From: Bizarro7@aol.com
Fans don't write fanfic about characters and plot elements they feel were 'mishandled'. You seldom see much of that. Again, I feel it's simply
ignored.
Like, say, the Orbit shuttle? Or the cellar scene in Rumours? Or Avon's final showdown with Blake? If fans were content with the way these things were handled, then scenes like this wouldn't be rewritten over and over again. The AU subgenre of fanfic implies a viewer dissatisfaction with the way things worked out on screen, which can be considered (though not in all cases, perhaps) with a feeling that certain moments *were* mishandled by the script writers, and that their errors can be 'corrected' through fanfic.
Some AUs, I freely grant, are nothing more than a jolly game of 'what if', but I do think there is a genuine remedial intent underlying some of the more frequently reworked incidents.
Neil