Sci Fi Channel Decides Not To Be Sci Fi, After All

[DaMadFiddler]

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/artic ... 16/1852223

According to a TV Week article, NBC Universal has decided to change the name of their Sci Fi Channel to Syfy. Why? To pull in a more 'mainstream' audience. If you're unclear what 'more mainstream' means, TV Historian Tim Brooks spells it out for you: '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.' Yes, we should probably all be offended. And telling us that a crack marketing team came up with the name because that's how tech-savvy 18-to-34 year-olds would text it really doesn't help.

[Stormwatch]

[Roofus]

Instead of changing their name, maybe they should get another good show. Their current one ends next week.

[Wagh]

Instead of changing their name, maybe they should get another good show. Their current one ends next week.

please...
There never were any good shows on Sci-Fi. Having a line up made of bad derivative shows and made for tv sci/horror films can cause a network to lose viewers.

[Roofus]

Instead of changing their name, maybe they should get another good show. Their current one ends next week.

please...
There never were any good shows on Sci-Fi. Having a line up made of bad derivative shows and made for tv sci/horror films can cause a network to lose viewers.

Fuck you. I like Moonlight.

[Stryfe]

I personally didn't mind watching a few episodes of early-mid Stargate-SG1, after they picked it up from Showtime. I guess it's budget got a major slash though, being it was at the 5 year renewal point Sci-Fi acquired it.

And come on, how can you go wrong with Yeti movies every other month?

[DaMadFiddler]

They do have ECW

I always wondered about that. Are pro wrestlers really androids, or are the matches set in space, or something? Maybe they just focused on the Fi part, and forgot about the Sci.

[Lartrak]

This just reminds me... What the hell happened to the Sci-Fi channel? It used to be great. They showed lots of SciFi movies, occasionally old horror movies, and lots of reruns of stuff like the Twilight Zone and Outer Limits.

It's so terrible now it boggles my mind.

[DaMadFiddler]

This just reminds me... What the hell happened to the Sci-Fi channel? It used to be great. They showed lots of SciFi movies, occasionally old horror movies, and lots of reruns of stuff like the Twilight Zone and Outer Limits.

It's so terrible now it boggles my mind.

Rose-colored glasses. For every Farscape or Battlestar Galactica, they've had ten crap shows like Eureka or LEXX. The movies they show are usually things like Sabretooth (a really cheap and obvious rip-off of Jurassic Park) or other random crap. They still show The Twilight Zone the same way they always have: as holiday marathons. They have rerun a few good shows from other networks (such as Dead Like Me), but usually once they get their hands on a successful show (Stargate, Sliders, etc.) they change the concept and destroy the show. Except for the one good show at a time they tend to have going, Spike is actually a better sci fi channel than Sci Fi. At least they show Star Trek.

[Quzar]

This just reminds me... What the hell happened to the Sci-Fi channel? It used to be great. They showed lots of SciFi movies, occasionally old horror movies, and lots of reruns of stuff like the Twilight Zone and Outer Limits.

It's so terrible now it boggles my mind.

Rose-colored glasses. For every Farscape or Battlestar Galactica, they've had ten crap shows like Eureka or LEXX. The movies they show are usually things like Sabretooth (a really cheap and obvious rip-off of Jurassic Park) or other random crap. They still show The Twilight Zone the same way they always have: as holiday marathons. They have rerun a few good shows from other networks (such as Dead Like Me), but usually once they get their hands on a successful show (Stargate, Sliders, etc.) they change the concept and destroy the show. Except for the one good show at a time they tend to have going, Spike is actually a better sci fi channel than Sci Fi. At least they show Star Trek.

I like Eureka.

[DaMadFiddler]

They do have ECW

I always wondered about that. Are pro wrestlers really androids, or are the matches set in space, or something? Maybe they just focused on the Fi part, and forgot about the Sci.

When it launched on sci-fi, they had a zombie wrestler and a vampire wrestler to pander to them

I can buy zombies being sci fi, but there's nothing remotely scientific about vampires. They're more fantasy. And both are more horror than anything else.

[Lartrak]

This just reminds me... What the hell happened to the Sci-Fi channel? It used to be great. They showed lots of SciFi movies, occasionally old horror movies, and lots of reruns of stuff like the Twilight Zone and Outer Limits.

