Thanksgeeking

Given our international appeal (I.e. somebody from Romania accidentally clicked on a link to our blog once), it's possible that Thanksgiving isn't a big deal in whatever country you're reading this from. Or maybe it is. Maybe you celebrate with lots of food, and maybe it's a time for reflection. Maybe it's just another day.

For me, it's a chance to spend time with family, take in one of my favorite home-cooked meals of the year, and think about what I do and do not have, and how grateful I am for it all. I can be sentimental, yes, but I'm feeling a geeky kind of sentimentality today.

Thus, here's a list of some fandom-centric things I'm thankful for:

- Series that live on after their demise: The original Star Trek went off the air without a true season finale. Four decades later, a new comic called Mission's End told the story of Kirk's five-year mission came to a close. Not all revivals and long-anticipated continuations have been entirely welcome or well-done, but even the flops and frustrations are reassurances that these fandoms still mean something to someone, and that there are more stories worth telling (even if those aren't the stories we get).

- Compilations and collections: An entire series, all in one place. Trade paperbacks of comics that are impossible to find individually. Movie trilogies in a single package. A lone disc containing a dozen games from systems a dozen years apart. Even Super Hits collections count. There's a distinct joy to having the original releases of some of these things if you're more than a casual fan, but when shelf space is at a premium, and when the price-to-condition/availability ratio really matters, collections and compilations can't be beat.

- Clever cameos and references: There are simply too many examples to list here, but I love it when a movie or TV show takes full advantage of the cameo potential of their surprise guest star. I smile when a video game brings back an element of its history in a way that feels like a tribute and not an uncreative cop-out. I especially enjoy when an out-of-the-blue geek reference comes up in a place that ostensibly has nothing to do with anything.

There are oh-so-many examples I'd love to share (hey, there's an idea for a post that I'll probably never use), but I'll wrap things up with a Halloween example from the comedy-drama detective show Castle where actor Nathan Fillion relives a past life, and that one time when somebody Rickrolled the Thanksgiving Day Parade.