GIP

[starrylizard]

Hee! I made a couple of Regenesis icons for myself. I've looked about and, at least on LJ, there appears to be no fandom for this funky show. Pity. Anyway, I love it, so I made my own icons.

Regenesis is a Canadian TV show set in Toronto.
The future is here. Bioterrorism. Designer babies. Frankenfoods. Suddenly Humanity possesses the ability to play god. But is it progress—or madness? Will cutting-edge science be our salvation? Or our demise?

ReGenesis is a new dramatic series about NorBAC, an organization formed to investigate questionable advances in biotechnology.

The Pandora's box of biotech is wide open. It's a modern gold rush, where billions will be made and geo-power will be staked. And everyone's involved: governments, multinational drug companies, rogue states, and terrorist. But ideas can't be put back in—once they're out, they're out.

The icon is of Dr David Sandstrom. He's the head of the lab at NorBAC and so fucking flawed that he's just endeared himself to me. Plus he hates to talk down to the non-science types. :p

In the scene in the icon, he's actually explaining viral replication to a woman he's a tad annoyed with. Teehee! I just love this show. Much of the love is to do with the fact that I work in a lab and the lab-speak dialogue in the show is obviously written by someone who works in a lab. They don't talk down to each other like they do in other shows (the exposition is always when someone non-sciency needs it explained) and they have cool little scene changes that sort of give an impression of time passing.

Anyway [/squee]
I have 2 new icons. *grins*

Comments

[tj-teejay.livejournal.com]

I know this post is way, way old now, but, man, I really wish there was a fandom for ReGenesis. I only discovered the show at the end of last year, and I feel so alone, playing in my deserted ReGenesis sandbox.

Do you know if there's any halfway decent fan fiction out there?

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Honestly, and very sadly, I've never seen any. I know a few of my friends watched it at the same time as me, but they didn't write any either. And I never found any communities for it that weren't completely empty. It was and still is sad.

*looks* There's 3 stories (http://www.fanfiction.net/tv/ReGenesis/) now on FF.net that I've never seen... by you! lol.
A03 has a few you didn't write (http://archiveofourown.org/tags/ReGenesis/works). :P *shrugs* Sorry. It's honestly a crying shame. It was such a good show. At least the first two seasons were awesome... the show got a bit lost after that, but I still watched it.

Good luck!

*happily uses her ReGen icon*

[tj-teejay.livejournal.com]

It's my feeling that the fandom was tiny to begin with, and now that the show has been off the air for close to four years, there's hardly anyone left who's still interested in talking about the show. And I so want to talk about the show!

Btw, I'm a molecular biologist myself (plant genetics), but it's been over 10 years that I've worked in a lab. I'm employed by a pharma company now where I oversee and manage the operational aspects of clinical studies. And that's probably one of the reasons why I fell in love with the show so quickly, because like you said, the scientific part of it is just like no other science show I've seen before. Even though the general storylines are way out there sometimes, the more menial scientific details are incredibly accurate. I get excited every time they use Eppendorf pipettes or PCR machines or real search engines like BLAST. Although, have you noticed they only ever centrifuge two samples (or one and a "balancer tube")? I remember times where I spun up to 40 tubes at the same time. But anyway...

I agree, the first two seasons are definitely the best. I can tolerate seasons three and four, but I really hated the whole Bob storyline with the Jacobson's organ. He became so out of character there towards the end, and sweet, caring Bob would never leave a possibly dying David lying out there in the snow -- a manipulating Nina by his side or not. I really hated the very last episode, and in my head it's just a figment of David's imagination and didn't actually happen. Which is why I'm currently working on this 26,000+ word post-series story to rectify some of that. *sigh*

So, yeah, I just couldn't help it and had to write fanfic. The FFN category only exists because I had them create it. It's so sad. I had actually already checked AO3 (of course! LOL), and the Jill/David story there is really good. I think the others were all slash, and non-canon slash is just not my thing.

I think I saw another of your posts where you asked about the DVDs. In the US and Canada, it's only season 1 they ever released. I have a feeling it didn't sell well (probably the show was pretty anti-American at times), so they never bothered releasing the rest. In Europe you can buy season two as well, but nothing beyond that. Seasons 3 and 4 are only officially available in Japan, but for some reason it's really expensive (~$100 per season, plus shipping). And if you're in the US or Canada, it'll be region code 2 and not playable unless you had a codefree player. I saw someone offer all seasons on ioffer.com, but those are probably just the downloaded AVI files burned in DVD format.

Love your icon, btw. I once tried to make one from that scene too, but kinda failed. "So you turn the lights down low, put on a little Barry White..." :-)

What I also loved about the show is the music. I tried to hunt down the soundtrack, and even succeeded except for some songs that look like they were never released. I've been in touch with Tom Third, the composer for the show, he's incredibly nice.

