My favorite quote from the article linked to above:
âThe 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,â said TV historian Tim Brooks, who helped launch Sci Fi Channel when he worked at USA Network.
And so the question as to why they keep shoveling those godawful made-for-TV movies onto the air is answered. They never did respect their audience. Next up, NASCAR calls their audience a bunch of inbred, toothless alcoholic hics, changes their name to NASTYCAR, and uses their newly pimped-up cars to appeal to the urban hip-hop crowd.
I think I shall now refer to it as "Siffy" or "SeeFee" since we are taking liberties with the language.
My guess is that it lasts a year (or less) with this name. Right now I call it "the channel formerly known as the one I used to watch pretty regularly". Now I only watch it ocassionally to catch a particularly bad movie, you know, when TBS, TNT, USA, SPIKE, or one of the other "really bad movie channels" isn't playing one.
What's funny is I came here to post this exact thing.
Well, if Music Television can stop playing music videos, then I guess it's ok for the Sigh! Fie! channel to stop playing Science Fiction/Fantasy.
I actually use to love the Saturday Night movies, but it's the same plot every week with a new creature chasing a bunch of no name hacks. They are shooting for the lowest common denominator at the lowest possible cost.
Just look at Stargate Atlantis. It was actually better than the original SG1 IMHO. What did they do? Dump it so they could launch a new Stargate that's a knock off of Star Trek Voyager. Huh? WTF? Over! If you ask me, it's so they could reset the budget costs for actors.
I can't wait for the Internet to Kill Cable so I can actually watch something good.
And for the record, Ronald Moore can kiss my ass. For nearly 5+ episodes I have waited anxiously for the end of Battlestar Galactica hoping their might be something worthwhile in between. But NO! He has been stringing us along and inserting bullshit to tie back into the Caprica Prequel series. That asshole checked out over 2 years ago on BSG as far as I'm concerned. Prick. Way to kill another decent SciFi show. (Enterprise anyone? Yea, I liked it at first, what's it to ya?)
It seems the formula for ruining a good sci-fi series is this: the writers get cocky after some initial success, so they either stop trying or try too hard and turn it into more of a soap opera than anything else. By then, the continuous plot is so complicated it even annoys it's most devoted fans, who just want to know what the hell the end of the story is.
BSG did just that, though I admit I'm still watching. Star Trek Deep Space nine had some similar problems (that emissary crap got way out of control). Star Trek Voyager was just bad from beginning to end: the episode where an all-powerful immortal entity (from the Q) commits suicide because he's bored was the epitomy of stupidity. Moral = it's good to die!?! When you start writing scripts like that, it's because you've run out of things to write about.
I think it's lazy sci-fi writers that give sci-fi fans a bad rep. Quality sci-fi is one of the only things that doesn't bore me to death anymore, when I can actually find some to watch. Seriously, how many cop movies/shows can you sit through during a lifetime? I still like war movies, at least ones that aren't uber-Hollywood style ending with cheesy, dramatic victory music.