With the news yesterday that the Sci-Fi Channel is becoming SyFy (with a de-emphasis on actual SF) you can hear SF fans everywhere crying out in anguish. Add in the ending of Battlestar Galactica this Friday and I have to wonder:
Is it time to say goodbye to Sci-Fi (SyFy) for good?
Science fiction on Sci-Fi has been an endangered animal for long time now. Sci-Fi has been going after ratings, and therefore money, at the expense of what most of us here want: actual, good science fiction. SyFy will further expand its offerings at the expense of anything science fiction, and with the only new SF programming on the horizon is Caprica and Warehouse 13, the future of science fiction on SyFy doesn't look bright (aside from Eureka).
I haven't been a regular viewer of Sci-Fi for along time now, only tuning in to watch the aforementioned Galactica and Eureka. Now, there's little reason for me to keep tuning in, except for Eureka. Sadly, it looks like we'll have to rely on network TV to bring us SF shows, and we all know how well that usually works out.
It seems to me, it's time to bid a lukewarm farewell to the Sci-Fi channel. Who's with me?
Comments (17)
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Posted by JP Frantz at Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 1:35 PM
© 2009 SF Signal
The name change fits to what they are trying to become. For me it became something other than a sci-fi channel some time ago.
Posted by Steve on Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 2:37 PM
Me, since there's nothing left for me to watch on there. I never got around to watching Eureka for some reason - probably due to the time it was on? Who knows...
Posted by Jen on Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 2:39 PM
I bid a lukewarm farewell to SciFi years ago although they enticed me back on a show-to-show basis.
I wish them well as a themeless channel, but wish there was an actual Science Fiction channel out there that showed science fiction shows and reruns of old movies and shows. Kind of like it used to be.
Posted by Paul on Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 2:57 PM
with the only new SF programming on the horizon is Caprica and Warehouse 13
don't forget about Stargate Universe.
Posted by Scott Marlowe on Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 3:59 PM
So Y thynk SyFy lost me a fyw years ago wyth the wrystling and the ryruns of shows that yn fact wyre not syfy.
Rylly SyFy... fyre the markytyng tyams. Thyy arynt hylpyng you at all.
Posted by tditto on Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 4:41 PM
I'm with you.
FWIW, I find it hard to believe that they cannot increase their viewer base by airing reruns of Twilight Zone and Dr. Who (old and new) and classics like The Day the Earth Stood Still (1950) and The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). Heck, I'd even watch reruns of Lost in Space...which would be a heckuva lot better than "Velociraptor Vampires IV" or whatever the **** bad-CGI C-movie slop they spew these days.
Anyway, c'est adieu pour maintenant...
Posted by Savant on Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 4:45 PM
Buh-bye, SyFy... Don't let the transponder hit you in the @$$ on the way out.
Posted by Mark S. on Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 5:17 PM
I'm not only with you, I'm ahead of you by at least eight years.
Posted by Matthew Sanborn Smith on Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 9:50 PM
This quote from former Sci-Fi Channel co-founder, Tim Brooks, will live forever in infamy, as he fails in epic fashion to justify the new name for the Syphilis Channel.
“The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular,” and further..."We spent a lot of time in the ’90s trying to distance the network from science fiction, which is largely why it’s called Sci Fi. It’s somewhat cooler and better than the name ‘Science Fiction.’ But even the name Sci Fi is limiting.”
Thanks to that crackback, SyFy will be as dead to my TV as the Lifetime Channel (as if efforts like "Mansquito" hadn't already sealed that fate).
Posted by John Picacio on Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 10:34 PM
The Sci-Fi Channel used to bring me such tasty treats as "SF Vortex," and whatever that SF News show was that occasionally ended with Harlan Ellison ranting on various subjects. It brought me the fifth season of Babylon 5.
It had the SciFICTION section on its web-site, edited by the amazing Ellen Datlow. It published some magnificant fiction. The ScifiWIRE area ran some amazing interviews over the years.
All of that is effectively gone now. We have wrestling. We have other things, and other problems, but the rasslin' sealed the deal for me. This is an irrelevant and silly channel, it appeals to no one very much and is mostly just silliness. My wife and I watch Ghost Hunters -- because whether or not one believes in the paranormal, or ghosts, or not, it's still a fairly interesting show, although it's getting less so with each consecutive season -- but there's nothing else on the channel that appeals to me. I recorded some awful movie called "Wyvern" the other week, and had to teach myself how to read again afterward. Their B-movies are done with a nudging "look at this corny stuff, geeks LOVE this crap!" aside to the viewers, and I don't need that.
...
There. I just ulogized the Sci-Fi Channel. Well, I don't mind if it goes. It wasn't around anyway. It's been a long and lingering death. Honestly, for some time now, all my fine SF lovin' has come in book form anyway, and that is just fine by me.
Posted by Pete Tzinski on Wednesday March 18, 2009 at 8:23 AM
Unless something like Tin Man comes along, I see no real reason to watch the "Syfy" channel.
