we bring chains (well, that might be just me). Well, maybe I will just have to write about it myself... hmm... might require effort, but it would be worth it.
-- Salla

He smells what The 11th Hour is cookin'

Wow, I didn't know chicks really digged wrestling, but this article seems to have changed all of that. It's a refreshing idea that girls dig the "sports-entertainment" at all! I'm especially surprised that there are girls out there that dig it for more than just little things like, "oh because I think he's cute." (I remember sitting down in my hotel room with my two buddies, Jacob and Irene, in Japan, when we caught some WWF programming late at night. Irene then proceeded to go off about how she loved wrestling... and I had hopes that it was because she dug the sport. Not really... she just thought that the Rock was cute. D'oh!)
Being a big sci-fi/anime fan, I think a lot of my friends thought I had gone crazy by picking up on wrestling two years ago. Lo and behold though, it was around then that the whole wrestling craze had hit Hawaii in particular, and soon enough, I had found that I suddenly was not alone in my viewing. Friends soon either became "converted," as I like to call them, or they were exposed to so much wrestling material when around me that they started picking up catch-phrases, not knowing that they'd done so.
Anyhow, as the craze goes on in states (it's almost dead now, in the islands,) I guess it would be even weirder to say that this particular sci-fi/anime/wrestling fan also digs wrestling for its people. (You do too, right?) I love their "characters" as well, but I personally love the real-life person that *is* Mick Foley. Now that man, right there, is my hero. Never mind the fact that the Rock was born here (I think,) never mind the fact that his family lives here, and never mind the fact that I was the biggest Rock fan when everyone hated him, Mick Foley, to me, is the man!
-- Tony L.
Hawaii

Thanks to everyone who wrote in; although we can't publish every letter we do read all of them and greatly appreciate your input. Response to this issue can be sent to letters@the11thhour.com