Besides maybe a special variant action figure, nothing gives nerds more pleasure than latching on to a TV show no one else watches. There’s something intimate to it, like you’re forging a deep personal relationship that no one else could possibly understand. It’s difficult to explain, even to those REAL people closest to you (“You don’t know Futurama like I do, Mom!” you scream over the phone. “It’s good to me!”). Your homemade t-shirt and weird e-mail signatures don’t help.
The great irony here (not grasped by nerds, who unsurprisingly do not understand the concept) is that without mainstream support, our shows are doomed to cancellation. And like any passionate love affair, when these things end… they end badly. Talked to any Battlestar Galactica nerds lately? Probably not, since they all killed themselves when their show ended a few weeks ago. Same story with Firefly, Futurama, Jericho: show ends, nerds commit ritual suicide. It’s very sad, and can’t be good for the economy.
What can you do to stem this ever-rolling tide of mass nerd offings? The answer is simple: save the last bastion of nerd hope on network television. Save Chuck.
Henning
smpage
Lifting Fog 