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Does Syfy Really Love Sci-Fi?
brumgrunt writes "Has Syfy fallen out with science fiction altogether? A look at its latest scheduling shows that it's further away from its roots than ever. 'There's still a lot of the older sci-fi content on the airwaves, but it's slowly being phased out, and forget about original programming. After all, this is the programming crew who ruined Caprica by stuffing it into the Friday night death slot and splitting the season into two parts. These are the geniuses who killed off Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe. These are the people who wrecked Farscape, one of the most inventive and fun sci-fi shows to ever be on television. They also ended Mystery Science Theater 3000, only the greatest show ever invented by robots in space.' Is this now as good as it gets?"
The programming has become so bad that when deciding on a cable tv package the only significant difference (for us) between the tier I ordered and the one above was the Syfy, Bravo and an extra c-span.
I ordered the lesser priced service specifically because I was no longer interested in that channel. So Syfy sucking has saved me $20+/month
It looks like I'll get my science fiction in print and from any number of the streaming services.
Fantasy Books are now king while interest in science-based fiction is almost null.
Yes. Our local Barnes and Noble has four shelf sections of "Paranormal Teen Romance", plus one of "New Paranormal Teen Romance". Half of the SF section is now vampire-related. So is a big fraction of the romance section, plus some of the main fiction section. All the vampire books combined into one section would be impressive. One of the goths who works there says that vampire book sales are down, but zombie books are picking up.
At retail, SF is either space opera, paranormal, or reprints.
And Syfy's still better off than TLC, which has dropped any meaning associated with those three letters and shows endless permutations of freak show reality TV gawkery. Network decay is an ugly thing.
You and I may think they were the best shows. But really, these people aren't stupid. They don't put the shows that people WATCH into the death slot. A bunch of geeks may think these shows were awesome. But the "unwashed masses" didn't or the shows would be on in prime time good slots. End of story. I don't care how stupid the people at the network are - they know enough to put their well rated shows in good slots. It just turns out that a good portion of the collective slashdot "we" like different shows than the majority of people - and we are a small minority.