The thing I love more than anything about Van & Cheyenne, in ways I did not appreciate originally, is that in My Great Big Complex Fictional Universe, I have a character due to get pregnant during her senior year of college. It's been especially been heavy on my mind since according to the timeline I laid out in high school, that's coming up next year. She is as blonde as Cheyenne, and the father happens to look a surprisng amount like Van, although they are both considerably smarter. I did not make a good long-lasting choice when I mentally cast the guy (what 13-year-old does?) and have resented my inability to recast him, so I mostly focus on his wife and their children while merely tolerating him as a stable fixture, but this is giving me a reason to be creative and find ways to write him into a more interesting/multi-layered person.

As for the real Van & Cheyenne, it is my new hobby to seek out those rare sober moments of serious, genuine emotion. The ending of the Prom episode made me do the it's-so-beautiful-sob.gif thing.

I'm still laughing at how about 3 episodes from the end of the season, Kyra suddenly morphs into the darker-haired, makeup using teenager I remember.  Or at least, she's halfway there; either way, she no longer looks like a 12-year-old kid.

Biggest hope for season 2: we cut ties with Reba's sarcastic, sharp-tongued BFF. She was funny for several go-rounds, especially while sparring with Brock, but now her humorless sarcasm is wearing thin and becoming abrasive. The fact that I have no memory of her existence prior to watching this DVD gives me hope.

And then, having indulged on special features, I poked around on Reba McEntire and I found out that she is [edit: or was, with Reba having just divorced last year] Kelly Clarkson's stepmother in law. THIS IS ACTUAL REALITY. I have adored that dynamic since way back when Kelly sang with her on American Idol (I was and am thrilled by her "I just sang a song with Reba McEntire!" -- there is nothing so cute as seeing a cusp-of-celebrity get to work with a celebrity they like), and I will now be over here appreciating their duet version of "Because of You" three times as hard as when I first ran across it a couple of years ago. The original bores me, so I was surprised by how good it sounded as a duet -- and now it has a whole new level of excellence.

I also just found out that Kelly apparently guest-stars in the final season, so uh...I'll be over here. Flailing harder. Continuing to wish I could go back in time, gain acting or at least general work experience talent & ambition, and be part of this show.