In Which I Ruminate on Paranormals

http://sharetv.org/shows/angel

I'm really, really, REALLY late to the paranormal romance bandwagon. REALLY late. As in I read my first one two weeks ago.

There's a lot of talk in SFR circles about how we can become as popular as paranormals. It always comes down to the presence of the genre in other mediums, like TV.

So it got me thinking. How far back does the presence of paranormal romance on TV go? Pretty far back. Specifically I Dream Of Jeannie and Bewitched, sitcoms from the 60's. Sitcoms I watched as a kid. I remember when Elizabeth Montgomery died and Nick At Nite did a week-long marathon of Bewitched.

Then Joss Whedon came along with Buffy. I've never been a Buffy fan, but I love Angel. Especially starting in season two with Wesley, Gunn, and the semi-regular presence of Lorne, then Fred's arrival at the end of the season. The romantic in me loves Fred and Wesley's long-suffering romance. The hero lover in me loves everything about Angel. He's my perfect dark, tortured hero searching for redemption.

Other than Angel I've never been much into the whole vampire thing. My sister, on the other hand, is all about vampires. I gave her Varney The Vampyre for her birthday. She's all about zombies too.

Considering paranormal romance goes back further than most realize, with Jeannie and Samantha, it makes me wonder if SFR will ever have the pop cultural presence paranormal romance does. We don't have a Jeannie or Samantha, or even a Buffy. We could have if SciFi hadn't cancelled Farscape. Crichton and Aeryn were just getting started. There's never been a good romance arc on Star Trek either. About the closest thing we have is Fringe, but it's over now and was never really that much a part of pop culture.

What did I pick for my first introduction to paranormal? The Darkest Night by Gena Showalter. I plan to read the rest of the Lords of the Underworld, but at the moment I'm devouring Sherrilyn Kenyon's The League.