But before I talk your ear off about a show you haven't seen for four years, let me run and get ready for work. :-)

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Teehee! Man, I wish you were watching when it was airing. :)

You sound like you have a similar history to me, though maybe a few years in front. I've now been working for the Government for almost 5 years. No more lab work, just regulating other people's products for use. Sometimes it makes me sad, but the money is much better, so I'm unlikely to go back to the lab any time soon.

It is so weird they never released the series in Canada in full. Afterall it's a Canadian show. I think they did release it all in the UK as I bought S1 and 2 off Amazon.co.uk and I'm sure there were more available, but I didn't think I'd rewatch the rest. Here in Australia, you can play any region code, so we don't have those issues.

I had all the same issues with the later seasons as you did. The Bob storyline was really just pretty dumb to my mind and the whole of the later seasons did flow very logically... I can't remember specifics, but I thought they were trying to hard to be sensational and maybe had just run out of semi-plausible ideas.

Maybe I should rewatch at some point. Your story sounds intriguing. Not sure why I never wrote fanfiction for the series. It really should have been fun, considering the science I could play with, but I think I was heavily into another fandom at the time.

Anyway, feel free to chat. My memory is pretty bad, but I don't mind at all. :)

Oh and any icons made by me are up for use, if you want any of them. I have more Regen icons around if you hit the tag.

Cheers
Lizzie

Edit: I forgot to say, I'm sure they had a lot of the music up on the oficial website for free at one point, so it's nice the composer is happy to chat too. :)

[tj-teejay.livejournal.com]

Yeah, watching it when it was airing might have been more fun. Although I'm sure it would have driven me mad with all the cliffhangers. They really had a knack for letting each episode end on one. As it was, I watched the whole show in one go. It was hooked pretty much as soon as they whumped the hell out of David in the first five minutes of the pilot. I think it took me less than a week to plow my way through all 52 episodes. It was kinda crazy. (In my defense, we had a bank holiday that week where I stayed home.)

I got my Master's degree in biology in 2001. I then went to work for a CRO (contract research organisation) for a little over two years and have been with the pharma company I now work for for six years and counting. I always enjoyed the lab work, but I don't think I'm made to be a true research scientist. While I liked that part, I was never completely passionate about my experiments. I'm certainly no Jill Langston or David Sandström. :-)

ReGenesis made all the lab stuff look like so much fun, and for about a split second I thought, 'Hey, it would be fun to go back to that.' But it didn't last long, because then I remember all the things that I didn't like about the lab work. I don't think I could go back to that since in Germany it's really hard to do research if you don't have a PhD and at university you only get contracts with a time limit. Plus, I was never interested in a career in academia.

I don't get why Shaftesbury never released the whole show on DVD. Like I said, it was probably that they didn't make enough profit off the first season to warrant a complete series release. I'm pretty sure seasons 3 and 4 were never released in the UK. S3 was up for pre-order for a while, but it never came out. I actually wrote to the DVD publisher and asked, but they said there were no plans to release the last two seasons at the moment. The German DVD publisher actually went bankrupt, so luck there either. I have a codefree DVD player, so I don't have issues with other region codes either, at least with DVDs. Blu-rays are a whole other matter.

You're spot on with the storylines for the later seasons. I agree that it seemed they were trying to explore more and more sensational stuff, and more and more unrealistic stuff. The whole Riddlemeyer and Roth thing started to get a little out of control, though I'll have to admit that Riddlemeyer was a fabulously creepy villain you really could not help loving to hate.

The fanfic I've written so far is just shorter pieces. 'Martyr' is an episode tag for season one, basically just a missing scene. 'The Past Is Never Past' is a very short piece I wrote as a response to a comment fic meme thing on LJ and 'Picking Up The Pieces' is probably the only "real" ReGen fanfic I've written so far. It's an angsty David/Jill one-shot. I do love my angst, so that one was kind of a guilty pleasure to write. The post-series story will be much more involved, and is more in the style of a complete episode with most of the season four characters and also some new ones I introduced. It's kinda like my version of what episode 4x13 should have been. I will be bringing back Lilith as well. Yay! \o/ However, it's slow going and I'm writing on and off on that one. I'll be a while before I finish it as real life is pretty busy too.

Who was your favorite character? Carlos? I must admit, as much of an arrogant, spoiled brat as David was, I just couldn't help but fall for him. I've also developped an interest in Peter Outerbridge's other work since then (okay, that is actually an understatment...), and he's such a versatile actor. He's done some pretty impressive stuff (and also some pretty crappy movies that I regretted subjecting myself to).

... continued in next comment

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

I have a PhD, but it was the process of getting that where I eventually just got very depressed and tired. It often didn't work, dragged on and had me under immense pressure to make it work. I loved the lab work before that. When I couldn't immediately get a job, I moved out of the lab and haven't looked back.

Your fanfic sounds great! I'll have to check it out when I get some time. This is making me want to rewatch my DVDs.

