Ok, I thought that title up, and then went looking for it, to be sure someone else hadn’t thought of it.
…naturally they did. http://normaluncertainty.blogspot.com/2009/03/sy-why.html. Oh well, guess what, it’s STILL a good title! Claire pretty much makes every point I have about the switch from “SciFi”, to “SyFy”. Still, it bears repeating. Here, let me do it right…
YOU ARE THE SCI-FI CHANNEL! SYFY MAKES NO DANG SENSE! AND YOUR PROGRAM DIRECTOR SHOULD BE SHOT WITH BB’S UNTIL HE/SHE FIGURES OUT WHAT THE WORDS “GOOD PROGRAMMING” MEANS!
I mean, geez, let’s look at what’s been on in the past couple of months. Mostly hack-and-slash horror flicks. I mean, I like a good horror movie as much as the next guy, but “Saw” isn’t even Science Fiction, just Fiction! At least get the genre right! I guess they want to get away from all that SciFi crap. It’s cramping their style. They want to grow as artists, I suppose. Maybe do poetry at the local coffee house. Get a cappuccino and do some beatnik, bohemian crap.
Get this through your thick heads…SciFi MADE you the powerhouse you are today! You don’t go alienating your core demographic and turn your back on what has made you strong in the business, just because you want to play “The Sound of Music” on Friday nights! You start a spin-off company for that!
There have been some dim spots of goodness. SG-U is a surprisingly good show, and the movie Wolvesbayne didn’t suck. But most of those original shows and movies aren’t even “B” movies. Maybe “D” movies…if you’re lucky. I’m not sure SyFy execs would recognize a good script if it rolled itself up and played “The Stars and Stripes Forever” on a banjo. The few glimmers of near-brilliance are immediately replaced with mediocre, or downright horrible programs.
And why am I seeing so many of these horror movies on there, anyway? What happened to the “Science” in Sci-Fi? “Saw” was just one of many. Now, I know they’re doing this “31 days of Halloween” (a blatant ripoff of Fox Family’s old 13 days of Halloween–ABC should sue), but I’ve been seeing nearly nothing but horror on there for several months. Seems “SyFy” execs think that “SyFy” means “horror blood/guts fest”. Nearly 50 years of classic SciFi to air, and they give us “Children of the Corn 23: They’re Back Again and Again”. Do they give us “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, or campy cult classics like “Battle Beyond the Stars”? No, they give us drivel such as “Basilisk”, and “DinoCroc”.  Ugh. Do I even see “Lord of the Rings”? Nope, not here. Gotta watch that on TNT. You get to see “Manticore”.
“Why do you keep watching?”, you may ask. Well, it’s kinda like watching an auto accident. It’s horrible, but you can’t quite look away. It’s fascinating in some sick fashion.
So I guess I’ll keep watching the death of a good channel. Unable to look away.