the reason i say i'm surprised that this storyline ranked so highly in a poll isn't just so much because i don't think it's particularly good(which i don't)but also because during my time on this board it's often maligned for it's "sloppiness" and "inconsistency".more than any other storyline besides 'leviathans' it's the subject of much criticism.
If I was going by some of the opinions on this forum, I might wonder how 1840 made it to the top too.
However, this is just one forum with one set of often times very vocal members. And make no mistake - we love an opinionated group - mostly because it makes discussion so much more interesting. But as someone who's been on the Internet for close to 15 years and taken part in several online boards over that time, I can say that 1840 is not nearly as disliked/criticized in general fandom (and that also includes offline fandom, of which I've been a part for 20 years, and through which I've had the pleasure of reading many a fanzine) as it would appear to be here. The what might even be termed a mostly love-fest for 1840 started soon after the MPI VHS tapes began being released in '93, it continued through its first Sci-Fi showing in '95 (when I was very active on other boards), and it continues with many of us to this day.
Another point I'd like to make is that in general the Internet tends to be a place where far more people criticize than praise. It's just human nature to expend more energy giving voice to what irks you about the world than what suits you just fine, much less to extend actual praise. That's the prime reason that whenever a new fan mentions that they have never seen a particular DS storyline and don't know if they even want to based on what they might have read of other fans' online opinions, I always try to make a point to advise that they should definitely watch it for themselves and make up their own minds. More often the not, the new fans tend to be pleasantly surprised - and that even extends to being pleasantly surprised about Leviathans, which has a lot more going for it than one might suspect if the only reference one has to it are the online postings to DS boards.
Quite honestly, one time a few years back when Midnite and I were batting around different ideas for the forum, which also happened to coincide with a rather dark period here when all everyone seemed to be doing was posting about everything they disliked about DS, I suggested that maybe we should announce a one month moratorium on criticizing the show and only post during that one month about what we all love about DS. But we quickly dropped that idea because, based on the mood of the posters at the time, we seriously wondered if barely anyone at all might have posted during the moratorium.
Thankfully, though, more often than not opinions tend to be fairly balanced around here.
And it's nice to see some of the members who enjoy 1840 coming forward.
the fact that it ranked so highly alongside 1795 and 1897 and at the expense of all 'present day' storylines makes me wonder if perhaps some fans simply enjoy the time travel storylines as a rule.that the theatricality of the storylines set in the past makes them preferable to those set in the 'present' just on priciple.
I don't know if it's on principle, but I've definitely noticed that the period storylines, for whatever reason, do tend to top a lot of fans' lists as their favorites. In that respect, the results of the Brandies voting didn't surprise me at all. And interestingly...
i always think of the 1967 episodes(laura,the introduction of barnabas,the introduction of julia)as being the show's high point and it surprises me that those episodes wouldn't top anyone's list of favorite stories.
...it wasn't just the period storylines that ranked higher than most of the present day storylines because, while the introduction of Barnabas came in 4th in the first round of voting, 1970PT came in 5th - ahead of all the other RT present day storylines...