Not too long ago, I was your typical PR basher: I couldn't stand the show, thought it was really hokey, promoted violence and so on. Besides, there was a much better series on at the same time: Disney's Gargoyles. Except it only came on four times a week and on the fifth I was kind of stuck. Thus, I can now point to at least 20 episodes of Power Rangers that I must have seen bits and pieces of.
What happened? The Gold Ranger saga of Power Rangers Zeo. Call me weird, but I have a weakness for cheezy mysteries. I turned it on and found myself kind of drawn. And the fights weren't that violent and nasty. Of course, as soon as I started watching, I swore that I'd never write fanfic for the show. I didn't write fanfic for my guilty pleasures.
So, of course David Yost (Billy) left the show, they had to film something to do with Billy's leaving, and they did a fairly good job. Almost. And of course there was no mention of him after that, except for a comment by Alpha about missing Billy. But that was it. Adam took over some of Billy's duties that he'd been doing off and on for a while. Don't get me wrong, Adam's my current favourite Ranger, but he's not Billy.
But the omission annoyed me, and so I had to commit fiction. A simple little piece, not more than two parts, about Adam's whole reaction to the events. Then I realized that I was doing what I said I'd never do: work on a piece of PR fic. To remedy that, it turned into a crossover with one of my other faves, The Tomorrow People. It turned into a six parter and then went to beta.
At which point my betas yelled at me and told me that I'd really fouled up the end. That's when I added two very important things to my fic: one was the addition of the Machine Empire, the second being that the Rangers, who were merely confused in the first draft, were suspicious in the second. This had the effect of making the story two parts longer and a lot less boring.
That's important when you have two groups that, as I complained to someone, just wanted to picnic with each other. Pleasant, yes, but not very interesting. Plus, there was so much to explore between the two groups that wouldn't get revealed if they stayed ignorant of each other. I'll confess that I didn't get as much of that in as I'd hoped. However, I think I'm going to have that covered in the next three stories. The two groups are so fascinating together, so many similarities and so many differences.
But, of course, that is a story for next time.