Merry Christmas From KNOTS BLOGGING/Brett's Ultimate Christmas Wish

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM KNOTS BLOGGING/BRETT’S ULTIMATE CHRISTMAS WISH

QUICK WARNING THAT THERE MAY BE A MINOR SPOILER OR TWO CONTAINED WITHIN THIS POST, SO READ ON WITH CAUTION!

                Welcome to the very first bonus writeup from Knots Blogging.  At first, my original conception of this blog was pretty rigid, in that I just wanted to focus on the episodes, put up one-episode-per-week, and that would pretty much be it, but then I thought to myself: Why not throw in little bonus write-ups or thoughts of any KL related news that might come up during the course of my rewatching? 

When you think about it, this blog is really still in its infancy, as we are just about to finish the first season (the very short first season of only 13 episodes, made to look even shorter when compared to later seasons that consist of 30 eps) and then we’ll have an enormous thirteen more seasons consisting of a total of 331 more eps to go.  So even though I’m getting prepped to put up Bottom of the Bottle: Part Two and thinking, “Wow, you’re almost done with the first season,” well, we’ve still got a lot of places to go.  Also, if I really stick to the one-per-week style (spoiler alert: I’m considering switching to two-per-week at some point in the future depending on how many people seem to care about this blog, how many comments and views I get, etc., but for now I’m fairly comfortable with one-per-week), it will take well over six years for My Beloved Grammy and I to reach the final episode.  With all that in mind, I started to think of all the KL related news or events that will occur within those six years.  From there, I started to think of the possibility of something occurring that absolutely needs to occur, and preferably sooner rather than later.

Today is Christmas and I wish a good day to everyone out there who is taking the time to read these words.  If you celebrate the holiday, I hope everything goes swimmingly, and if you celebrate another holiday, I hope that goes well, too.  If you boycott the entire holiday season, I might actually respect that the most (the gluttony of consumerist culture is really starting to get to me and make me dread the holidays every year, in all honesty).  But in any case, I’m getting older and, hopefully, a little wiser, and this year when my folks asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I really didn’t have anything on the list.  I kinda had to rack my brain to think of something, and I came up with only three things (in case you’re curious, they are the last two seasons of Mad Men on BluRay and an espresso machine for the kitchen, so I can make sexy lattes and cappuccinos when I have boys over).  But as I was walking along the other day, I realized what my true ultimate Christmas wish really is, and here it is.

I wake up every day screaming because KL is still not available to the masses.  I throw up before bed every night because KL is still not available to the masses.  Sometimes I have nervous breakdowns and wet my pants in the middle of the day because KL is still not available to the masses.  My point is that it actually hurts me that KL is not available to the masses.  I love KL about as much as anything in the world; I cherish it as much as I cherish the important people in my life and I love it about as much as any TV show I’ve ever seen (I will admit it still comes second for all-time favorite show to Twin Peaks, but that’s becuase Twin Peaks is just high art so far beyond the reach or ability of any other television show).  I legitimately feel that my life is much richer for having seen all 344 episodes of KL and, in the spirit of giving, I wish that everyone else in the world could experience that same joy, yet most people can’t. 

 

I had to go out of my way to do research and find that perfect seller with the bootleg copies of all the eps in order to see them.  To a regular human being walking around, they can go get seasons one or two on DVD and that’s it.  Also, those seasons hardly represent the show at the peak of its powers (although I definitely think this blog is showing that these seasons and early eps are far from bad; they are just probably the weakest segment of the series as a whole), so it hurts me more to think that someone could maybe watch just those two seasons, stop, and never know just how truly amazing the series gets.  Also, the very idea of someone reaching the point of Sid Fairgate plunging off that cliff and then just having to, you know, stop watching the show; that idea hurts me maybe the most of all.

Thanks to my research on the amazing SoapChat forum for KL along with some of the lovely comments left here by some of my lovely readers, I know that our friends in the United Kingdom are lucky enough to watch KL on one of their channels, start to finish, two eps per day.  This is a beautiful thing and I’m glad that people in the world are getting to re-experience the magic or, perhaps, discover the magic for the very first time.  At the same time, it sounds like all the eps are being edited to some degree or another, and I’ve heard a lot of them are significantly shorter than original broadcast and missing some important footage.  I remind you that this is just what I’ve heard; I don’t live in the UK and have not seen the versions being aired out there currently.  So even though the UK is getting to experience the series, I can’t help but feel that they are also missing out on the complete package, the full extent of the brilliance.  However, they’re getting a hell of a lot more than folks in the US are getting, which is just those first two, maybe-not-quite-as-impressive debut seasons followed by a whole lot of nothingness. 