I think my favourite character in the early seasons was the woman in charge. Her name escapes me, but I loved how she put up with all the scientists. David was great in that he said all the things you wish you could say to people who are rude in their ignorance, but he'd never be able to survive in that job without someone like the chick in charge. I really adored David at first, I just think his character started to grate on me as the series went on... especially after they got rid of his daughter as a character. She was amazing, with her sad love storyline. I also adored Carlos though. He was like a big puppydog who smoothed all the ruffled edges. The kinda guy you'd want at your bedside to explain stuff if you were ever in the hospital. I think I loved the mix of all the early characters, actually. They were all slightly off-centre, but they got each other through their shared love of science and making a difference. It was such a great show! *sigh*

[tj-teejay.livejournal.com]

I just knew by the end of my diploma thesis (we called it a diploma rather than Master's degree at the time), I knew I did not want to do this for another 3+ years, and then spend months writing another thesis and studying more months for the PhD exam. I was perfectly happy to find a job and earn some money. And looking back, I think that was a good decision. Some of my friends from uni really struggle, and a good developmental biology friend of mine is now stumbling her way from one post doc job to the next.

Oh, you should definitely rewatch your DVDs. Though I'm not sure the post-series fics will make too much sense if you don't rewatch the whole show. Pretty much all my fics are post series, except for 'Martyr'. But, hey, I will be the last person to discourage you from reading my stories. I didn't figure anyone would anyway, seeing how the fandom is kinda dead.

The woman you're talking about is Caroline. I liked her too, though somehow she was a little cold at times. I mean, she had to be a tough woman in that position, but all the political shenanigans were starting to get on my nerves. McGuinn, Digby, Riddlemeyer... I could have done without that.

And I was very sad to see Lilith taking leave from the show too. I guess Ellen Page's career was starting to take off at the time, so she probably wanted to move on to other things. I've always loved the David/Lilith dynamic, and I had to bring her back for my epic post series story (the one I'm still working on).

I think the flawed, slightly dysfunctional characters were what made the show work so well. These felt like real people like you and me. I also really loved that they didn't look like the perfect out-of-the-catalogue model types. Sometimes they would wear casual, borderline sloppy clothes in the lab (and David *always* would). Almost all of the background extras wear jeans and t-shirts. I think if you look at any university lab, that's the picture you'll see. It was all very down to earth.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I hadn't intended to do a PhD. I actually found a job, but that job turned into a PhD when they ran out of funding. It was a dumb move in hindsight, but I was talked into it at the time.

Yup, they had real scientists advising and it showed. It would have been wonderful to be involved and be listened to as a science advisor. :)

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Also, we seem to have bunches in common, so added you to the f-list. Hope that's okay with ya! :)

[tj-teejay.livejournal.com]

I've actually written to the scientific advisor of the show (Prof. Aled Edwards from Univeristy of Toronto), and he answered my question I had. :-) Most everyone I've approached about the show has been really nice.

I've added you back, so now you can see my f-locked stuff if you're so inclined. I started f-locking anything that's remotely personal because there was this guy from our Chris Marquette message board who kept "stalking" me. It's kind of a long story, but I became a little paranoid there for a while.

You like Sherlock too, right? And I couldn't help but notice your Cumberbatch header. I only got into Sherlock recently. A good friend of mine recommended it, and so I finally caved and watched it. And never regretted it. I'm not that deeply involved in the fandom, but I do watch one of the comms for fanfic and occasionally check the Tumblr tag. However, it's not easy being a gen gal in a fandom that's an estimated 95% slashers. *sigh*

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

I'm mostly into gen, but don't mind slash if it's well-written and has a plot. :P

Being solely into gen can be tough in a lot of fandoms, but there is always a gen cohort, you just have ta find 'em.

But yes, I do love Sherlock. Haven't really written much in the fandom, just a random crossover, but I have had some fun with vidding it. :)

I do a similar thing re: flocking personal posts. It just makes sense to me.

Welcome to the madhouse. Thanks for letting me into yours. Leave any time, as I won't be offended. :)

[tj-teejay.livejournal.com]

Thanks for offering your icons, but I'm really ambitious with my icons. I dabble in image editing myself, and I've got this thing that I only wanna use my own icons (unless it was a gift specifically made for me). No offense, I'm just weird that way. :-)

There is the ReGenesis podcast they put up, and that's still available. I actually grabbed one of the instrumental tracks off of that, but the quality isn't all that great (I think it was encoded in 96 kbps). But it's cool, there is only one song I really want that I'm missing. However, it's one I will most probably never get because I wrote to the artist and their PR woman said the song was especially recorded for the show, it was never released and apparently they're not willing to just send me the MP3. Oh well... As David would now say, "Can't win 'em all."

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Oh no offence taken. A number of people comment on icons, but are just too shy to ask if they can have them, so I always let people know I'm not at all fussed when it comes to sharing. Love your icons!

I remember the podcasts vaguely! I'm amazed they're still being hosted. Wow!

Will dig my DVDs out sometime soon. :)
Cheers
Lizzie