It's so terrible now it boggles my mind.

Rose-colored glasses. For every Farscape or Battlestar Galactica, they've had ten crap shows like Eureka or LEXX. The movies they show are usually things like Sabretooth (a really cheap and obvious rip-off of Jurassic Park) or other random crap. They still show The Twilight Zone the same way they always have: as holiday marathons. They have rerun a few good shows from other networks (such as Dead Like Me), but usually once they get their hands on a successful show (Stargate, Sliders, etc.) they change the concept and destroy the show. Except for the one good show at a time they tend to have going, Spike is actually a better sci fi channel than Sci Fi. At least they show Star Trek.

I don't think it's entirely a case of nostalgia clouding my vision. I always thought their original shows were garbage, for one. They just used to have better reruns of other network material (remember the Star Trek TOS special editions?). For example, they used to show Quantum Leap, Dark Shadows, Maxx Headroom, Tales From the Darkside, War of the Worlds, and Amazing Stories.

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There's an effective montage of the kind of material I really liked that they used to show back in the day.

Hell, even their between program transitions were better back in the day (though they were always cheesy). Remember the Gargoyles with Clocks thing they did to show upcoming programs?

Edit to add: I will note, that looking at their upcoming schedule, they're not as bad as I remember them being (I haven't looked at the network regularly in a couple years). For instance, they've got some decent movies coming up, reruns of the Twilight Zone and Outer Limits, and X-Files. But, it's still not great on the whole.

[Quzar]

My favorite thing about sci-fi used to be that it was the only place on basic cable that used to carry anime. Every either saturday or sunday in the AM they'd play a sci-fi themed anime movie. I think the biggest problem they've had recently isn't sci-fi original shows (I tend to like many of them, such as the Dresden Files, Eureka, or Stargate Atlantis) but how much effort and emphasis they keep putting on their HORRIBLE movies. Every movie they do is absolute garbage (usually 100% derivative of another bad movie).

What's odd is that the mini-series they do tend to be amazing. Lost Room I found to be just great, their Dune was well received, and I liked that wizard of oz thing they did.

[Kevin Beckman]

I enjoy Ghost Hunters on there.

[Jeeba Jabba]

I don't think I've watched the SciFi channel for more than 10 seconds at any time in my life. It is the nucleus of iconic cheese.

[toastman]

My favorite thing about sci-fi used to be that it was the only place on basic cable that used to carry anime. Every either saturday or sunday in the AM they'd play a sci-fi themed anime movie. I think the biggest problem they've had recently isn't sci-fi original shows (I tend to like many of them, such as the Dresden Files, Eureka, or Stargate Atlantis) but how much effort and emphasis they keep putting on their HORRIBLE movies. Every movie they do is absolute garbage (usually 100% derivative of another bad movie).

What's odd is that the mini-series they do tend to be amazing. Lost Room I found to be just great, their Dune was well received, and I liked that wizard of oz thing they did.

Saturday Japanimation. The early years of the SciFi channel were good in that Nick At Nite way. They played the classics. Even though SciFi original programming brought us stuff like Battlestar Galactica, it really was the beginning of the decline.

[Calavera]

This just reminds me... What the hell happened to the Sci-Fi channel? It used to be great. They showed lots of SciFi movies, occasionally old horror movies, and lots of reruns of stuff like the Twilight Zone and Outer Limits.

It's so terrible now it boggles my mind.

The Chiller channel still shows a lot of shows like that. Remember when TVLand would show classic TV shows? Now they have TV Land original reality shows. Reality shows, made by TVLand, it's like pissing on a pile of shit.

[|darc|]

I don't think I've watched the SciFi channel for more than 10 seconds at any time in my life. It is the nucleus of iconic cheese.

Except for '50s Twilight Zone marathons.

[Jeeba Jabba]

I don't think I've watched the SciFi channel for more than 10 seconds at any time in my life. It is the nucleus of iconic cheese.

Except for '50s Twilight Zone marathons.

Which is massive cheese. But a really good brand of cheese.

[DaMadFiddler]

Twilight Zone is on sale at Amazon right now for $150 for the entire show. Picked up a copy last week