Inspiring Fear: So Weird

Inspiring Fear once again takes us to the tween wonderland that was 90s television. This time around, it’s the late-90s (its first season began in 1999) “The X-Files for teens” Disney Channel original So Weird.

The premise is just wonderful for a monster-of-the-week style show. Preteen Fiona runs a website dedicated to exploring the supernatural. As she travels the country with her rock star mom Molly Phillips, she comes face-to-face with some new inexplicable oddity, some of which are submitted via her site and some stem from local legends encountered on the road. Along for the ride are Fiona’s tutor (and her mom’s roadie), her mom’s manager (and the roadie’s wife), their teenage son Clu, and Fiona’s skeptical older brother Jack. Jack is the Scully to Fiona’s Mulder and his struggle to understand his sister is a recurrent subplot, as is Fiona’s attempts to prove the existence of the supernatural to Jack. The big secondary plot for the show involves Fiona’s deceased rock star father who may or may not be attempting to contact her from beyond.

The show distinguishes itself from a lot of other tween television with its surprising seriousness and dark tone. Fiona’s cousin replaces her for the show’s third and final season, and the tone lightens a bit in addition to that but So Weird remains a solid show—and a great inspiration for Little Fears.

Unfortunately, So Weird is not officially available on DVD or through any of the commercial streaming services. You can pick up the paperback novelizations or, y’know, *ahem* click the video below. (But don’t tell anybody you heard that from me.)

About Jason L Blair

Writer, designer, and creator of Little Fears.
This entry was posted in hblf, lfne and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

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