What's with all the Syfy hate, guys?

[The Jovian]

And by "guys" I mean people on the internet in general. Almost not a day passes without me hearing someone saying that Syfy sucks, that all of its upcoming sci-fi shows will be bad or that Syfy ruins everything it touches, just blanket statements that don't really reflect on reality.

Have we forgotten that Syfy (back when it wasn't called something stupid) used to be awesome? I mean a decade ago Sci Fi gave us the Stargate 'verse, Battlestar Galactica, Farscape, The 4400, The two Dune miniseries, The Sci Fi 'verse (Eureka, Alphas and Warehouse 13). Did we forget how awesome those shows were?

But apparently we lead one too many Sharknados and Mansquitos to let us forget that when Syfy gives a damn about sci-fi, then Syfy is unmatched when it comes to sci-fi. I mean Battlestar Galactica, it's visual effects are so good they put several theatrically released films to shame (same can be said for the latter-era Stargate shows).

Basically what I'm saying is that we've let our disappointment with how low-brow the network has become affect our perspective of things. Sure they seem too focused on reality shows and wrestling now but if you look at the amount of sci-fi shows they have in development its kinda hard not to believe that they are going back to their roots (even if they're doing so at a snail's pace).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programs_broadcast_by_Syfy#Upcoming_programs

I mean they're adapting critically acclaimed sci-fi books and graphic novels, remaking Blake's 7 and are making a Superman prequel show set on Krypton, whether or not these shows will be good is still in the air but what matters is that Syfy is trying again, and when Syfy is trying, great things will follow.

It's as if the Network has a split personality with its good ego being the personification of the best sci-fi geek ever and its bad ego being the personification of America's anti-intelectualism, from its inception to 2008 the good ego was mostly in charge and sure Sci Fi had stupid reality shows and wrestling but they didn't feel like they were the main event as the network did everything in its power to bring as many canceled sci-fi shows under its umbrella (that's how we got five more seasons of Stargate SG-1 and most of the Stargate 'verse) but from 2008 to 2013 the bad ego took over completely and canceled most of the sci-fi shows one by one.

Now I feel like the good ego has assumed command of the network once again and with it in-charge I do believe that Syfy will give us good shows again. 12 Monkeys is a good show and given how awesome the Dune miniseries were, I have high hopes for their adaptations of The Expanse, Hyperion, Childhood's End, The Magicians, etc.

Please guys, give Syfy a chance to prove you wrong before you write them off as The Asylum's fraternal twin brother.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Have we forgotten that Syfy (back when it wasn't called something stupid) used to be awesome? .

It would appear you've answered your own question. 'Used' to be good.

Since its glory days, SyFy has done everything it could conceivably do to torch any good will anyone could possibly have for it. Maybe, MAYBE something upcoming from the channel will be good. But after years of shit, do you really expect people to give them the benefit of the doubt?

 

[Dalisclock]

I remember when the SciFi Channel started decades ago and I thought it was awesome. Classic Sci-fi movies, anime, interesting shows, etc.

Somewhere along the line, it just all went to shit. Classic Sci-fi movies were replaced by "SciFi Originals" which were more often then not crappy low budget ripoffs of better movies(and this was before sharknado). Battlestar kept me there for a while but once it was done, I gave up on the channel. I just didn't care anymore and I haven't seen any reason to go back to it. Especially when I can get any good series I want to watch from netflix now and now have to put up with their crap.

EA was once a great game company, but all that goodwill is gone, pissed away by the monkeys running the place who drove it into the ground. SyFy(god that irks me) is much the same.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

The SciFi Channel of the 90's is one of the leading influences in my love for movies, but I've moved on. It used to play tons of classic SciFi action and horror movies. Watching SciFi Channel with my dad introduced me to the Alien series, the Terminator series, the Predator series, The Thing, and a bunch of old 50's classics like Invaders From Mars, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and War of the Worlds. Even when they played campy low-budget stuff, like the Critters movies, it was still stuff of reasonable quality.

It also had Mystery Science Theater 3000, which alone made the channel worth watching.

These days though? Meh. Their "SyFy Originals" are complete trash, I've been unimpressed with nearly all of their TV series (the original Stargate SG-1 series being the exception to the rule), and it seems like half the time I skim past the channel on the OFF chance that they're playing something decent they're playing crap that isn't even SciFi like Wrestling or Law and Order. At least if it were CSI I could get a chuckle because of the absurdity of the technology used in CSI... but Law and Order: SVU? Really? Really?

 

[Something Amyss]

Did we forget how awesome those shows were?

Did you forget that the network's antipathy towards these shows pushed several of them into early graves, dicked around fans, and attempted to push out programming just like this for those reality TV shows and wrestling? Hell, even going back as far as Sliders, they turned it from great speculative SyFy to "movie of the week with Kromags."

