Potential Post-Season 5 IDOJ?

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OK, so I know this might belong better to the IDOJ fanfiction board, but I'm posting this here for 2 reasons: 1) the fanfiction board has been quite inactive for a long time and I doubt anyone checks it anymore; 2) the topic I'm addressing also has to do with IDOJ in general.

A lot of us have wondered, over the years, how IDOJ might have went if it had gone on beyond Season 5. Well, the Jeannie Sisters website (http://www.geocities.com/jeanniesisters) which I'm sure many of us here are already aware of, offers fanfiction scripts for the fan-made Seasons 6 - 13 of IDOJ, as well as some scripts and narratives of post-Season 13 IDOJ as these authors envision it. I think this offers a great look at how IDOJ really might have gone had it not been cancelled at the end of Season 5, and I for one think this could make an interesting topic for discussion: whether this fan-made continuation of IDOJ, which is excellently written at the least, is accurate given what we have seen of the official Seasons 1 - 5 of IDOJ.

I felt that Season 6 was great. I could actually see many of the situations written out, being acted by Hayden Rorke, Larry Hagman, Barbara Eden, and Bill Daily. Having Tony's sister Tracy also added some spice to the situation allowing for some new plotlines and a companion for Roger. It was a really funny and great season true to IDOJ's character. Seasons 7 and 8 were similarly excellent. Janae was a very well created and believable character that fits in very well. I think my favorite character in this fanfiction series extension was Janae, actually. She was just so lovable! Also, Janae was the one character that I liked more and more throughout the series, as time went on. (Except at the very end - but I'll get to that later.)

By Season 9 however, I felt that the writers had started to forget the basic sitcom premise of IDOJ. The episodes started getting less funny, although they were still enjoyable to read, they wouldn't seem right since they aren't "funny first" as a sitcom should be. I didn't mind, I love the Jeannie characters and the extension and I didn't have to read sitcom scripts, but still I thought that was a rather dramatic shift in the series.

By Season 10 the series regrettably started becoming less enjoyable. It started addressing more 'hot-button' issues that a sitcom would have never addressed, such as birth control and schooling issues, and also Season 10 heralded the future focus of the series on marital issues which I thought was unfortunate. But I still enjoyed reading through Season 10 because of Janae, who was still becoming more and more lovable by the episode.

(Note: Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining about the addressing of those issues, for example I myself was homeschooled, successfully, from the third grade on up until college, and not for religious reasons, but because public schools tried to hold me back. But I just felt that having these issues be addressed in a sitcom was a bit... well, just didn't feel quite right.)

Seasons 11-13 started featuring re-makes of earlier episodes (both from Seasons 1-5 as well as from Seasons 6-10) and were often rather dull. Janae kept me going though. And compared to the post season, I still enjoyed, greatly, even Season 13. I became concerned though that the show was starting to take after Bewitched: remakes of earlier episodes, for one thing, and also, the thing with 'spells and incantations' that reminds me a bit too much of the witches in Bewitched. That's one thing I didn't particularly like about the entire extension: genies' powers were made too similar to witches' powers as shown in Bewitched. Many of the new 'limitations' and 'quirks' on genies' and djinns' powers came right out of limitations and quirks of witches' powers on Bewitched. Perhaps the writers were big Bewitched fans too!

It was the post season that was the only 'season' that I really didn't like, though. It started feeling more like a parenting show than a IDOJ sitcom. And after the first few post-season teleplays, the later ones started feeling a bit like angst or at least pretty melancholy, in stark contrast to the always-cheerful ambience of the canon IDOJ as well as Seasons 6-13 in the extension. Some post-season episodes were very likable and enjoyable like the Aladdin episode, but most others were sort of dismal and gloomy. I have to say I liked the I Dream of Jeannie - 15 1/2 Years Later one though - it was very touching, and one of the very few pieces of fanfiction that have ever brought me close to tears.

It was really the last few post-season episodes which I hated, though, because Janae got married to a guy by the name of Anthony (how dare he!) that turns out to be even dumber than Darren from Bewitched. Besides the obvious first impression that Janae and 'her' Anthony were a very close copy of Bewitched's Samantha and Darren, I was very disappointed to see Janae end up with such a character, primarily after all of the earlier episodes detailing how she never let boys or guys take advantage of her. I had the feeling that compared to "Janae's Anthony" even Darren was a more understanding guy when it came to powers. (And that's saying a lot.) I didn't especially like Jeannie giving up her powers, either, but even that was preferable to seeing Janae married to that... <insert expletive>... It was obvious that he didn't really love Janae at all, because you could see he was prejudiced against genies (and djinns) and he didn't want to accept her or their children as genies or human/genie hybrids, but wanted her to be a normal human. Tony never tried to force Jeannie to give up her magic -- he loves her enough to realize that it's part of what makes Jeannie, Jeannie. Anthony (Janae's husband) was trying to take away that part of Janae, and it most killed me to see them together. I kept going *blah*...

(I finally got calmed down after I found myself repeatedly folding my arms and blinking, thinking of rescuing Janae from Anthony.)

I *was* happy to see T.J. and Cindy get back together, though. You can see they were in love since they were both four! Although in the last episode or so, Jeannie II really acted out of character since from the Season 6-13 portrayals, Jeannie II's favorite was T.J. and she had even risked the wrath of the Blue Djinn as well as Haji to protect T.J. I can't see her going off and trying to get T.J. killed, without even J.T. Easterling ordering her to do so. (Hell, Easterling had to order Jeannie II to *save* T.J. Now, since when did Easterling and Jeannie II get reversed?!?)

At least Mark and Kashi remained as sweet as they always were.

Well, what do other people here think? Any ideas on alternate ways IDOJ could have gone after Season 5? Any comments on this particular storyline? I'd like to hear from everyone!

P.S. - I've already thought of Dr. Bellows really finding out about Jeannie in Hurricane Jeannie and putting a new spin on a fanfiction Season 6 extension with Dr. Bellows in league with Tony and Roger to hide Jeannie's identity. That would be interesting but it'd be sort of hard to write convincing scripts...