After all, they don't *want* me to. I'm a dysfunctional geek who has a Stormtrooper bobblehead at his desk at work!
Posted by Paul on Wednesday March 18, 2009 at 8:28 AM
I totally don't understand the new "SyFy" idea. Their explanation makes no sense at all. Some of their shows are alright, and obviously Battlestar was amazing, but SyFY, seriously? What does that mean? How does that broaden their apeal at all? Not buying it.
Posted by Alexander Field on Wednesday March 18, 2009 at 10:15 AM
This member of the female audience used to watch the Sci Fi channel, but its downward slide into nothingness has not been missed since I stopped buying cable two years ago. I watch TV on DVD now. I miss how the Sci Fi Channel used to be. Now it sounds like it is going to become another useless cable channel that no one watches.
Posted by Tracy Falbe on Wednesday March 18, 2009 at 11:02 AM
Oh no! Are they going to stop making classics like Ogre or Python vs Cobra vs Aliens or producing such riveting TV like Hauted UFOs or Bachelor AxMurderer. They ceased being a science fiction based channel a long long time ago.
Posted by zonefish on Wednesday March 18, 2009 at 2:34 PM
Well good riddance!!
At first, the channel seemed kinda cool. I don't remember it well back when it first came out, but I didn't dislike the channel. I started to become turned off when they kept on releasing crappy shows, and when they kept on releasing terrible movies. They don't even deserved to be called B-grade movies. More like grade D or grade F.
And gradually over the past several years, they removed science fiction content. They replaced them with horror, wrestling, fantasy, and other unrelated genre. And now, after years of fucking us over, they finally decide to change the name when they can lo longer hide the fact that they are not a channel that caters to the science fiction audience?
So why did SciFi fail? The main reason is crappy shows and crappy movies. Shows and movies that are very unintelligent. I mean, you really have to dumb yourself down to watch a lot of their crap. You have to turn off your thinking cap. And any science fiction knows that dumb sci-fi is an oxymoron. It is supposed to be a genre that stimulates and challenges us intellectually. But they failed horribly in this mission. So they started adding shit that isn't related to science fiction. They started adding shows of other genres because you don't have to turn your thinking cap on. I mean, do you have to do that with the paranormal and the horror genres? No. And that's a major problem with television and movies and music nowadays. They market it to the lowest common denominator. Because if we actually watched stuff that encourages real thinking, then we would actually use our noggins. And as any marketer knows, you have to turn off the brains of people to market to them. Also, if people actually used their thinking caps, then people would realize that the government and the corporations are fucking them over, and have been doing so for years, for decades.
But there is something more than that. How can you be constantly bombarded with sub-standard programming? The clue lies in what the co-founder of the channel has stated. SciFi has been associated with, "geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular."
(In the voice of Kyle's mother in South Park) Wha-wha-Whaat!? Are you fucking serious? I admit to being a geek. In fact, I'm proud to be a geek. I love playing video games. I am not the most social person either. But dysfunctional!!?? And we are not part of the "general public"!!?? Are you serious!? No wonder the SciFi has failed. Because the founders of the channel has no respect for its audience. Tim Brooks obviously has no respect for people who like science fiction, and no respect for geeks. And when your level of respect for and your impression of science fiction fans is THAT low, then that explains everything. If you have no respect for your audience, then you will not provide your audience with anything that respects them. If you have a low opinion and no respect for your audience, then they will not provide anything that their target audience actually wants to watch. Think about this. Imagine if BET was owned by a person who was secretly a member of the KKK. The quality of programming on BET (yes, I am black) is extremely low. The owner of that channel might as well be Klan since they obviously have no respect and a low opinion of black people.
So Tim gradually distanced itself from his initial science fiction audience because the fans didn't want to continue watching television that didn't truly cater to their tastes. So he gradually courted other people who could be hoodwinked. Remember, guys, he is obviously not in the business of producing quality science fiction. As any true capitalist CEO, he is in the business of making money. So fuck him, and fuck his channel. And fuck his mother for giving birth to a sorry as motherfucker! And now he was to rename it SyFy, thinking that no one will see through the BS? If he really wants to distance himself, then he should pick a name that doesn't sound like SciFi. What a fucking retard.
How about we create our own channel? With DV camcorders and with open source software, creating our own science fiction shows are now possible. There is even a new fan-created Star Trek series, but I can't remember what it is called. There is at least one fan-made Star Trek spoof. We can create our own shows. And then with Youtube and with Miro, we can distribute them at no cost. Why not try something like that? If the rich-ass snobs don't want to cater to us, then we can do it ourselves.
And again, good riddance to the SciFi channel, and fuck Tim Brooks right in the nose, using an ice pick.
Posted by GuruOfReason on Wednesday March 18, 2009 at 5:09 PM
Per the SyFy channel, I don't exist. I'm a female science fiction fan. Like many of you, I stopped watching it long ago. Once they stopped airing science fiction, or even the more embracing speculative fiction, what was the point?
Posted by Lori on Thursday March 19, 2009 at 9:55 AM