So here's the thing. I've got SG-1 and Atlantis and eureka and Sliders on DVD. One day I will have the full Eureka. That I dont'have is a reason to currently care about the SyFy channel. They have upcoming SyFy shows? Fine. Get back to me if they turn out to be good.

Otherwise? I have no reason to have faith in them.

 

[FalloutJack]

Well, that went fast.

Yeah, the basic thing is that things went downhill. Even out of appreciation for making fun of bad movies, the quality of everything got really fricking bad. So, when The Channel That Forgot How To Spell got bad enough, a bunch of people like myself left it and never looked back. They're still shit and I don't think that'll stop anytime soon.

 

[Silence]

What the fuck is SyFy?

I still like Sci-Fi, although it always had a problem with quality.

 

[Ricardo Lima]

Scyfy channel lives off reruns mostly and cheap mostly unispired work. Defience is very so so ieven if it has some good cast menbers.

The truth is thats theres less original " big primetime Scifi shows" who where never that many if we look back.The venerable DrWho is the best written that keeps ongoing and I hope never ends. I liked 1 The 100 I heard good things on OrphanBlack but havent checked.

There are others: Walking Dead, Flash, Agents of Shield even if some can argue its not "proper" scifi they touch a lot of fantastic themes. In the end end of the day Scifi is fantasy fiction.

 

[Zontar]

Why? Because they killed the Stargate franchise when it still had plenty of steam left in it (hell the latest spinoff at the time had managed to get past the "season 1 woes" all science fiction goes through)

These days though? Meh. Their "SyFy Originals" are complete trash, I've been unimpressed with nearly all of their TV series (the original Stargate SG-1 series being the exception to the rule)

SG1 wasn't even a Sci-Fi original, its first five seasons where on Showtime, and they grabbed it after it was cancelled, and even then it was intended for reruns since season 7, 8 and 9 where all intended to be the last one, but rating forced them to wait until season 10 to finally axe it.

Which is odd since they elected to make Atlantis (which had originally been intended as a sequel series after a movie, either made-for-tv or theatrical, tied up SG1 with the discovery of an on-Earth Atlantis) and run it for 5 years, just long enough for it to enter syndication but not long enough for it to wrap up the plot since literally 6 episodes before it ended the new secondary antagonists where introduced who would likely have become the mains for season 6.

And don't even get me started on the bullshit they pulled with Universe. It was just like what Fox did with the Sarah Conner Chronicles, pulled it right when it got good and left it on a cliff hanger, made worst by the fact they'd explicitly stated the show would get 3 seasons, but I guess that WWE bull was more important. I wish US broadcasters had the same regulations we have here in Canada, because Space (Sci-Fi's equivalent) would loose its broadcasting rights if it pulled that shit. (here broadcasters who are specialized are legally required to stick to it, which is why in the late 00's we had the afternoon have all 5 Treks and both Stargates from that time having reruns: there wasn't enough new science fiction being made down south)

 

[RJ 17]

Eh, I stopped caring about that channel when Mystery Science Theater 3000 stopped playing.

Now all the shark-infested tornadoes in the world couldn't get me to give a damn about that channel any more.

 

[Zontar]

There are others: Walking Dead, Flash, Agents of Shield even if some can argue its not "proper" scifi they touch a lot of fantastic themes. In the end end of the day Scifi is fantasy fiction.

To be honest, I have a feeling these shows will be added to their roster once they get into syndication, which for the Walking Dead will be once the inevitable season 7 finishes, either season 4 or 5 of Shield depending on weather Sci-fi uses the 88 or 100 rule (and given how season 3 is happening, it's unlikely Disney won't make the show reach syndication at this point) and same applies for Flash (though arrow, which is getting its 4th season, should be viewed as the canary in the mine on this one in terms of Sci-Fi picking them us, since it's virtually guaranteed to enter syndication)

 

[Xeorm]

The Sci-Fi channel had its moments of greatness, for sure. But the Syfy channel is pure crap. A channel devoted to killing off the good shows it has in an effort to continue the self-hatred the channel has. Truly depressing. Let me know when they start producing good stuff to watch, as I have no interest in watching a once good channel continue to bleed out from its own self-inflicted cuts.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Hey, I love Sharknado. It is quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever seen, but I love it.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

The name for one. "Sy-fy?" What brain trust thought that was a good idea? Then there's the schedule: I think people miss shows like Star Trek and Mystery Science Theater 3000. Now all we have is stuff like lame movies and wrestling (not that I dislike wrestling or anything, but it's weird to see wrestling on a channel for science fiction...) I do like Face Off, though, practical effects need more love.