I think you can all see where I’m going with this.  My Christmas wish is that KL be available to the masses, and I’m really not too picky about how.  I simply refuse to believe that in the next six years, KL will remain dormant while all fourteen seasons of Dallas, six of which aren’t even good at all, are readily available on DVD for anyone to purchase.  Even Dynasty and Falcon Crest are out on DVD (just to show my ignorance, I’m not sure if they’ve released the entirety of either show, but I’m just making a point here) and my friend just alerted me that Dynasty is now available on, I believe, Amazon, for instant streaming.  But what about my cherished KL?

All fourteen seasons of KL need to be out, to be readily available.  With the incredible takeoff of instant streaming services in the last ten years, I just can’t believe that not one of these services will pick up KL within the next six years.  NetFlix has fucking Melrose Place available on streaming, and what was that series if not a blatant KL ripoff (that I still watched all 226 episodes of)?  Imagine you’re scrolling through your NetFlix instant and you see that you have the choice between Melrose Place, the trashy 90s FOX network ripoff of KL that had the soapy shenanigans without the characters and the heart and the great writing, or the original, the true, the one, the only, the majestic KL.  Which one are you gonna watch?  If NetFlix won’t put it up, then there’s Hulu or Amazon or any of these other streaming services that are so popular nowadays. 

However, one caveat that I want to add is that I want all 344 episodes complete and uncut and as originally broadcast.  I can’t even guarantee that my bootleg copies are that (they come recorded off of the SoapNet network and are not recordings of the original CBS broadcasts, and for instance, the very last episode is shown as two separate eps instead of a two-hour incredible experience of bittersweet brilliance and amazingness).  If KL suddenly pops up on NetFlix one day and I cum in my pants a little bit when I get the news, only to discover that they have removed Lisa Hartman’s songs or the other music throughout the series, I am just gonna freak.  Likewise, if they have just sliced out scenes here and there for no reason except to slice them out, I am gonna freak some more.  I know it’ll probably cost money to get the rights to those songs, but fucking fork it over and get it moving; if The Wonder Years can finally be released and contain 96% of its original music (and remember that there was tons of music in every episode of that show from start to finish), then there’s no reason the same can’t be done for KL.

But do you all wanna know my ultimate wish?  My true ultimate big Christmas wish?  The one that probably will never come true but I’m throwing it out there and hoping that, somehow, my positive energy and good spirit and hope for the future on this special Christmas day will make it come true?  I like streaming as much as the next guy, and I watch a fair number of shows or movies through NetFlix, but I still love the hard copy.  I still believe in DVD and BluRay (I’ve been converted into a full-time BluRay buyer at this point) and I still like looking at my big, beautiful shelf of movies and grabbing a hard copy off the shelf to watch (why, just the other day I enjoyed my BluRay of Jackie Brown).  My ultimate Christmas wish is all 344 eps of KL not on DVD but on BluRay, remastered and looking good and sounding good, with some commentaries and some documentaries and the Block Party that aired before the finale in 1993 and the 1997 mini-series Back to the Cul-De-Sac.  I want it all, damn it!  I recognize that this may never happen, mostly because of the “low sales” for the first two seasons on DVD (I’m putting that in quotes cuz I’m not sure I completely buy WB’s excuse for not bothering to release the next twelve seasons of the show on DVD).  So dear God, Jesus, Buddha, whoever is up there and is maybe listening to me, that is my ultimate Christmas wish, and I would really like for it to happen soon (like before January 1^st of 2017, for instance).  I am just one little gay boy on the internet who has a dream, and I would like that dream to come true.

That about does it for my little Christmas wish list, but before I go, I want to express my deep appreciation to everyone who has taken the time to read my blog, to leave comments, to show their support.  I am really truly grateful that there are people out there in the internet universe who give a shit about what I have to say, and I am even more grateful to those who take the time to say so by leaving comments or writing me nice messages.  I hope I don’t miss anybody, but I wanna give a special shout out to David Dolbear, to vik850, to Thomas Figueroa, to Anthony H, to Jade Minear, to Robert A. Davis, to Ewan GC, to Rachel Lucas (who was even nice enough to put my blog up on her own page under her “Blogs I Follow” list; I was truly touched!), to Jonathan Williams, to E-Julian, to Ali888, and to Michelle.  All of you have taken the time to leave at least one comment on my posts and I’ve read all of these comments with excitement and joy and have always been very touched that you have shown support.

That’s all I got for this little Christmas bonus essay.  Next year I was thinking about maybe doing some sort of a ranking of all the different Christmas episodes of KL, but we’ll see what I decide when I reach that 365 days from now.  Until then, Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all!  Oh yeah, and, if you have the ability to do so, keep watching KL!