What is the Rewind?

I thought our inaugural post to our new blog should be about the reason behind the Rewind, what it is and how it came about.
My reasoning about starting the Rewind has slowly changed and evolved over the past several months.  I will be perfectly honest, at first it was my way to thumb my nose at "The Powers That Be" for canceling Stargate Atlantis and announcing Universe in its place. Kind of a "Take THAT you big meanies! Thpppttt!" type of thing. I wanted to show them that I wasn't going to automatically like the new show just because there was Stargate slapped in the title, and I knew that there were other people who felt the same way. In a way this is still a reason and I'm never going to hide that fact, but it's not the biggest reason anymore.
So, how did it come about? Well, I have a group of friends on Live Journal and Twitter that were doing a rewatch of their own for the show Smallville.  They would watch an episode of the show together, at the same time, one night a week and tweet their thoughts and feelings of the episode using the tag #CoreFourRewatch, starting at the beginning of the series. They had various reasons for this,but the main thing I witness was the shared love of the show.
Seeing a cool thing when I see one, I did what anyone else would do.  I stole the idea and tweaked it into my own.  Why not do the same thing with Atlantis I thought? And what better night that on Fridays at Atlantis's old time slot? That way, we as fans could watch the show we love together, show our support for it and each other, and if it happened to be at the same time as Universe? Well, that was icing on the cake.
I thought about it for a day or two then put the idea out there on my Live Journal and Twitter, just a basic outline.  There was an immediate enthusiastic response, not only with people who would participate, but people who wanted to help get it together and launched. So a group of us got together, we worked out some details, and did a trial run. We had decided in addition to the Twitter portion we would also have a chat room for those that didn't have a Twitter account and wanted to participate. The trial run consisted of the chat portion only, and we had a blast.  We also had a memorable moment of a troll coming in being obnoxious, and that actually was a blessing in disguise as it led to the creation of our own chat room.  Once we had some more details nailed down, we launched.  We had a fantastic time and I wrote up a review of it in my own journal (which is too long to post here): http://shansgrl.livejournal.com/215013.html
Circling back to the my reasons for Rewinding, as I said above, they have changed over the past couple of months. I now find myself looking forward to Friday nights, not because it's the beginning of the weekend, but because I know I'm going to be watching one of my favorite shows, Stargate Atlantis. That wonderful step through the gate where I'm just a passenger along for the ride in the adventures of Col. John Sheppard, Dr. Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagan and the rest of the crew of Atlantis.
But the biggest reason is that I'm going on these adventures with some incredible people from across the world
Now, just stop and think about that for a moment. A group of fans from all over the world getting together for an hour or so to watch and chat about a TV show, that one thing that we all have in common. That is wondrous to me. That a television show and modern technology brought together a group of individuals from diverse backgrounds together. We chat, laugh, drool, discuss, complain and reminisce about our beloved show, and along the way discovered that we have many other things in common as well. For some, the internet is the only way to connect with other fans, for others it's an extension of contact that they get at conventions. I have met and have become friends with some wonderful people this way and am so grateful that I have.
So, I just want to take another moment now, and thank everyone who has taken this adventure with me so far. It's been bumpy, but it's been great fun and well worth it. For those who have not taken the ride with us, take a step through the gate with us and embark on a new adventure. Who knows where we will end up?