Where's all the Sci-Fi in the Sci-Fi Channel?

[Steve Jordan]

Is it just me, or is anyone else having "issues" with the Sci-Fi Channel lately? It seems to me that oftimes we SF fans are really getting the short end of the sci-fi stick here.

Let me be clear in saying that I like the Sci-Fi Channel, and I thank the Gods that we have it! But so very often, I watch it and find myself saying: "All right, where the #*&!$#&!! is all the SCI-FI?!?!!

This is because I see so much horror and fantasy on SFC, that it often overshadows the SF completely... and especially on most holiday weekends, when the "special programming" tends to be horror-fests instead of sci-fi-fests. On these holiday weekends, I always end up watching SFC LESS than on normal weekends and weekdays!

I realize that there is a lot of horror material out there to buy (and apparently, a great deal of it is dirt-cheap, which seems to make up for its incredibly crappy quality). But hey, there's a lot of sci-fi out there, too, and it can't all be that expensive! What about all the classic movies we could be watching... The Andromeda Strain... Silent Running... Forbidden Planet... The Day the Earth Stood Still... Planet of the Apes... Things To Come... When Worlds Collide... and hordes of others that we could be seeing... the cream of sci-fi.

There are a lot of SF series out there too, that we could be watching (insert your own list here). And since Star Wars, plenty of newer movies are available out there, too. There should be barely enough room to fit a horror movie on this channel!

Now, I'm not trying to lead a boycott on horror movies (nor fantasy, of which there's not nearly as much as horror, and it does tend to have closer ties to SF, so I cut it a bit of slack. Except maybe for Beastmaster), but I really feel that SFC needs to work harder to get SCI-FI to show us, and leave off the loads of bad horror flicks. If you just keep the quality sci-fi based horror, like Alien, you'd still have a boatload of stuff, and I wouldn't be changing the channel at the sight of another cheap monster flick.

Come on: Less Lake Placid! More 2001! Who's with me?

[Melanie Nilles]

I agree 100% I want science fiction too and have been disappointed in Sci-Fi since they canceled Farscape. It's gone down hill since then. Thank goodness they still have Stargate, but that won't last much longer.

[Connavar]

Yeah they dont have much SF these days.

Im specially angry with what they have done to thier series.


I was huge fan of Farscape. Now that Stargate is gone soon, they suck serieswise except BSG,SA.

[andrew.v.spencer]

Gotta love that wrestling... not sure it's sci-fi though, more like fantasy.

[Connavar]

Hahaha good one


I was actually like "what the..." when i heard of that.

[Steve Jordan]

That's a perfect example: Why is the SFC so hard up for material that they're broadcasting Wrestling? I mean, what's next? Survivor Bikini Atoll? This is NOT sci-fi!

[ambershadow]

When I first got sifi channel many years ago they did run lots of old sifi tv shows and movies but now..............wrestling????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! come on where does this fit in the order of things. I agree that there are sooooo many classics out there i'd much rather watch.

[j. d. worthington]

Where's all the SF in the Sci-Fi Channel (pardon me, I have a constitutional aversion to the latter term, and only use it here as it's part of the actual name of the damn' thing...)? Well, take a look at this, from a JMS site, on the subject of "Polaris":

Straczynski Project Watch - Worlds of JMS

Note their reason for turning the project down.....

[Steve Jordan]

Polaris made it to the final three candidates to be picked up by the Sci-Fi Channel. Unfortunately, Straczynski announced in January 2003 that Polaris was turned down for being "too science fictiony".

Um... Pardon me, sport, but exactly how do you create a show that's "too science fictiony" for the FRICKIN' SCI-FI CHANNEL??!!?? (Sorry... a little Nicholson showing there...)

There are days when I'd just like to walk into their executive meetings, and say: "Okay... you can tell me. Just what are you guys doing here, really?" And I'm sure I'm going to be told something along the lines of, "We're just a USA Network overflow channel... this is all the crap that USA won't show."

BTW... I got over the whole SF/Sci-Fi thing years ago. It's just labels, and they're pretty much used interchangeably these days. But maybe... just maybe... the fact that the channel's name is Sci-Fi, and not SF or Science Fiction, really is significant...

