Yes, I agree that when the canon is too tight, there's not much need for fic. But I think there's a difference between canon that's open and canon that's a mess.

There's a huge fic fandom for Buffy and the canon there is pretty consistent. But it's also open, in that it allows for a lot of possibilities.

Hmm, it's probably more about the characters than about the consistency of the plots, laws, magic, science. Since that's most fanfic is focused on the people.

I was talking with mommybird about this the other day and she said: B5's characters have sex lives and religious lives and consciences--they don't need anything fanfic would give them.

And I think that's key -- it's more about *how much* has been filled in for the chars, not *how well*.