 

[Laughing Man]

Lol, you gotta give to Kojima, he's doing everything he can to provide for his no-game fanbois.

No it didn't, Show Time gave us Stargate and Syfy picked it up at the end of the 5th Seasons run, they are also the company that decided to rail road Atlantis in to the ground rushing the final season but promising that we would get a DVD closer movie, which we never got. They decided to rail road Atlantis in favour of the edgy more adult SG Universe under the guise that it wanted to refresh the franchise, but really they wanted a cheaper to produce show based within the SG verse, not only did it fail to draw in more viewers it also failed by being more expensive to produce per episode than Atlantis.

The tonal change brought by Universe and the fact that we never got the promised close to Atlantis not only alienated the long term fans of Stargate but the shift to the grittier more adult Stargate Battlestar failed to win the new fan base that they wanted and the result was that one of the most successful and longest running franchises (outside Star Trek) went out with a never to be resolved whimper and better yet it seems they may have sold the rights back to the moanie face douche nozzles who complained extensively throughout Stargates TV success saying that it wasn't the vision they had for the franchise, well fuck you, you had so little faith in the franchise after the first movie that you sold it lock and stock to Warner Brothers but fuck at least they will now get the chance to revist 'their vision' and utterly ignore the 17 seasons worth of Universe and character building... so yeah the hatred for Syfy is fucking deserved as far as I am concerned.

Oh and Sharknado sucks the donkey balls, it's pathetic at just how proud this channel seems to be about this utter mess of flying dogshit this movie franchise is.

 

[GhostFox]

Just for those who haven't been paying attention, SyFy really does seem to be making an effort to get back to putting on decent sci-fi shows. I was dubious when I heard they were making a series out of Twelve Monkeys, but as it turns out, it's really quite good -- smart writing and a more than adequate cast. The two series they premiered this summer, Dark Matter and Killjoys, are good 'ol space/future action/adventure shows, and they're also good and interesting and fun (and both have been picked up for a second season). What I've seen of promo stuff for The Expanse looks very promising.

As for the name? I'm not thrilled with 'SyFy', but I don't hate it, either. And (at least from what I've read) the change was driven by a need to have a name that could be trademarked and/or copyrighted, which the generic term 'Sci-Fi' could not be.

But they could be called 'Fred' for all I care, so long as they put on shows I like.

 

[tacotrainwreck]

Back in the day, the Sci-Fi Channel introduced me to Farscape, Lexx (AMAZING SERIES), and Sliders. Much, much later, 'SyFy' introduced me to a surprisingly large sense of disdain when something I love tries to re-brand itself into something more hip. Even though it's just a tiny gesture on the outside, it told me that I was no longer their target audience, and its shows demonstrated it.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

If I recall correctly, back in my high school days, SciFi was the only channel that carried anime. I saw my first tastes of eastern animation by way of Robot Carnival, which to this day baffles the ever shit out of me when I try to make sense of it and a few others I didn't absorb enough to recall. But because of those early showings on American TV, I went to the video store and rented the hell out of everything they had, Akira, Project Ako, Tenchi Muyo and so on. There was a lot of interesting stuff on the old programming, but I'll never forget that that era of SciFi was what started me on anime.
Ever since then, well... I'm not against campy movies but SyFy is mostly devoted to that genre and a shell of what it used to be.

 

[Loonyyy]

Because almost everything you could like about them they directly contributed to the ruin of. The shows you list got fucked by the network.

They can try again, but they've already lost a lot of people who liked them at all, because of the way that they treated these things.

And a lot of their big franchises, the reasons people like them, are now ended, often because of them. Stargate fans aren't SyFy fans, because they fucked up the ending to Atlantis, the movie bailed, and what people got instead was Universe, which was nothing like the others, and basically killed the chances of seeing more Atlantis, or even maybe something new from SG-1. And they say that if people want more Atlantis etc, they need to watch Universe, otherwise they can't fund it. Fuck that.

Eureka/Warehouse 13/Alphas. All ended. Alphas just when it was taking off, Eureka had a big fanbase, and SyFy (And Comcast) cancelled it.

And then they start fostering all these Asylum films and other crap. That's why people dislike them.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I miss Saturday Anime, and Sci-fi Santa.
Syfy is still cool. People complain it carries wrestling, but hell, look at Kane, and the Undertaker. A demon, and a dead man walking the earth! Okay, it's not that great of an example, but still.

Could it do better? I'd say yeah. BBCA seems more syfy some times. Syfy could run Star trek ToS, TNG, DS9, and voyager. Could run Stargate, too.
Seems like they're aiming more for an indie-ish look.

You know, it could be worse, people. they cold be spending most of their time airing Cops. You know, like another geek-centric station that got off the rails, and renamed.