[j. d. worthington]

Um, on the SF/Sci-Fi thing... have you seen Harlan Ellison's take on that one? It's included in an essay he did on the Heaven's Gate cult some years ago. I tend to agree with him on this one:

Harlan Ellison Webderland: Harlan Ellison on Heaven's Gate

And I'll be honest: I don't think there is such a thing as an interchangeable label; each phrase or word (and this applies to all such, not just to this particular instance) carries with it a host of connotations and layers of meaning. Generally speaking, it's that inability to distinguish between them that I feel is a part of the entire lack of critical thinking/discrimination (in the positive sense) that has so muddied the clarity of discourse over the past several decades, allowing for muddled, half-baked thinking to pass as profound insight....

(Steve: Just for clarity, this isn't aimed at you. It's a general observation of how imprecise our thinking -- and therefore our ability to communicate well -- has become....)

[The Ace]

I have to admit, the Sci-Fi Channel in the UK isn't quite as bad as its US parent but the programme list is so bad, and so defficient in science -fiction, that as a dedicated science-fiction nut, I never watch it.

[steve12553]

Sci-Fi and SF are like Trekkies and Trekkers. Trekkers are had core fans of Star Trek and Trekkies (think "groupies") maybe want to have sex with Mr. Spock. Words are very powerful. As to the channel unfortunately I suspect the problems have to do with ratings, and rights to material and stuff like that all the while competing with other channels who don't cater to those of us with non-mainstream tastes. Dollars (or Yen or Lire or whatever) still rule.

[Steve Jordan]

Well, if that's the case, I'm all for them changing the station's name to the Cheap Castoff Channel, just to be clear.

J.D., I agree, most labels are a lot more precise than SF and Sci-Fi, or Trekkers and Trekkies, for that matter. (Personally, I couldn't care less what Ellison thinks. Another story.) But the fact of the matter is, if a label is placed by someone who doesn't know the material, or the people involved, and honestly doesn't try to understand, the label is useless.

Suggesting thet Trekkies all want to have sex with Mr. Spock is a lot like saying that all Blacks like fried chicken (sorry steve12553). Any group, but especially one that espouses to appreciate the higher concepts and intelligent discourse that is inherent in science fiction, should be well above that kind of insulting generalization.

(Besides, I'm a guy... I wanted to sleep with Barbara Luna when I was a kid (you figure out which Trek episode she was in!). Did that make me a Trekkie, or just a girl-loving adolescent?)

[j. d. worthington]

Well, the reason I brought Ellison up on this is that he made the point rather well; at least for a very long time, "sci-fi" was the idiot brother in the field. Though it's fading slowly, there's still quite a bit of truth to that generalization. (Not all generalizations are to automatically dismissed. The reason some of them stick around is because they do have a fair amount of validity.)

And I don't think we're talking adolescents here, but permanent adolescents... those who don't mature emotionally; the sorts who really don't see anything wrong with the misogynistic nature of so much of the slasher genre, but who simply love the gory effects; and the ones who don't just enjoy Star Trek (or Star Wars), but who make it a permanent way of life rather than becoming involved in the real thing make changes in what they don't like.

Unfortunately, "sci-fi" still tends to attract huge numbers of such (which is why sf, horror, fantasy, and splatter films all get lumped together so often, in my opinion); more so than any other branch of literature or the visual media. So I'll stick with using "sf" for science fiction, to stress the encouragement of critical thinking, use of science, and questioning nature of the field and differentiate between that and the often "bubble-gum" mentality that, sadly, remains not only the general public's view of the whole thing, but is all-too-often well-merited.

[dustinzgirl]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Is it just me, or is anyone else having "issues" with the Sci-Fi Channel lately?

Three letters:

NBC

May those corporate mongloid idiot jerkface rot in the 18th level of Chinese Hell of Avici and be unlucky enough to fall into the fiery pit of eternal flames where thier immortal souls will never come back to destroy my beloved sci fi shows ever ever again.

If I see GHOSTHUNTERS advertised one more time, I'm going to flip out and stab them with my ANTIREALITYTV blades of doom!

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Although, they still play some good shows!