20 Years of Sci-Fi (SyFy)

Television, Movies Games and Books Other Science Fiction
#1

Last night was the premiere of one of SyFy’s increasingly few and far-between specials, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the network. They covered pretty much all of the major original series ever broadcast, including FarScape, Eureka, Warehouse 13, BSG, and the three Stargates. It definitely brought me back and got me thinking about how much it was really a very different network back in the day, before the unholy rise of reality TV basically cut the supports out from scripted programming (there were also far fewer ‘original movies’ ((or as I like to call them, ‘tripe’)) back then too.)

While I never really watched many of the old programs like The Chronicle, The Invisible Man or First Wave (I think I actually only started watching FarScape in the late 2nd or early 3rd season) it was always my go-to station (along with the History Channel) for good TV. I remember how psyched I was when I found out that we would be getting it (we got a new cable provider in our region in the mid-90’s and they greatly expanded our channel selection) and I loved it…not just because of the original programming, but because their whole daytime schedule included massive block reruns of syndicated sci-fi shows. I could watch old episodes of Babylon 5, Space: Above and Beyond, Highlander, and Star Trek if I felt like it; nowadays, they just don’t do that anymore. (We need the sci-fi equivalent of TV Land, dammit!)

While some of the newer shows, like Being Human, Eureka and Warehouse 13, have carried on the tradition of those earlier shows to an extent, they’re still not as numerous as the other felgercarb that fills the rest of the airtime (and of course Sanctuary, Eureka and SGU are now gone, and who knows how much longer WH13 will survive the Universal chopping block?)

All in all, it was a very entertaining, nostalgic, and well-done special, with all of the familiar stars putting their 2 cents in; personally, I just wish that we could get a chance to see some more good military sci-fi and space opera like we had ‘in the old days’. Given the popularity of games like EVE and novels like the Honor Harrington series, there’s got to be somebody out there with a good idea of that nature for TV…but that’s just my opinion.

#2

I didn’t see the whole thing yet…but I did laugh and laugh HARD at how they KNOW those Saturday Night movies are just CRAP…and crap so bad it becomes funny and all the interview people would laugh along at how awful they were…made me feel better about a few of those movies now :smiley:

(though the D&D movie a few weeks ago…geeeesssshhhh)

Looking forward to seeing the rest on my DVR soon!

#3

I know people who it’s the highlight of their tv-watching week to watch those movies on syfy. I like b movies but I can’t handle most of them :slight_smile:

#4

It’s like my group of friends when we sit at the bar and make sure we put the worst possible football game on and watch it and are entertained by the comedy of errors on the field…we lovingly call it anti-football, this is like anti-movies…I can see the appeal with a group of people and some beverages :slight_smile:

#5

I’ve got about 20-30 minutes left but felt that it was odd that they didn’t mention the newer failed shows like Flash Gordon, The Dresden Files, pr Painkiller Jane. Also maybe I just didn’t get there yet but Sanctuary was noticeably missing.

I also missed seeing Richard Dean Anderson, Joe Flanigan, David Hewlett and Edward James Olmos.

And of course no mention of current successful shows also run/ran on the channel like Doctor Who or Lost Girl.

~Shooter Out

#6

I think I am a little too young to remember the real early days of the SciFi channel, but to me it has always been a little disappointing. The first thing I really watched on SciFi was when they were showing the original Star Trek with some deleted scenes thrown in and interviews with the cast. That was pretty fun, a few years later I was glued to it when they started showing Babylon 5 (A story this big can only be shown in WIDESCREEN! the promo went). I was always annoyed how they would just show one show all day long rather than spread it out and maybe show a few episodes at the same time each day. I’m sure some people loved that, I just found it annoying. I remember the awesome Dune miniseries, and the crushing disappointment when the Babylon 5 TV movie Legend of the Rangers was not picked up as a series. The Biggest Night of Sci-Fi ever was great fun, when they showed SG1, Atlantis and BSG all in a row on Fridays. But then SG1 was canned without a proper ending. Atlantis was canned without a proper ending. Caprica and Stargate Universe were amazing shows, but ultimately never connected with an audience for reasons I could not fathom. It would been tough to win me back after cancelling those two, but not impossible. But now, after what happened with Blood and Chrome, that might be it for me and Sci-Fi. What happened to the great Mini-series they did like Dune, Dune Messiah, Alice, Tin Man? I’m sure Warehouse 13 and Haven are good shows, but what happened to the real space adventures? They can show whatever wrestling or reality TV shows they want, I just wont watch it. But there has to be something to bring me in, and right now there is nothing.

That came out more longer and more rant then I would have liked, but oh well, lol.

#7

I’ve got about 20-30 minutes left but felt that it was odd that they didn’t mention the newer failed shows like Flash Gordon, The Dresden Files, pr Painkiller Jane. Also maybe I just didn’t get there yet but Sanctuary was noticeably missing.

I also missed seeing Richard Dean Anderson, Joe Flanigan, David Hewlett and Edward James Olmos.

And of course no mention of current successful shows also run/ran on the channel like Doctor Who or Lost Girl.

~Shooter Out